differing opinions about AS

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Hi,

Anyone get differing opinions about an AS diagnosis?

My son exhibits a lot of the traits, two psychologists say it is AS. We took him to Children's Hospital in Cincinnati and the specialist there said no. Also, his speech therapist said no.

They say no because he tested very well on speech and language tests. They think he lacks the degree of communication problems that AS has. They also say that he shows too much interest in social relationships.

I just think that there is too much that does fit to rule it out. At this point it doesn't really matter one way or another to me if we end up with a diagnosis or not, but I would be interested in if others have had this confusion.

And has anyone taken these speech and language tests to diagnos. Can you be just a little AS, but not enough to Diagnos?

My speech and language have always been excellent and I don't see this as an adequate reason against diagnosis. I consider the sensory issues and obsessions to be more indicative of AS than the social problems as many can learn to compensate for these issues. I was only diagnosed as an adult because I learned to imitate a lot of "normal" behaviour to avoid the attention I didn't want. I'm not sure what the case is with your son and I am not a professional. You don't specify what traits your son has, perhaps this information would give people a better idea of your situation.

Autism is a very broad spectrum, and no two people will have identical symptoms. And it's harder to diagnose in younger children. And some professionals are just afraid to label a young child (or anyone) because they don't want the person stigmatized. PDD-NOS is what they call people that have autistic issues, but just not enough to meet diagnostic criteria.

Why does it not matter one way or another if your child is diagnosed? With a proper diagnosis, he will have access to proper therapies and special accomodations at school.

Yes

There isn't a sharp line somewhere dividing "complete Aspies" from "complete non-Aspies". For diagnostic purposes such lines are drawn, but not every diagnostician draws the same (imaginary) line. I would put the most faith in a psychologist who specializes in AS and hence has the most experience recognizing the associated traits. That is certainly not the speech therapist, but might be any of the other three you mention.

Interest in social relationships is not counter-indicative of AS. Having no serious difficulty with social relationships would be counter-indicative. Many Aspies want to "fit in", make friends etc., but don't know how to make that happen.

Does your son have any problems that an AS diagnosis would help alleviate or solve?

DD had her first evaluation by the UC Davis MIND institute at age 8. Her diagnosis was high-functioning autism. She just recently had another evaluation at age 10, done by our regional center and they said she is not verbal enough for an Asperger's diagnosis and not exhibiting enough autistic traits for an autism diagnosis. PDD-NOS was the Diagnosis. I believe her to be HFA as does DH, but the medications that she is on have helped immensely with some of the autistic traits. I think if she were not on the meds, she'd have gotten an HFA diagnosis for sure.

RIDICULOUS! AS people can be eloquent! Even Asperger said as much, even if he, at times, said they didn't REALLY know what they were talking about. And MANY here, myself included, CLEARLY would prefer to be better socially.

My daughter (8 years old on the 21st August) is highly verbal and has an extensive vocabulary.
She can sounds quite pedantic, stilted or even 'old' in her speech sometimes too.
Having said that, she has also been known to become non-verbal in times of extreme stress (meltdowns etc).

My daughter is also VERY sociable and interested in people around her.
As hard as she tries though, her friendships are always tentative and strained because of her lack of reciprocity, empathy, and the fact that she has very little control over her emotions which has seen a few children injured because she can be agressive and violent (medicated for it now though).

She also has a lot of other traits that are indicative (and enough) for her to get an AS diagnosis.
As someone else has said, autism is a spectrum disorder and no two of us are the same.

My daughter and I are complete opposites, and both of us have been clinically diagnosed with Asperger's. But, we are both highly verbal and and interested in social relationships (although my interest is a lot less than Hannah's)

I was like that too growing up. I wanted to have friends and talk to kids but too many obstacles were in my way. A lot of it was because, to the other kids, I was stubborn and spoiled, wanted my own way all the time, overreacted.



I didn't hit people but I did have problems with my emotions and was terrible at handling stress.

It depends on what you mean by speech and language tests.

If speech in the way of modulating and reciprocating social interaction; people with AS suck just as much as those with Autism in that way (Autism usually ignores, but people with AS can too; AS usually just go on and on about one thing, like echolalia really, but in a way that recites factual knowledge). AS have problems with social reciprocation [no matter how old they are], and problems with understanding the meaning of social communication.

If speech in the ability to verbally express his desires in a mechanical way and understand what you say; people with AS don't have problems with this.

O, and I've had differing opinions from professionals, but it's been either AS or Autism--which probably means I'm a well adapted person with Autism [even though I'm not much different than Rain Man, but he's "high-functioning" too], or someone with "severe" AS.

This is exactly how people perceive my daughter (and even me sometimes!). Stubborn, spoiled, over-emotional...basically a brat!
I think it's sad that so many aspie/autie kids are seen in such a light, but without any outward signs of disability it is hard to get people to view her in any other light.

I think that the AS diagnosis is more important in helping him understand why he is having difficulities. If it is AS we can say, these are some of the things that you can be aware of. If it is not AS, it seems wrong for his counselor to keep comparing him to guys with AS.

When I read these boards, much of it sounds like AS.

- He does have social difficulties. When he was younger it seemed like he just did the wrong things, Now it is more like a social anxiety and he is too unable to relax and join in unless it is in comfortable situations. He seems awkward and uncomfortable.

- He has behaviors that maybe are stimming. They only happen occasionally. When he was younger, they were more often, he made lots of noises, or rolled around on the floor. Older it just seems like he gets more movement and does a few motions that seem "geeky" for a lack of better description. This is probably the most problematic socially. I read on this site a post of what do you do when you are excited. The answers sound sort of like him.

- He sometimes paces and "thinks" inventing things in his mind. When he was younger, he did go on and on about these. Now he may mention his ideas, but he seems to know when the listener is done.

- He has sensory issues, although they are much better than when younger. Nosies still bother him at times.

-He has problems with writing. He processes slower and has some school difficulties. He is very smart, but can't seem to keep up. He is described as daydreaming and not on task at school.

Another psychiatrist says it is Schizoaffective, but that seems even farther off. I guess we are done with the diagnosing and will just try to help him best we can. It is just frustrating being told 5 different things.

Why do the say it is not AS? They say he does not miss anything being said around him. He is persceptive socially, but just doesn't apply it. They feel his social reciprocation is good. I would qualify that and say mostly so.

Speech therapists and GPs are not qualified to give diagnosis. Ye gods I hate that term.
I have good linguistic abilities - hell, I write books - and, when younger, I had an interest in developing social relationships.
Many Asperger children do. Read Tony Attwood's books.
They obviously have the "Aspergers is a disease, and must fit all the 'symptoms' of the disease" mentality.
But, unlike House drawing symptoms on a whiteboard, there is actually variation between Autistic people.
We aren't a disease - when will people learn...?
It's simple: There is as much variation between Asperger people as there is between NT people.

That's the stupidest thing that I've ever heard! Our communication problems tend toward the understanding of non verbal communication and sometimes in the way we interpret those subtle things about language: tone, inflection, etc.

The only thing that I can guess is that they are confused because on the whole (and this is my personal experience of working with children on the spectrum) is that boys do tend to have more verbal speech issues than girls. So, when boys have good language, I think it confuses the so called "experts". Have you thought about taking him over to Indiana University in Bloomington? They have some of the top autism experts in the country there.

That's why we are Asperger's too, by the way, and not HFA or Kanner's classic. Some of us do seek social relationships and we seek to understand how to function within social relationships as well.

My son had similar issues. He started out with a lot of ASD things when he was little and they labeled him PDD (he had communication and there wasn't really any AS diagnosis back then). They also said Sensory Integration Disorder. So, as he got older and learned to cope, that diagnosis kind of fell to the background. When he hit puberty, though, my son just kind of wigged out with sensory stuff again. So, then we started going after an AS diagnosis. I was told at one time that I may have made him too high functioning for that dx. Eventually, though, after seeing him majorly meltdown, he got the dx.

The only time the dx makes a difference is when you need services for them and the school doesn't like to give ASD services to kids who don't have the ASD dx. It's pretty simple. It's an educational dx that could be helpful. Now, if his current dx covers the ASD stuff and you're satisfied with that, then I wouldn't worry about it.

You brought up another valid point, too, though. It is important to some extent for your son to know that the dx lies on the spectrum. Understanding why you have difficulties can sometimes be integral to dealing with those difficulties. So self identity could be very important later on.

Cinci Children's Hospital does not exactly have the best doctors in the world, to put it as tactfully as I can.


Then they don't know what AS is. Marked speech deficiencies would in fact disqualify one from an AS diagnosis rather than support it.


Given this and the prior objection, it would seem that they are having difficulty understanding the difference between AS and classic LFA.


"Active but odd" is a common form of (attempted) social interaction among Aspies. The question to determine whether someone is AS isn't how interested they are in social relationships, but whether their approach to such situations is normal.

I've never seen that show, but if it tries to show that there's no variation even within actual diseases, it's being medically inaccurate. Heck, two people can have the same basic gene mutation and have two extremely varying expressions of it. And even diseases like diabetes, epilepsy, migraine, and asthma have several types, triggers, and severities, and can show up differently on diagnostic tests even within the same category. (Of course, I have heard the show did show one sort of urban legend about seizures that isn't actually true, about sticking things in people's mouths. Have a friend who has tonic-clonic seizures and wrote the show about it because it can endanger the person to do that to them.)