Down Syndrome versus Aspergers Syndrome.

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The loose criteria of a diagnosis of Aspergers only requires have one or more of the characteristics of Aspergers. A self diagnosis is simply saying yes I have Aspergers and you do not even need to do any of the tests online for a self diagnosis. Signing up on a autism/aspergers is more or less a self diagnosis of Aspergers.

For an official diagnosis of Aspergers you need to pay lots of money to psychiatrists to do tests and acquire a qualified professional opinion and diagnosis of the condition. Normal people can have Aspergers and it would not even be recognised by others. People with Aspergers can live normal lives without any real problems. Aspergers is a non life threatening condition, so mild it is a non condition.

down

many kids with down syndrome share traits with kids with autism.

ok I have skipped a few pages so perhaps this has already been covered.

1st please do not call it "down, or down's syndrom" dr down is not worthy of remembrance he contributed nothing but ignorance to the world, the proper term is trisomy 21 (although several other genes are implicated to varied degrees)
Now most people I have encountered who have Trisomy 21 are very social, I have worked with a couple of individuals who exhibit symptoms very similar to those on the spectrum. I do not think it would be reasonable to rule out the possibility of co-morbidity, in the case of trisomy 21 any more than in any other case where there is another genetic factor in play such as fragile x

well of course they are seperate conditions....after all I have aspergers, but no downs syndrome. I mean that is like saying all people with aspergers have depression and anxiety which is not true.

I think this is more of a compare-and-contrast thing.

Although, I think a more interesting comparison would be autism versus global developmental delay (such as the sort you see in DS). Autism is a very unique developmental disorder, with this really specific set of symptoms; compare that to global developmental delay, which seems to simply slow everything down, so that you can fairly easily predict that a particular child with a particular developmental schedule can be expected to be however many years late on whatever skill, but otherwise follow the NT schedule at his own pace. Autism, on the other hand, seems to have pretty unpredictable development. And then there's this interesting little point where both of them seem to cross--savant syndrome. Half of savants are autistic, the other half developmentally delayed. Extreme innate skill in some small area seems to pop up in both groups, despite how different they are--why? What triggers savant syndrome? Whatever it is, it could well be something we have in common.

And then there is of course developmental delay caused by autism, which is another kettle of fish altogether. You have the unusual developmental schedule, scattered skills, but most of it is behind the NT norm, so not only are you teaching an autistic child, you're teaching an autistic child who may be slower to grasp what you're teaching, but for completely different reasons than his developmentally delayed classmate. It's really very interesting to look at how young brains develop, and what makes them develop differently...

Down syndrome is also known as Trisomy 21, yes. Both are valid terms. I'd also like an explanation of what you've got against the guy who named it, as I've never heard anybody complain about it before. There are a couple of other trisomies that allow kids to survive to birth--18 and 13--and they're also named after their discoverers. But they are a lot less common than DS because they are a lot more deadly, and kids with these trisomies are very likely to die before or shortly after birth (though some have survived for a year or two and evidently had happy albeit short lives. And incomplete trisomies into adulthood--so it is not absolutely deadly). I don't see what should be special about Down syndrome that we should call it by Trisomy 21 exclusively.

Well, with the very high heritability of autism means that it's almost certainly genetic in origin--though highly polygenic. (That is: There are many possible genes and many possible combinations that can cause autism.) There's one known non-genetic cause of autism--congenital rubella syndrome--and there are probably others; but in almost all cases, genetic vulnerability is probably involved.

If you're going for origin-related comparisons, I would say the conditions that are the most similar are probably dyslexia and other learning disabilities, ADHD, congenital speech/language disorders, and congenital abnormalities of the brain/neurology of various sorts... of which Down Syndrome and other types of mental retardation are one example.

Depression and anxiety disorders have a genetic factor, but environment and learning has a huge part to play in both of them. They are quite commonly found along with autism; but I think that is probably related to the high stress levels that people with autism tend to be exposed to--stress is a known risk factor for both depression and anxiety disorders...

I am glad you said something because this is a highly respected website for autism, and a man I was seeing was trying to say to me "the gods" told him that AS is Down's syndrome, as if to convince me of his error-prone conclusions! He tells me I read too much stuff instead of listening to the gods. I think he's taken too much crack or whatever. Honestly! What do I do when someone is so dominant that if I speak my mind the guy treats me like I'm not "respecting" him...meanwhile he is not "respecting" me?? I'm not going off this thread but when someone is being stubbornly ignorant about AS, is there any way to fix it? I find it off putting.

I agree with that except for someone with AS will easily answer a math problem.......I fail at math.

[quote="ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo"]It is interesting that so many with Downs have an ASD. I wonder why that is? It suggests a genetic predisposition in the case of Downs, specifically.[/quote]Quite a lot of disorders seem to have a higher percentage of autism than normal people.