Not born with asperger's?

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Yeah, I went to see a new specialized psychiatrist, he is an expert on aspies. He was asking my parents a lot of questions, and I noticed from their responses I did not show many aspie traits as a young child at all. I used to be somewhat social, did not have little obessions, ect. But now, I am most definately an aspie, I fit in here far better than anywhere else, I have plenty of the symptoms, and I can fit myself to any Asperger's discription I find. I look back, and realize I have been steadily becoming more aspie for years, starting in 3rd or 4th grade (in 9th grade atm). I am wondering, is it possible for Asperger's to not develop until later on in life, or at least not become obvious?

I've not heard specifically of late onset. However I have seen quite common descriptions by people that have very little sensory difficulties finding out about their aspieness later on.

I.e. as the social scene becomes more and more complex as an AS child grows up they become more and more unable to interact with peers. Perhaps that is why you "appeared normal" as a younger child.

Of course, this is only personal musings and hypothesis that I've thought about. I COULD be completely off base.

If you had inexperienced parents it could also be a case of the fact that they saw no difference in you because they had very little to judge and comparison it with. I.E.... I didn't KNOW kids weren't supposed to line up toys so they take absolutely no notice of it... and now some 13/14 years later they don't even remember that you did it.... etc...

It's usually evident in the first few years of life, albeit not as marked as classic autism, i.e., the child with Asperger's will usually be affectionate to family members, and talk to them "normally" (with the usual one tracked conversation), but will be unable to interact with peers, or will have severe trouble in interacting with peers in the least. This is why it's hard to "pick up" (the child appears fine to the family). With the advent of childcare centres on every street (see: germ incubators), Asperger's is being picked up far more nowadays.

It should be just as bad in preschool as high school, other than the added difficulties that the teenage years will bring to the individual with Asperger's.

I remember doing aspie things such as correcting people who I thought were factually wrong as young as 3.

I learnt to read aged 2 and a half, and by aged 5 I started to notice my peers sometimes behaved in ways I didnt understand. By 8 I found them incredibly confusing.

From what I have read so far, AS is not as obvious in young children because verbal development is not impaired...it may be advanced. Physical development may not be obviously delayed, although some things like tying shoelaces, and throwing and catching balls may be. Running may be a little bit "off." Depends on the child.

It seems that when kids are put in school and face the social demands of the system, that AS symptoms seem more obvious.

So what does that say about the system? Maybe I shouldn't ask that one???

Also, adding to what was said already, non-autistic children progress too. Children start out with no social skills and have to learn them as well. If you put 2-year-olds, autistic and non-autistic, into a pen and if you exclude all other autistic behaviour, the children will seem to have the same grade of ability to interact meaningfully or at all with their peers. None.

When the demand of social skills becomes more intense and when children develop more complicated social constructs, especially in upper grades, anyone with below average social skills will more likely display this lack of ability to participate in the social ongoings of the other children.

Also, something entirely different can bring forward or hide autistic symptoms too. An aspie in a naturally highly routined household and school class doesn't show as obvious routines as an aspie in a completely unstructured environment.

The last factor I can think of: memory (of the parents) may not be accurate and they may have dismissed behaviour they found to be acceptable and without importance if a bit strange and thus cannot remember every detail.

The worlds not so tough when your little. Everyone is nice to you and its hard to do anything wrong. I think that any autistic trait will become worse or amplified during times where you experience stress which should be less for kids.

I have always been inquisitive wanting to learn about things then get bored of it and learn something else. So maybe for some time when I was little I was more interested in people but got bored of them.

think autism and asp is a brain related disorder and brains are grown when you are born they dont appear suddenly when you grow up. At the age of 25 you loose a fraction of your braincells and goes backword after that and that is called normal

I could interact proficiently through the 2 to 3rd grade then I lost friends in a heartbeat

im doing research on autism.... i work with synapses that are invovled with sensory processing and various modes of higher associative learning. the disregulation of these synapses are thought to be involved with autism. the thing is, these synapses start coming online as your brain matures (meaning, when you're young, you cannt think like an adult and perform well at these sensory information integrating and higher associative learning methods, but once these synapses mature, you can) and your brain doesnt mature all it once... it kinda starts with the structures in the back and moves forward. these synapses are in all brain structures and if their maturation goes wrong in any one of these structures (the farther forward the structure it is messed up in, the older you are before you start showing signes that something is not working "on schedule") we think it could result in autistic flavors (if you will)...

anyway, these synapses start maturing right around three and finish around 5 (for the brain structure i study that is involved in autism, but there are otehr brain structures.... including some very "forward" structures, meaning that symptoms of their dyregulation would occur later than 5 yrs of age)... give or take for individuals. but keep in mind that your brain doesnt stop maturing well until your 20s.... so it's really hard to say what the ramification of dyregulation of these synapses or anything else, really, is on your brain, and thus your behavior. we don't really know enough about things that vary in degree.

Parents have questionable memory. I've brought up autistic traits in my own childhood and my mom acts like she's never heard of it every time. My son is autistic and she doesn't see the traits in him. So, yeah, she's going to say that I was perfectly normal growing up. Despite the fact that I was severely bullied, terrible in sports and I run "funny", said weird things and had a eating disorder.
Like my son, I ate normally until a certain age and then once I could "smell" my food, I had a serious problem eating. For me it was 5. My son was 3-ish. He had problems before but by 3, he stopped eating meat and vegetables.

My Aspie traits didn't really become apparent (this is me looking back) until I was 7 (2nd grade). This is the same age that my son realized he was different from his peers. Doesn't have to do with age of onset, but how you compare yourself with your peers. Or how your peers act around you.

AS usually causes symptoms by age 3 so you may want to look at other possibilities that can cause your symptoms. I noticed you are in NY. Lyme disease is a problem there and can cause similar symptoms. You might want to ask about it and get tested if you have symptoms of it.

Here's a pdf that lists Lyme symptoms if you want to check to see whether you have them:
http://www.ilads.org/PsychiatristBrochure.pdf

It's from the International Lyme And Associated Diseases Society at http://www.ilads.org/

Riddick,

What you describe is more typical of NLD (Nonverbal Learning Disability) which is a kissin' sister of Asperger.

Did he test your verbal IQ and compare it with your performance IQ?

If your verbal IQ is 20 to 30 points higher than your performance IQ and you were not showing childhood symptoms......it's possible you could be dx'd with NLD.

Tigertale Blog Link

As far as I remember, I didnt really have social problems until I hit high school, although I dont remember connecting with anyone at nursery school. It might have helped though that I went to a really really small primary school (basically one other person in my year and she became my best friend) as I have always been able to interact one on one with people. People thought I was clever back then, but not strange. But then I was my parents first child, so they wouldnt have necessarily thought anything was different about me. It seems to me that at different phases of my life I have had different Aspie symptoms, and as one thing gets better another gets worse. This is why I am not sure that I have AS, or if I do I am borderline. It fits my problems better than anything else though.

I believe we are born with it. I think some aspies start to show more signs earlier in life,though,

I went through a lot of crap when I was younger due to some pretty obvious problems that a lot of people saw, but which my parents never noticed at all.

So I really don't think that you should worry about inconsistencies like that.