Am i still autistic?

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I diagnosed at early years with ASD and at age 3. But now i think i have no autistic symptoms. I had some tests on Internet, and according to the results, i am likely normal.

It is confusing me that despite having ASD in my childhood, i am normal. In fact my parents, friends, people also think that i am normal. Several months ago, i went to a psychiatrist and explained this situation. She said that i don't have any form of ASD.

I don't think anyone on here is qualified enough to tell you whether or not you are autistic. If your psychologist told you that you aren't, and the online tests (for whatever they are worth) tell you that you aren't, then perhaps that is evidence in itself that you aren't. If you believe in yourself, and feel within yourself, that you are fine; they maybe you are! Go on and have a happy life, free from autism.

So why were you diagnosed as autistic? And who diagnosed you?

My little brother is autistic (he's 29 now) and my two year old son is neurotypical. My brother did a lot of the things my son does now, which could be understood as being autistic- such as toe walking, waving hands around (flapping), making up words or talking in a funny voice. I've noticed that even though my son loves to look at people's faces (and charm them) he will avoid a person's face if he's uncomfortable around them. When you're little, it's really a toss up how you'll act on any given day. The doctor might have simply seen a handful of behaviors and misunderstood them.

When i was in 7-8 months, i had started telling some words but suddenly i didn't say any word until 3 and i was in my own world. I started speaking at 5 years old, but i had difficulties with nonverbal communication (such as eye contact), express my demands, had speech disorder. At school (public school), my marks were great but i had a limited social life. In first years, i also had a resist of some changes. For example, one day, my mom had forgotten to put a fork in my food bag, i realised it at school and i had a anger meltdown.

Its OK to change how you identify over time. This is YOU we are talking about. Its your choice to identify as autistic or not autistic. Right now, every thing is good, I take it from your writing. But I see that you are 19 and you are going to be making some huge life changes, if you are like most 19 year olds.

When I graduated high school, I was "declassified" too. That means that I no longer carried a diagnosis. But about 1/2 way through collage, I realized that I wasn't going to make it without help. I needed more time on my tests and I needed a note taker, so I went back to the doctors and took on my diagnosis again. In graduate school, I went to this little hippy school where I really didn't need help. I was having personal problems with friends and women, but I didn't really attribute this to any kind of neurological problem. I thought I was just young. I stopped identifying as having a disability. Then, as I got older, those personal problems became more important. I needed language to describe what was going on with me. So back to the doctor I went, and I got my aspergers diagnosis.

I didn't change over time. The label changed. It was a matter of what worked for me, and my parents and teachers, at the time. All these labels are just social constructs anyways. They don't mean anything except what we take them to mean.

So keep an eye on yourself. If you find yourself not able to adapt to the changes you are trying to make, you might find that the label Autistic gets you the help you need. But if that doesn't happen, Autistic can just be a story you tell about your childhood. It really is all good.

Good luck with everything!

You could also look into something called the Broader Autism Phenotype (BAP) where some people have some autistic traits, but not enough to qualify as autism spectrum. If you still have just a couple autism-like traits this could very well be what's going on.

Or, I wonder if something traumatic happened to you when you were a child. And when I say "traumatic" it doesn't have to be that your mom hit you with a spoon or something of that nature. Maybe you saw a bug eat another bug and you were a little too young for your mind to accept that that happens. Or maybe you saw a stranger in public look at you in a threatening manner and this made you not want to look at faces for awhile.

Another possibility is that you were one of these early-reading and/or late-talking kids who grow out of ASD-like traits (but were always missing a couple of classic ones if looked at closely): http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/gue ... peak-late/

I think I was one of these kids, though I got no label other than ADHD because mild autism was not big in the popular consciousness until the late 90s or so, at which point I'd grown out of way too much to be diagnosable with any ASD.

I also score highly NT on the aspie-quiz, by the way, in spite of having had a lot of struggles with social and emotional skills in childhood.

I don't know if something trauma happenned to me but when i was 4 months old, my mom was ill so she couldn't look after me well and i weaned. Also i watch tv very much.