Unsure about my childhood Asperger’s diagnosis.

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Hey, everyone. I’m going to abridge this story to the best of my ability.

I was about 5 years old when my school district diagnosed me with Asperger’s syndrome. This wasn’t a diagnosis given by one person, but an evaluation team of 10 professionals.

I vividly recall being taken out of my classes and doing a [i]lot[i] of testing with the staff. I remember being kind of a quiet kid. I would still sit with the other kids at lunch, but I wouldn’t say anything. Not because I wasn’t interested in others, but because I didn’t even know what to say to others. I would think to myself in sentences.

“I want to talk to these people. What should I say to them?”

Long story short, after the evaluation was completed the district came to the conclusion that I did not belong in special ed. My mother was called in for a conference and they handed her the report. I was diagnosed with Asperger’s and ADHD.

So uh… what are the chances that this evaluation team misdiagnosed me with Asperger’s? Can Asperger’s still be diagnosed at any age?

Since 2013 the U.S. has used DSM-5 which no longer identifies "Asperger's Syndrome" as a diagnosis. It was rolled under "Autism Spectrum Disorder" so that would have to be the diagnosis now—for someone who met the criteria.

So, moving to "Can Asperger’s Autism still be diagnosed at any age?"...I was 64 when it was determined that I met the criteria for a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder, Level 1 (Mild). I think some people on WP were even older than that when they were diagnosed.

Everybody has a right to seek a second opinion.

yes it can be diagnosed from age 2 or 3 to as old as you can get. I got diagnosis at 68 and finally everything made sense to me. What a relief! Are you thinking you want to try for another diagnosis as an adult, or do you think you might not be autistic after all these years of believing you are?

These online quizzes can't diagnose you, but could strengthen (or weaken) your opinion on whether you qualify for the diagnosis.

<=>- Autism-Spectrum Quotient Test
<=>- Aspie Quiz ^{Registering is optional!}

It was the the first of them that convinced me it would be reasonable for me to be assessed.

I was diagnosed at the age of six.

Which means any impact that aspergers by itself on my social functioning is secondhand information that is out of date by decades, because they started monkeying with my education after that. Hard to make friends when you're sent to special education that takes an hour each way to get to. Then when puberty hit, my brain went haywire (it does not like testosterone at all -- my stress levels went down massively once I blocked it). Add to that various trauma I still haven't worked through... I have no idea if I even have any social deficits from aspergers. Definitely an aspie though, the monotropic theory fits me way too well to not be one.