Diagnosed at a young age!

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I hear about a lot of people who were diagnosed with autism as adults.

However in my case it was evident at age 3 in 1992 and I was officially diagnosed with Aspergers aged 7 or 8 in 1997.

Could that mean perhaps I have a more severe case of autism compared to those who were diagnosed in adulthood?

I was diagnosed this year at the age of 56. There was no autism diagnosis available to me when I was young. Women are more commonly diagnosed later in life as it is believed they mask better and their is a gender bias in the diagnosis. So, no, you were simply diagnosed early, but that does not mean your autism is more severe.

I would argue that the answer is no.

In my opinion you were simply seen by someone who was competent unlike the disgusting little turd who assessed me in the eighties and failed to give a diagnosis despite me having all the classic behaviours. THIS IDIOT WAS MEANT TO BE AN EXPERT!! !!

I was 35 when Asperger's became an official ICD-10 DX . It took 27 years and moving to come under a new,less myopic psych team to get a dx.

Older folks on this site all got diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum at later ages than younger folks on this site for the simple reason that the medical establishment suddenly and hugely expanded autism into being a "spectrum" in 1994. Before that only severe cases were dubbed autistic. Now a whole range of folks can be diagnosed under the autism spectrum.

They started sending me to shrinks around age 8, but that was long before 1994. Had I been born in say 1990 I might well have been diagnosed with aspergers at the same age you were.

But oddly enough... I was still going to a shrink in the early 2000s when my family suggested to the lady shrink that I might have aspergers. She replied that she "had never even heard of aspergers before", and this was at least ten years after it had been made part of the DSM. She read up about aspergers that night, and then agreed that I had it.

I have a mild case of Asperger's and yet I will diagnosed when I was 8 (1998). I am not "severe" at all, and my symptoms weren't visible until I started school and even then they weren't obvious. I just looked like a disruptive child but was frightened of everything.

And there are a lot of people my age and younger who have just recently been diagnosed. I just can't imagine how they managed to slip through the cracks. I get so jealous of them.

Last edited by Joe90 on 07 Jan 2021, 1:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I was only 3 and diagnosed with PDD-NOS in the late 90's. My diagnosis likely came from me having attended a "blended" (both special needs and non-special needs students) preschool. My male cousin was diagnosed with "classic Autism" (I know both our diagnoses aren't currently used anymore) the year before also so my mother as well as the teachers at the school were somewhat educated on ASD so it could be why I got diagnosed early. I was a very quiet and anxious child and didn't want to socialize like my peers did but now that I'm older, most people who are unaware of my diagnosis I think just see me as "quirky" and "an introvert".

Not necessarily, I think each case has be judged on an individual basis.

Asperger Syndrome for example is known as the "invisible" disability. It is known as this, as people with Asperger Syndrome generally look normal, and act relatively normal.

However, the condition is complex and affects individuals in subtle ways which can have massive implications for that individuals capacity to function as normal in life.

If you are really concerned about how severe your condition is, perhaps you should consider talking to someone who has good experience as a specialist clinical psychologist in this area, and who has extensive experience in the evaluating and diagnosis process.

I was diagnosed at age 3. It was severe then. Now, it's mild.

I was diagnosed at age 10. It was mildish (called Asperger's back then) but still quite impairing when I tried to keep up with my peers.

I've gotten better since, but I haven't quite recovered from my history.

Then how come I, a female diagnosed with Asperger's (not autism or HFA) was diagnosed so young? I hate it.

I was probably around 8-10 somewhere when I was diagnosed (I think it was in fourth grade, but my memory for numbers has never been great even before I started having real memory issues) (and I’m female). I think I came off as fairly mild as a kid, but over time my autism worsened, became more apparent as life circumstances changed (high school to college, college to non-school life, etc.), or some combination thereof. I was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, but if I was re-assessed today by today’s diagnostic manual, I’m pretty darn sure I’d be diagnosed with ASD level 2.

I was diagnosed around the same time as you at the age of 12. By then they have broaden the autistic spectrum I was now on it. Before, I didn't even have it. Just someone with a severe language delay and cluttering and all these other diagnoses I had and autistic behavior or autistic traits or characteristics depending on the person I was seeing.

Hmmm that's interesting actually. I always thought that the more severe it is the more likely someone is to be diagnosed earlier. I think there's some element of luck given how much support varies for ASD people country by country, region by region.

I was diagnosed with AS when I was 13. When the specialist who was assigned to work with me told me that I had AS, I had no idea what my specialist was talking about.

I was diagnosed at the age of 5 and a half in 1980.