Why Aspergers isn't even a disorder

Post Reply New Topic

These things may be present in someone with AS, but they wouldn't necessarily be debilitating. If someone with AS had rituals, or routines, or fascinations that didn't impair their ability to function, they'd still have AS.

While some with AS may be impaired by these non-social aspects, the fact that they are present doesn't mean that they will become impairments. The one common impairment in all aspies is the social disconnect with NTs.

I feel like I'm repeating myself here.

My fear is that someone who has AS, who has that brain-wiring, who has those social difficulties, will be denied his "AS-ness" if he doesn't have any crippling non-social problems. While his AS-wired brain may involve his performing of rituals, or obsessive interests, if they don't become a problem for him, it doesn't mean he is any less AS. But he, like all with AS, will find socializing challenging to some extent. That is the one common factor of all Aspies, the one impairment they all have. And a lack of impairment from non-social traits doesn't make them any less aspie.

That's my general feeling and theory.

autism, its about being too literal. Thats it.

i like how Temple Grading once explained it.

An autistic child goes at road A, and crosses it without watching.
Then it is told to look before crossing.
Going back to road A, he looks before crossing.
Then he goes to road B, and crosses it without watching.
He forgot?
Going back to road A, he looks before crossing.
Going back to road B, he doesn't look before crossing.
At B, it is told to look before crossing.
Now he looks before crossing road B.
Then he goes to road C, and crosses it without watching.
He forgot?
Going back to roads A and B, he looks before crossing.
The thing gets repeated until he finally gets it.

Its about being literal. Maybe you aren't that hard as the example above, but you get the point. They are a bunch of byproducts of thinking like that. Thats it, this is autism. Its thinking like this, and the byproducts of thinking like this. Thats it.

They can be additional genetic comorbid stuff that can vary greatly. We can ignore them, they aren't really part of autism. For example the sensory issues, i don't have them, i have a heart problem instead, these things are just genetic repercussions without incidence on how you think.

Guys are you happy with that explanation?

If at least one of those symptoms is not present to an impairing level, then the person who doesn't have those symptoms is not eligible for an AS diagnosis. They might still be eligible for a PDD-NOS diagnosis.



You are repeating yourself, but repetition doesn't make it any more true than the first time you said it. You keep saying that only the social symptoms are reliably impairing and the RRBs are not, but what's your basis for this? The diagnostic criteria disagree with you, professionals in general disagree with you. You're not going to find a consensus with your perspective because the perspective you present is factually incorrect.



If this hypothetical Aspie has no RRBs, then he's not an Aspie after all. He can still be diagnosed with PDD-NOS. There are other possible diagnoses that may fit better as well (such as SPD).

That's an interesting perspective on it, and why I felt taken aback and curious when a few people seemed to insist that there has to be more, else it's not Asperger's. Though I think your example doesn't really touch on non-verbal social cues, which really can't be taken as literal or figurative, but rather have to be decoded correctly.

By the way, based on my writing, do I strike you as someone who's too literal?

Alright, then at least something other than the social aspect has to be an impairment for it to be Asperger's. Okay.

I repeated myself to make sure I was making my point clear about the non-social stuff, and to what extent it would have to be crippling. But in this response it's spelled out best, better than the triad thing. Something other than the social stuff has to be an impairment as well, not simply present in a non-impairing way.

Out of curiosity, are you diagnosed with anything other than Asperger's. I ask because while I haven't looked into it, I've been told that a diagnosis of Asperger's alone is not enough to qualify for SSI payments. So are you receiving benefits specifically because of your Asperger's, or from something else?

No, it seems I get overwhelmed easiliy in general.....certainly with social input but even just to much stress can overwhelm me.

That's what it's like with me. I feel really happy and comfortable getting on one of the buses to a town about 8 miles away on my own. I am so familiar with the bus service and with the town, and there are a nice lot of bus-drivers who drive this particular bus who are English and go out of their way to be friendly with the passengers and so I feel they look out for me and are always there if something changes that makes me anxious. Also I know a lot of the regular passengers who get on this bus too, and I do enjoy the bus route, which helps get me out a little more. Also the town where I get this bus to is very familiar to me and I have a lot of friends who live there and the job centre is there too, where I have to go to anyway. So I feel pretty secure catching this particular bus to this destination on my own.

But when I explain that to people, they just say, ''well, if you got familiar with that then you can get familiar with [name of another bus route and place] too.'' They're right, but wrong in my book. I hate change, and I like to stick to things I am comfortable with.

I suspect that reading social cues is part of this. The whole learning process goes to an other tangent.

A NT, classifies as the same social interaction, things that we wouldn't group together. The number of rules to keep track becomes too large. It just looks random. Like with the kid and the road, why look before crossing? Its not the same road!

If you prefer. If you noticed, if this way of thinking goes too far, you get ret*d (low functioning). The number of examples that you need, become too great. You just can't do it in a timely manner. NT social cues, because of there structure, are too hard for us too learn, even for adults.

What is correct? When we are in real life, with other aspies, things go smoothly. We have our own way of communicating, thats all.

Sorry, i just jumped in the conversation. I don't think i'll arse my self in reading all the pages. I understood that you were debating the DSM criteria.

i am not sure if i can digest your sentence.
is it like a promotional spiel for an oncoming rant about what autism is? or is it incorrectly spelled, and the word "its" (sans apostrophe?) should be "is", and is the comma after the word "autism" is an imposter that crept in through a crack in the foundation of understanding of grammatical structure, or is it justified?

i think you mean "autism is about being too literal. That's it", and that is how the sentence would have been best compiled.

if i am wrong then i get a red cross, but they mean nothing to me. (if i was a soldier in world war 2, then i may have a better opinion of red crosses.

if you really mean that "autism" is only the tendency to understand things literally, then i disagree.

i believe autism is a malady that ranges in severity from a profound and all encompassing debilitation, to just a tincture of eccentricity that renders the "sufferer" "quirky".

i have known an LFA girl when i was about 4 years old, and i very much identified with her.
she was very intellectually ret*d and she was not able to walk. she never learned to speak. she was my best friend in preschool, and we used to lie down and look at each other. i could look in her eyes. i could not look at anyone elses eyes. she died.
pshhhhh
_______________

there is a level of autism even below where she was which is called (i believe) "profound" autism.
when i was in the adolescent unit, i saw very many people with serious mental deficits.

i have had the experience of seeing a profound autistic for 3 days before he was relocated.

profound autism is a state of mind where there is no recognition of other living beings. they are completely isolated from any understanding of what is happening or why it is happening.
their eyes can not be drawn by even passionate pointing to look in a requested direction.
from there to asperger syndrome is a long road, and i am at the threshold of HFA and AS, but there are others like moog and tequila and vigilans who have only the slightest tincture of autism and they are ahead of me on the road to "involvement".

i do not need to talk to people often, but if there was no "ear" in the universe to ever hear a thought of mine, then i may wonder if it is worthwhile thinking.

i can not survive as a completely isolated entity.
i must go and interact with others every day.

I'll pretty much second everything that Verdandi or Callista said in this thread.

Asperger's is more than just being socially awkward and having social difficulties, necessarily. Not fitting in socially might be the most disabling thing for some people (like Joe90), yet is absolutely not for others (like myself).

There is absolutely nothing that says someone with AS has no difficulty with speech - it only says there is no delay in speech.

As for non-social traits:
-Sensory Issues: others have covered this somewhat. It's complicated for me to discuss this because I am considered having co-morbid Sensory Processing Disorder on top of my AS and this means I can't sort out what level would just be considered part of my ASD, but when you overreact to smells to the point where you can't use cleaners, to lights to the point where you can't drive, and to sounds to the point where you can meltdown just because of the fire alarm beeping for a new battery, you're impaired. Similarly when you don't feel pain and are unaware of a broken bone, when you don't notice the fire alarm going off, or when you don't notice if you're moving or not, you're impaired. All of these are considered normal with an ASD. Most people have some sort of sensory issues. I personally, am not only impaired, but disabled, by my sensory issues.

-Special Interests: This often ends up being thought to just relate to social problems when it comes to impairment, because what people think of is people monologuing about their interests while ignoring if others care. However, special interests often interfere in more ways than that (as well as being quite enjoyable). When a special interest is what you're focused on, its not uncommon to completely overlook necessary things like eating and sleeping. Forgetting to eat is quite problematic, especially because hunger is a common meltdown trigger. Sometimes you'll also end up in situations like the one I'm in currently where you're automatically picking up a special interest, and interest in the subject is something that either in general or for a particular period of time, will cause you problems. I'm actively fighting a special interest from developing for the rest of this week, and am having major problems fixating on it instead of being able to do much of anything else.

-Stimming: This one is actually often impairing mostly because of social issues. People don't like stimming, and will attempt to stop it. However, sometimes people actually will end up injuring themselves because of stimming. I've actually given myself an RSI within one evening, with silly putty. I made sure to swap out my silly putty for theraputty after that.

-Rituals and resistance to change: Change is a part of life. When change is so unnerving, it will cause problems. Rituals often interfere with life because they are something that needs to be the same every day. While you can often control what's going on, you won't always have control. While rituals are a good way to keep some control in a crazy, unpredictable world, they also require things that won't always be true. If I don't have time to do everything my way for a shower, built up this way because of my sensory issues but following a ritual, I won't shower. This causes hygiene problems and being physically uncomfortable. If going elsewhere rather than being at home interferes with the way I've set up taking care of my cat, I start functioning at a base lower level, much more prone to meltdowns. I personally have very mild rituals compared to many people on the spectrum, and there are plenty of people with diagnosis AS which have stronger needs for rituals than I do. They're not a minor thing that never has an effect on anything.

-Communication Difficulties: These are not actually the same as social difficulties though they certainly overlap more than social and RRBs do.

-Monotone voice: Not generally a problem, except that people tend to use tone of voice. I've been trained into the pattern of raising my voice at the end of the sentence for a question, before that people didn't realize I was asking a question. When people are upset and I'm unable to use the tone of voice expected, they don't understand what's going on in my head. While this can be thought of as social, because it involves interacting with other people, it actually can go to just being unable to get what you need to communicated.

-Perfectionism in communication: This is where the pedantic part comes in. This is also where some other difficulties come in. I'm not sure if there's any impairment that just comes from being pedantic, except that people view you differently. The other difficulties, however, definitely are impairing. The best way to explain this for me is that I can't give an answer that is just "good enough", I need to find the "right answer", when there isn't a right answer, this causes problems. This prevents me from showing my abilities, prevents me from asking for what I need, prevents me from sharing the little bits of my feelings that I'm able to pick up and identify. Being unable to communicate because of needing to be so precise, so correct, and so deliberate is every word, means I can't get what I need even when I know I need it.

-Being overly literal: When you can't understand what others are saying, you can't understand. Taking extra effort to understand is an impairment.

And these have just been things listed in various diagnostic criteria. When you expand out of that and into other common traits:

-Meltdowns: Losing control of yourself, lashing out, not remembering what you've done entirely, hurting yourself, hurting others, physically and non-physically. There's no way meltdowns aren't a problem.

-Shutdowns: People sometimes overlook shutdowns because they're not nearly as visible. Losing the ability to function, shutting off things to try to cope, not being able to speak, not being able to walk or otherwise move, not being able to process what you're seeing or hearing, being trapped either partially or entirely in your own head, sometimes not even being able to do more than stare at the ceiling noticing there's a ceiling above your head. Again, a problem.


There is far more to any autism spectrum disorder, even "just Asperger's" (which is a false distinction anyways in some of our cases) than just social difficulties. It's a triad of impairments. However, even ignoring that, the social difficulties aren't just not making friends or being a loner. It keeps us from being employed (because of interviews), it makes going to the doctor difficult (because of needing to discuss things with your doctor), It makes taking care of ourselves difficult.


Asperger's is absolutely a disorder. Disorder means that it causes impairment. You cannot be diagnosed without impairment. In many of our cases its also a disability, though it is not always.


(When it comes to SSI - Verdandi has mentioned other diagnoses that are relevant elsewhere (i.e. ADHD, fibromylagia). However, when they're looking at people, they look at more than the diagnosis and what can people do. Depending on how you classify my symptoms, it is entirely possible to classify what's relevant into my ASD, and these symptoms have caused people to say I definitely should be applying, and that I'm dealing with more than others they've seen accepted. I'm not on SSI yet, but I'm in the beginnings of the application (so with how it goes it'll probably be quite a long time, but...).

This is not necessarily true at all. Communication between aspies can be even harder than communication between an aspie and an NT. It's not always pleasant at all and can be very problematic. Things are not necessarily smooth, and they're not necessarily smooth partially because "we have our own way of communicating, that's all" isn't entirely correct.

Each person has their own style of communicating, and aspies tend to be similar to other aspies (though not all other aspies). Along with this style of communication, there's what people understand from others communicating with them, and what types of inflexibility they have. When you combine people who have the same diagnosis but don't have traits that function well together... it can be very explosive, and you can be dealing with the aftermath still years later. (I say this from experience )

1. Aspergers does not = socializing.

2. If you are self-dependant, you probably don't have AS.

About the social impairment being the only impairment of AS:

About every normal person without AS has interests, routines and is detail-orientated (edit: they posses this trait, they do not lack it or they'd likely be diagnosed with an impairment). If these traits aren't in any way clinically significant, deviating from the norm in extreme ways and/or causing impairment, that person does not meet the criteria in that section.

The trouble is with me (and is what confuses other people about me) is the way my abilities and impairments overlap eachother. It's always an argument of ''but if you can do that then surely you can do this...'' Yes OK I may be able to get on the bus on my own and go to the town, but that doesn't mean I don't have a disability. I struggle in other things. I only get one bus, and when I was first getting it I had support like travel training and I was a lot younger then and since then I have become more anxious than ever, which is disabling and cannot be completely solved by meds, and as I've grown more anxious I've still been getting this same bus, so it's just become a thing what I have always done for a few years and now it's part of my security and routine. So there's one example of my abilities and impairments (caused by anxieties and s**t social skills) overlapping eachother.

...And what's wrong with that? At least the VOLLEY ball won't call you stupid for stupid reasons or try to isolate you from itself.

i'm dysorthographic. Its like dyslexia, but less hard. i don't mix the letter around, but i can't remember the correct spelling of words, and even with the alphabet, i cant remember the correct order at 2 places (ijg, uvw). I just correct until the spelling corrector stops complaining. If i start figuring when i must put "its" or "it's" i'll never finish.

And English isn't my native language. Not that it really matters after all these years of knowing English.

just explaining things out. I know that for you its a bit encrypted. Try reading me out loud, it seams that it helps.



The profound cases, are extremely literal, to levels not viable. In my original example, the little kid would need to do it 100 times, or 1000 times before he gets it. If the kid is too autistic, the kid will simply never do it. Being literal is just the underlying cause.

In a way, this form of retardation is different, then say what happens in the usual ret*d.

We could hypothesize, that if the low functioning autistics lived a million years, they would start getting things eventually.

They are advantages in being literal. For example in science. Its all a matter of degree. Its not clear cut in saying that its a