Best List of Symptoms of AS I've Seen Online

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Aimless
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22 Apr 2011, 5:06 pm

LostInEmulation wrote:
Given the amount of pseudoscience on the rest of the page, I would consider it a WEAK! source.


Be specific, please.



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22 Apr 2011, 5:22 pm

Such lists are long and disorganized.

I'd rather a list that showed a category and then all the ways things can manifest, and why.

On one side you have the person who talks too much and on the other you have people who aren't verbal. Well, why? Autism is a communication problem at one of its cores. Communication is a category in my imagined list, and things like this would be more appropriately placed, explained, and ultimately show the diversity of the spectrum.

Asperger's lists are so hung up on the little professor persona, oftentimes. If anything I don't think a list should cater to a certain mold when it comes to autism. I really don't immediately see myself in such Asperger's lists and descriptions. I am not sure if others do or not.



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22 Apr 2011, 5:43 pm

Quote:
Such lists are long and disorganized.

I'd rather a list that showed a category and then all the ways things can manifest, and why.

On one side you have the person who talks too much and on the other you have people who aren't verbal. Well, why? Autism is a communication problem at one of its cores. Communication is a category in my imagined list, and things like this would be more appropriately placed, explained, and ultimately show the diversity of the spectrum.

Asperger's lists are so hung up on the little professor persona, oftentimes. If anything I don't think a list should cater to a certain mold when it comes to autism. I really don't immediately see myself in such Asperger's lists and descriptions. I am not sure if others do or not.


I disagree. The majority of the list of symptoms online (wikipedia, etc) are for lay people who do not know what we go through. Been there done that. These lists are too general and mundane. This list is very specific and for most of us Aspies, we feel like for once someone is feeling what we are feeling, or at least understands what we are feeling.
Before being diagnosed I always wondered as a kid why I would think things were funny in my own mind, while other's didn't get it. I always thought something was wrong with me. Even that symptom is in this list. Very thorough.



manlyadam
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22 Apr 2011, 8:17 pm

Quote:
manlyadam:
I guess it depends on the purpose of the list. You wouldn't be looking for a diagnosis for positive traits, for example.


If some of my positive traits were mentioned such as my ability to memorise things very easily or how easy and enjoyable it is for me to focus on a productive hobby (in my case music) for extended periods of time it would help with a diagnosis so it seems suspiciously one sided to me that they are all negatives, in fact I hide my negatives well so to focus on the positive sides of Asperger's would be wise for a diagnosis with aspies like myself.

I am always overly picky about these things though, I want things to be as accurate as possible word for word. To me it is not a list of "the symptoms of asperger's", it is a list of "most of the more common relatively negative traits found in aspies, some of which will be present in the average aspie and some of which won't though exactly which will vary." So it's not a bad list at all but the title is misleading to someone who doesn't know much about Asperger's and the whole thing is wrong imo simply because of this.



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23 Apr 2011, 3:12 am

Zen wrote:
Aren't some of them contradictory? Like Impulsiveness and Rigid adherence to rules and routine?

I guess it can manifest in different ways though, the same issue causing different people to react in different ways.


Not really. I can be at times impulsive but still have routines.


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23 Apr 2011, 3:21 am

I can especially relate to pouting, ruminating or fixating on bad experiences. I do that a lot.
This is a comprehensive list. I can relate to nearly everything on it.



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23 Apr 2011, 3:37 am

I'd say that when symptoms listed contradict each other, they represent the poles which are out of the 'normal' range. Both are abnormal, and it is not necessary to have both at the same time, you may have one or the other at different times or only one but not the other.
On the whole, a very comprehensive list. I myself have about 80 % of these characteristics.

Preference for bland or bare environments in living arrangements
Funny though, I can't actually stand non-functional or souvenir-type decoration, even pictures at home or at work. I always strip bare all working surfaces except for the things I need right away. Never knew that could stem from having Asperger's though.



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23 Apr 2011, 3:45 am

I like having a minimalist home because I bump into stuff a lot. It's also easy to keep it freer from dust since I am allergic. I do appreciate a somewhat bare environment.



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23 Apr 2011, 4:12 am

wavefreak: Up until the part about sensory issues, those don't describe me either, nor have I seen/heard many of them before.

I keep an unofficial list of symptoms I exhibit, but it's partially based on anecdotal evidence from this board, and it's hard to know which are symptoms and which are quirks.

Think about this: if an NT is 3% likely to have, say, insomnia, and an Aspie is 10% likely.....that's where you run into problems, when most Aspies don't exhibit something and there's not enough data to determine if they're more likely to exhibit something than a NT. Also, low self confidence is often listed as a symptom, but is it a direct result of Asperger's? Hard to say. Probably not.

anbuend: We do tend to gravitate to extremes, I'm glad you sort of "confirmed" that for me. That makes sense. I went from being a shut-in videogamer with straight A's who hated jocks, to being, well, your typical fraternity brother but a bit more eccentric. I knew it was somehow related to AS but couldn't put my finger on how.



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23 Apr 2011, 4:49 am

Frankly it's hard to tell if a lot of autistic traits, even some of the supposedly "core" ones, are always due to wiring, or if experience (and living in a world not designed for us) contributes to some of them. It's probably impossible to tell that because I don't expect the world to become so much more autistic-friendly that we won't have trouble all the time. I do know that some things I assumed were because of autism, turned out to be more... because of experiences that most autistic people go through in life because of prejudice and the like. When I finally began to be treated more like a person a few times... suddenly I started "thawing out" in certain ways when I'd sort of "frozen" myself inside in order to survive how I was being treated.


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23 Apr 2011, 7:29 am

Exhumed wrote:
wavefreak: Up until the part about sensory issues, those don't describe me either, nor have I seen/heard many of them before.


I'm pretty much the opposite. My sensory issues aren't as intense. I've come to see they are more of an issue than I realized, but not like described by some here. But my ability to capture social information is practically nil.


Quote:
Think about this: if an NT is 3% likely to have, say, insomnia, and an Aspie is 10% likely.....that's where you run into problems, when most Aspies don't exhibit something and there's not enough data to determine if they're more likely to exhibit something than a NT. Also, low self confidence is often listed as a symptom, but is it a direct result of Asperger's? Hard to say. Probably not.


Low self confidence may not be a direct symptom, but it is very common. This seems more like a list of the things commonly present in autistics. I sometimes have NULL self-confidence. When I am in certain mental states, self sort of fades away and confidence does not exist at all - neither low nor high. It's only when I am induced to interact at a different level that the self confidence thing emerges.


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23 Apr 2011, 10:43 am

Verdandi wrote:
Louise18 wrote:
Verdandi wrote:
Aimless wrote:
Sounds like the guy didn't understand the meaning of the word "syndrome".


Apparently he had studied psychiatry or psychology in college. He was, however, vehemently against people diagnosing themselves.


If your symptoms aren't bad enough that you needed to see a doctor, there iw probably very little point in diagnosing you.


I don't understand how this relates to what I said. Could you clarify?


I was agreeing with his position against people diagnosing themselves, and giving a reason.



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23 Apr 2011, 3:38 pm

Louise18 wrote:
Verdandi wrote:
Louise18 wrote:
Verdandi wrote:
Aimless wrote:
Sounds like the guy didn't understand the meaning of the word "syndrome".


Apparently he had studied psychiatry or psychology in college. He was, however, vehemently against people diagnosing themselves.


If your symptoms aren't bad enough that you needed to see a doctor, there iw probably very little point in diagnosing you.


I don't understand how this relates to what I said. Could you clarify?


I was agreeing with his position against people diagnosing themselves, and giving a reason.


Oh, he's wrong. If I hadn't diagnosed myself with ADHD in the first place, I never would have made it to the point where I could have seen a doctor.

Self-diagnosis is not an unwillingness to see a doctor, nor does it mean your symptoms are not bad enough that you need to see a doctor. It could mean you have found information that makes sense of much of your life in one fell swoop. It could also mean that you do not have access to medical care. It could also mean that getting a diagnosis won't help you in the least.

Apparently, two prominent professionals who deal with AS as a routine thing (Simon Baron-Cohen and Tony Attwood) both say that the vast majority of AS self-diagnoses are actually accurate, and provide sound logical reasons as to why someone is unlikely to diagnose themselves with AS if they do not actually have it.

There is so much more to this argument than choosing to see a doctor or not, and in my experience, self-diagnosis has led to a lot of people seeking treatment that they otherwise might not have.

It's an interesting ideal that people only focus on their symptoms and let professionals make decisions for them, but this is blatantly unrealistic. Instead of telling people not to self-diagnose, I would be more interested in creating tools that help people determine that they probably should see someone if medical care is available to them at all.

Also, I self-diagnosed, and my symptoms are absolutely bad enough that I needed to see a doctor. But if I hadn't looked into AS I never would have realized they were symptoms.



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23 Apr 2011, 3:49 pm

If you had all of those you would be a very manic person. If you had none of those you will be a pretty boring person.

I'm not referring to anyone here or anything - I'm just saying.


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28 Jul 2011, 7:40 pm

'Deliberate withholding of peak performance due to belief that one’s best efforts may remain unrecognized, unrewarded, or appropriated by others."

The above characteristic really hits home. My dad is also an Aspie and we would always say that he self-sabotage his success by not performing, showing up etc. I'm starting to wonder if I do this in my life as well.



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28 Jul 2011, 8:41 pm

I looked though the list several times and I didn't see staring on there. :(

It would be nice if that particular negative trait was more well known by NT's, rather than jumping to the conclusion that a Aspie that stares (At people to be specific).... insert random cruel name, or snide remark under their breath.