AS and age-appropriate development

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If you have AS, does that hold true for you?

For reference:

Self-help skills are such abilities as talking, dressing yourself, being able to maintain your personal hygiene and more.

Adaptive behaviours include the abilities that are necessary to live independently and age-appropriately.

This also includes abilities such as dressing, cleaning, preparing food but also the ability to follow rules, participate in school, learn and get a job and work, manage your finances, live on your own, learn age-appropriate academic concepts and so on.

Curiosity about the environment is decsribing the age-appropriate reactions to events.

Autistic people can seemingly lack that if they seem to ignore auditory, visual and other stimuli around them. They might ignore being talked to, their name being called, dangerous events happening around them or just sudden or extremely noticeable events.

I think my only delay is curiosity around my enviorenment especially when I was younger, I was extremly naive and clueless with what was going on around me. A lot of this curiosity has caught up to me in recent years. Once I found out about certain things, my curiosity is almost endless now about certain things, I hate not knowing. Curiosity kills me, the problem is the answer is so difficult to figure out. But even yet my curiosity expands to a narrow scope.

Im not sure if theres any delay in self help skills, my hygiene sucks cause im lazy. Otherwise, Im up to par.

I walked a bit late and I spoke a bit late too and went to speech therapy for a little while

Delay in all.

Said to have AS by Julie Fox at Minds & Hearts.

Learned to brush my teeth when I was 7 or 8. Started washing my hair at age ten, brushing my hair when I was about 8. The rest I think I could do. I could dress myself when I was three and knew how to fold clothes. I could feed myself when I was two. I talked late though.


Adaptive skills. My mom said I touched everything and smelled everything and took things apart. My play skills were below the age level I've read in my records.

I think I'm pretty good with adaptive. My responsibility was above the age level in my teens I was told. It ranged in the late twenties. While lot of kids were being irresponsible and getting into trouble, being stupid, I was the rule follower and getting my work done and staying out of trouble so I was the smart one and the mature one despite being socially ret*d and emotional. Wait, what does that have to do with living indepently? Well when you follow rules and be responsible, it helps you live independently, you can hold down a job then and pay your bills on time, etc.


I asked questions when I was growing up and wondered how things worked. Sure I get into my own world and can shut the world out around me.

I was told I was developmentally delayed until age five and I read I was delayed. It was mostly speech delay but I still seemed slow in other things about learning. I had troubles following the rules when I was young so I was always in trouble and getting yelled at and grabbed and I wouldn't know why and as I got older I learned to follow them or there is trouble. I learned the patterns.


So I would say I was mildly delayed in development compare to autistic kids. I watched myself in home videos and I came off as normal and I could do things and I could tell I was very smart just by the way I functioned despite not knowing things other kids my age should know.


Ah I would say the AS criteria is bull because what I have read on here, there are lot of aspies who aren't responsible; can't hold down a job, pay their bills, take care of themselves, manage money, etc. and the criteria says you have to be able to do all that. There are aspies who also have poor hygiene and won't bath or change their clothes, groom.
If you take the criteria literal, none of those aspies have AS due to those reasons and they are PDD-NOS.

I said all three, but I'm just now thinking carefully about the curiousity about the enviroment. I certainly wasn't curious in the big wide world sort of sense, but I was curious about things close up. I used to stare at leaves and small things, but never looked at the sky or big trees or anything. So very much couldn't see the trees for the bark.

The rest I was very much delayed on. I'm at 21 still getting the hang of most of it. I went to speech therapy for years and spoke a bit later than normal, I didn't crawl so skipped over that whole step, but learnt to walk at about the right time I think. I'm quite good at managing my finances though, think I'm ahead on that one for now, but basic things like cleaning and household chores I have to write down in a schedule so I remember.

More input is welcomed.

I wouldn't say its a delay for me, as it has never developed, not developed but late... I need better self help skills, I am like a 12 yold there. I need to adapt better, again, 12 yold. As for the third one, I pay way to much attention to the environment, compared to people in the environment.

My self-help skills are a bit under developed, in the sense they take more time than a normal person needs. My motor skills are under developed, so that affects my self-help skills.

My adaptive behaviour is good enough. Only my housing is a bit smaller than most people of my age, but why should I have more room, only more cleaning.

Curiosity of the environment is a bit difficult. On some aspects I was/am way ahead of the rest and made it a special interest. On other aspects I have a backward development.


Enough input? Or do you need more?

Although I can certainly talk (sometimes quite eloquently if it is about my interests), I also have a tendency to stutter, say words I didn't mean to, mumble, speak too loud or too soft, or garble some words and phrases. And although I can certainly dress myself, others often tell me that I wear clothes that really do not fit me, and that I look slightly ridiculous. I am usually oblivious to this. My personal hygiene, while never terrible, certainly does experience lapses that others have noticed and commented on.

I've had problems with the planning and organizing required in high school and college, as well as in some jobs I've had. I'm often late on bills and have never stuck to a budget. I'm smart enough and perfectly capable, it's just as if there is some kind of twist in my brain which causes these important things to go half-done or not done at all. I'm always somewhat baffled when this happens. I still receive some help from family with my living situation. I am not completely independent right now.

Last edited by Acacia on 23 Feb 2009, 9:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

Hygeine is something that I really probably should care about more but I don't. I have an issue with showering when I'm not dirty. If I don't smell, and I'm not dirty... what is this facination the US has about showering every single day? (sometimes more than once!) I don't get it. I also hate showers or baths. I just don't like to be wet and I hate the feeling. So I don't shower nearly as much as everyone else. I do brush my teeth. I do brush my hair. When I was a kid though, I didn't. I hated to.

I can't always find the words I want to say and end up repeating a word, or using placeholders like thingy and stuff.

I can manage money but thats because I hate spending it. I can't hold a job. I don't even know how to get a job.

I don't have friends. And don't really care to have any in RL anyway because I don't see their importance.

I do qualify for an Autism Disorder dx more than an AS dx, but really.. autistic is autistic and I'm alright with that.

I often have to be reminded to brush hair brush teeth etc. Case manager said she finds a lot of her kids don't like brushing teeth. Got a soft tooth brush that helps a bit. People often have to do things for me. I react how a kid much younger than me would react to something.

I have the problem with teeth brushing, wish someone would remind me... I have a hard time with personal hygeine, most likely due to executive dysfunction... I have the same issues with homework, but I feel more pressure to do homework so it gets done last minute. As for hygeine, last minute never comes, so I have to bundle it in with other things, and I need a better way to remember to keep it bundled in...

When I'm alone I don't care much about hygiene (but have long shower because I simply like that : the feeling of the hot water on my skin, his noise covering the rest, and the fact maybe that as child the shower was the only moment in the journey where I could be really alone).

But when I'm with other people I really take care about because I'm scared about smelling bad (I think having a pretty good sense of smell... noticing them when other people do not. But if I notice one coming from me I never know if the people around can notice it or not !).

Mainly in Self-Help skills and Adaptive Behaviours, both of which I still struggle with today. I still can't even cross the road without help.

Hah, I sometimes can cross the road safely, but sometimes not. Each morning I am forced to cross a huge road and unless there's no car in plain sight in which case I have no trouble crossing, cars will honk and come dangerously close to me and sometimes even stop right there when I'm crossing the road.