Help understanding diagnosis criteria - examples

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I'm almost positive I have Asperger's or a some similar disorder, but I'm confused about the following diagnostic criteria:

Restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities, as manifested by at least one of the following:

* encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity of focus

* apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals

I was hoping some of you would be kind enough to provide some clarification and/or examples (either from your own life or other people with AS, or just in general).

Special interests. The person may have a really narrow, or all-encompassing and eccentric interest in a subject or object and spend hours with it. This is where you get the little genius stereotype, because a child may be able to recite everything about trains or airplanes. But a special interest can be over subject, or even objects. For me, it was objects when I was little. Now I have obsessions but I don't even come close to knowing everything about them, they're defined for me by my focus on them, and not being "typical."

Pretty straight forward, adherence to routine. If you have a meltdown or get upset if a schedule changes, or if anything changes. Described as inflexible.

Suppose you have a long-standing interest in a "family" of related subjects, such as history, geopolitics, economics, countries, cultures and languages... would that qualify? Or would it have to be just one subject - history, for example? Or would it have to be even narrower - British history, for example?

For inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals... what about a long-standing pattern of always staying up very late and getting up late and absolutely hating to use an alarm clock to wake up early (at a reasonable hour), so much so that it will cause you to be unable to get to sleep the night before, etc.? Would that qualify?

I'm sure I have something that qualifies - I've just never seen any kind of list of examples which might help me understand these criteria enough to recognize them in myself.

And suppose you meet all the criteria for Asperger's except this one... could you still be autistic? Which diagnosis might be a better fit?

I don't think it is about how narrow your interests are, but about how your interests dominate your life and interfere with the range of social interaction that is expected for your age and environment. Likewise the rigid routines.

Those 2 are hard for me to understand, because they are described from the outside. It would seem to them that some things I do are stupid, not fun or unnecessary. But how can I myself judge what they might think is something not worthwhile?

It depends. Can you get lost in them for hours? Forget to eat because you're obsessing over them? It's just unusual in some regard. Would you say other people are as interested as you are in a subject like that? Would someone call you obsessed? Would you have trouble talking about anything other than your interests? Do you know a mass amount of rote-learned facts? Asperger's is a syndrome, you don't have to meet every single criteria point beyond what is says you have to meet. It also varies widely between individuals.


I don't think that is what the criteria is specifying, so no. An example would be having to eat something or do something at a specific time everyday, or in a certain order, and becoming upset if it was disturbed. Or you would have to always take a specific roadway or path for going somewhere.

Check out NVLD nonverbal learning disorder.

As an example for routines/rituals when I go daily to the campus library I have to sit in the exact same seat and if someone else is sitting there I feel really upset, I can't concentrate on my homework, and I will sit where I can see the chair and I will watch them like a hawk until they get up.

For obessions, I am obsessed with AS. Yesterday I spent 8 hours straight researching ASDs and reading aspie forums. My major is connected to autism and I have to grit my teeth when I hear a presenter give only partially correct information or info that doesn't give the whole picture and right after I have to tell an acquaintence how annoyed I am. I have trouble talking to my boyfriend because AS is one of only a few things that truly grabs me.

Most humans are really poor at this kind of self awareness - you would certainly know if you have obsessive interests that prevent you from doing something that you consciously want to do, and be aware of intrusive thoughts, anxiety and indecision. If you suffer from anxiety, embarrassment or loneliness because of special interests, then it is an issue.

You need an outsider to judge your behaviour objectively - preferably somebody who has experience of judging a range of human behaviour. My children have no idea that my behaviour is unusual, until other children tell them, because I am their idea of a typical parent.

You can have more than one narrow interest too. For me it's Birds, Sonic the Hedgehog and Mental Illness/Asperger's. Right now, Mental Illness takes up more of my day reading about it or talking about it in chats, but I do listen only to Sonic music, and do some bird surveys or looking in my bird books. At different times in my life, Birds would take up all my day, or Sonic would.

And I so understand the chair thing! I was more upset over it as a kid, but I so sit in the same chair all the time, it's not funny. When I was a kid, one thing that would trigger my meltdowns was when something changed, my old school reports say that when something changed, I got tons worse.

Well, in some descriptions of Aspie "special interests" are usual to read things like "the interest usually don't inspire interest in similar, related fields; the individual can have a strong interest in the life of King Louis XVI without having any interest about the other points of French history". Then, at least some authors considered the narrowness of the interest (and not only his interference with daily activities) a characteristic of AS.

And, if we define the interests as "restricted repetitive and stereotyped" by their interference with social interaction, we are not making the second part of the criteria largely a repetition of the first?

First set of considerations for the original poster - ask yourself:

How often do you pursue subject(s) of interest: When you pursue a subject of interest
- How focussed is it.
- How long does it last (how much of your day/month/year does it occupy)
- When does interest in such an subject decline or end?
- Does your pursuit of such interests sometimes interfere with
* Other planned activities (planned on your own or by others)
* Socially required deadlines: work. bills. calling parents or friends.
(interfere can mean being late or choosing to avoid / decline / cancel)
- How often do you (or do you wish to) discuss this topic when in social situations?
- How detailed do you get when discussing this topic in social situations ?
- Do people sometimes tell you or indicate that you are too interested / verbose on your topic of interest?

When you are unable to pursue any routined or planned pursuit, especially those related to interests:
- How upset do you get if / when pursuing that routined / planned activity is denied.
- When such a pursuit is denied:
How capable are you of immediately working around the obstacle?
Do you experience physical arousal such as:
*- Hypersensitivity
*- Hyperawareness
*- Raised anxiety
*- Adreneline response
when faced with such obstacles.
Does the physical arousal end when the obstacle is solved.
Do you find a need to remove yourself from the situation in order to relax?