A spectrum within a diagnosis?

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So I noticed after the other night, we had to do this volunteer thing for the childrens hospital where we took 25 something teens from 12-16ish who were on the spectrum out to eat and holiday shop and couple others who werent on the spectrum but had other issues. All of them seemed to communicate fine, except one boy they said wasn't very verbal, yet talked up a storm. He wouldnt order food verbally, yet he met my bf and me for the first time and wouldnt stop talking, idk if its with people in charge idk. Anyways the rest all seemed like HFA or Aspergers, or I guess HF Pddnos. Now we do events like these all the time, with LFA, MFA, HFA, Aspergers, Pddnos, you name it, so my boyfriend has become an expert with autism, in fact they like flock to him lol, the one less verbal boy was all over him, it was so funny. He lovess autistics, he'll sit and flap with you, line up the toys, tickle you, press his hand against your forehead, one girl would talk literally forever about this one subject and he just smiled and listened, so he actually is asked by the people at the childrens specialized hospital to attend events that are autistic related for this reason.

Well at the end of the whole event my bf asks who were the volunteers and who were the ones with issues, saw two kids in wheelchairs, one cp girl, two others who had visible problems, who were the ones on the spectrum? The two RTs who ran it, along with the psychologist never said where on the spectrum except that they had to be able to communicate and follow directions even if its with a communication board, so basically all we knew was that some could be even moderate or severe if they need a communication board. So I told him me, him, and two other girls were the only volunteers. Hes like um the rest cant be autistic? didn't notice any type of stimming or related autistic behaviors. Now its funny, because I never noticed any stimming either, in fact I was the one who was stimming lol, oh well, but all the kids spoke extremely well, and verbalized what they wanted except that one boy who wouldnt talk to the waitress, but all socialized really great for spectrummers, so he didn't understand how they could be on the spectrum. He said are they all aspergers? I honestly don't have A-DAR as everybody says it here hahaha, but from what I saw, they were all eccentric, either too loud, too soft, the one boy wanted his space and stole sugar packets like crazy haha, seemed confused sometimes with socializing but nothing major, none seemed to have speech problems, they talked all the time about their interests, and my boyfriend kept saying, thats aspergers most defintely. I then realized, it can be, can be not, just knew they were all very high functioning.

I realized you can't just tell if somebody has aspergers, or HFA, or pddnos, or even MFA/LFA because with each diagnosis and each individual theirs a spectrum, does anybody else realize that or agree? a spectrum within a diagnosis?




As for the rest of that night... See i was sittin at the table, i was so proud of myself for even going, i was on IVProfen for my dentist visit earlier that day so alittle drugged but socialized great because i actually gave some good eye contact, but i was grabbing the managers hands to shake lol, the waitress's bracelet to feel it(niiice soft bracelet did that a couple times heheh), smearing my mash potatoes(i was going to make a mash potatoe snowman but that woulda just be weird lol), staring at all the lights(it was at applebees so all the lights were pretty hehe), every now and then ill ask how are u try to seem involved haha. All the teens on the spectrum were chatting up a storm a lot of it was too loud or inappropriate, or just sittin there staring into space, one kid was bumping my bf back and forth haha saying rude comments to the RT and to my bf, but dont think he was intentionally being rude or annoying. Nobody stimmed, maybe some leg shaking, but thats it. I was biting my hand, rubbing my phone(i love my phone lol), eating other ppls foods lol, this one girl was done eating so i ate her salad and drank her chocolate milk lol heck she didnt want it lol. I ended up getting scolded more then the teens lol, every five minutes all I heard was "AGE" hahah and "don't make me pull out the mom voice on you":lol: .

I remember being at the aspie gathering barbecue last summer and lot of them there were talking and socializing and doing eye contact. I was the shy one and didn't say much.


I do talk up a storm too even though I don't give out good answers when people ask me questions. They expect longer ones or something because they have said they get short answers from me while they say lot of things about themselves. Well, what do they want me to say?

My mother told me as a little girl, when we would go to Montana, I would talk and talk and talk for three hours none stop not giving anyone else a turn to talk. If someone spoke up, I would hold out my hand and say, "Wait, I am not done yet." My dad said that wasn't true and my mother exaggerates. So which one is true? I have talked none stop on the way to Spokane when I brought my boyfriend there twice and it's 5 1/2 hours away so it must have been true then what my mother said about me.
I bet it was cute what I did but today, it wouldn't be cute because I'm an adult. It's cute when children say inappropriate things and hog up all the talking or take over the conversations but when teens and adults do it, it's not cute. That's why things get hell for lot of us. People have less patience because they expect us to know better so we gotta learn.

Yeah you can't always tell if someone has it or not. I saw Donna Williams in a video and I couldn't tell she had autism. She had an accent and she moved her hands around but to me that is nothing, it's normal.

Just a thought.. maybe we can't see it because it is normal behavior to you? Maybe a 'normal' person would notice right away?

I've read books on AS and I would wonder in it how is something aspie behavior. To me it seemed normal.

exactly my thought.

Yea maybe, but to my bf its not nessacerily normal, i mean hes as nt as you can get, works with all nts, in a car club with all nts, has tons of friends all nt, im the only autie he sees regularly, so idk.

My intiail thought of this thread was to post that you cant tell a diagnosis by just watching ppl interact, like tell the difference between all the diagnosis's, and even with each diagnosis such as aspergers theres such a big spectrum just in that one little diagnosis.

I've only been 'pegged' once, and that was by some parent with an AS kid. After a couple of minutes she gave me a look that says 'I know'...but, I could be wrong. Kinda doubt it, tho.

This site is about as close as I've come to an actual gathering of Aspies...

Something I learnt today from a psychiatrist that may shed some light on this:

I found out that genuine social interaction means that you approach someone, engage them and keep the conversation going over a few topics (not just one), all with to and fro communication. Seriously, I never thought socialization required that much. Going by that above, I've never socialized in my life, barring two people on the 'net (which still isn't typical social interaction).

I'm betting all of the children there with an ASD couldn't do this above, whether they went on and on, or they only responded to questions or approaches.

O, and no, you can't tell the difference between someone with LFA, HFA, AS or whatever by just looking at them--it takes cognitive tests, developmental history, observations in a structured setting (and a non-structured setting), and other assorted tests to determine what someone is.

What you really found out is that these psychiatrist thinks that "genuine social interaction" is this.

If two people spend one hour discussing the possibility of time travel (for example), why this should not count as "genuine social interaction", only because is an one-topic conversation?