I have AS... seriously?

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I recently did the AQ test online just to prove to my wife that i´m a Neurotypical and, for my surprise, it said i have "Some Autistic tendecies, Asperger´s Syndrom"... and now i´m in doubt if i´m really neurotypical or not.... my main doubt about having Asperger´s is because of my profession, as i´m a very accomplished lawyer and it is a very social profession by itself, so maybe someone can help me diagonse myself.... i´ll trow here some of my most common attitudes and maybe you can help me:

- As i said, i´m a very accomplished lawyer, and feel completely comfortable inside courtrooms, and i´m very good at adapting to unexpected situations that happen during courtroom audiences, from lying witnesses, nervous clients and hostile judges... i even managed to win some lawsuits thanks to oral defenses created on the spot on behalf of new clients that hired me just a few minutes before their courtroom appearences...

- On the other hand, outside the courtroom i´m obsessive on planning everything on my daily life, in fact, i need to have at least a week planned in advance, including leisure time, what i will do, where i will eat, if will see a movie or not, when and in what i will spend time with my wife and daughter and so on... i get extremely anxoius with unexpected things...

- I´m terrible with faces, and have a hard time recognizing my own clients, but once i know a client´s name i can, from memory, remember everything from his or her lawsuit(s), including entire witness testimonies given in previous occasions...

- I´m good with computers, can even do some programming, but i´m terrible with handwriting, i can barely recognize my own handwriting...

- I´m extremely technical on written petitions, and do not like flowery writing on the lawsuits where i´m the lawyer (as attacker or defender) and was even praised once by a judge that said it was refreshing to see a lawyer that goes to the point instead of gallivating all around in dozens of pages of repetitive prose.

- I´m obsessive with prime numbers, when i go to a restaurant, buy a plane ticket or stay in a hotel i simply must have a table, seat or room that is a prime number or i´m extremely unconfortable the whole time... i can also instantly recognize if a number is prime or not...

- I have very few "real friends", i can count all my friends on the fingers of a single hand, and my best friend has diagonsed extreme bipolar disorder...

- Aside from the needed clothes for the exercise of my profession, i always prefer confort above style, and have no patience for "trends"....

- I´m good at lawyer-client relations and several clients of my firm specifically ask to speak with me instead of other colleages because they find it easier to understand the legalities of their cases when i do the explaining, i´m also good at conversation at social gatherings.

- On the other hand i simply hate social gatherings and only participate to the minimum necessary for my work or on behalf of my wife, and i have a extremely difficult time to judge the emotions of others, also, my "conversional skills" are mostly product of rote learning and practice, and i hate to travel with clients, as it tends to long conversations and i can get physically ill after a couple of hours of conversation with a client.

- One of my "conversational skills" is telling jokes but, according to my wife, my delivery is perfect, but half of my jokes are not really funny... (i find them funny).

- I have extreme problems to understand the emotional status of my 4 year old daughter, but i´m extremely good at playing pretend games with her... in fact she waits me daily just to play with me with her dolls and toys and she appears to love it...

- All my family always said that i´m "weird" and i have problems displaying emotions (both positive and negative ones), and my wife says i´m so calm that it sometimes get in her nerves...

- I had lots of problems during my school years, rarely socializing with anyone and the only reason i believe i was not the target of bullying was because i was to usefull to the bullies on the mandatory group activities... I had no patience with group activities and most of the time did all the work myself and just let the others sign their names on the papers...

- I had extreme problems with sports, i´m very uncoordinated physically... on the other hand my military service went extremely well (i live in a country with mandatory military service). I´m a good marksman, could both receive and give orders correctly (i graduated as a corporal) and had the first place of a 150-man company

- My AQ score was 29...

So, do i really have Asperger? Or i´m just a a neurotypical with issues?

Edit:

- I also did 2 different IQ tests, the 1st result was 140 and the 2nd was 138...

The autism spectrum fades quite seamlessly into the typical. The number of neurotypicals who have AS traits is probably around 5-10%, compared to the 1% of the population who is fully autistic. You could be in this group.

The cutoff for diagnosis, clinically, is the "significant impairment" criterion--that is, do you have problems in your daily life that can be put down to AS traits, which require you to get help from others, use technological assistance, or spend much more effort or time than others spend on equivalent tasks? If so, then a diagnosis would be warranted; if not, then you can just say "I have subclinical autistic traits" and leave it at that.

Interesting! My IQ is roughly similar to yours, and I have been able to consciously learn most social skills.
My AQ test was 43 - 29 is fairly low on the spectrum.


I have done some legal work, and I would make an excellent lawyer because of my memory and ability to pattern match - I can think on the spot, recall facts that initially seemed irrelevant and I ALWAYS think through every eventuality, which means in court nothing catches me unaware. My attention to detail is near-perfect. I can rip apart arguments that have not been well thought out. The skills you talk about that make you a good lawyer are not incompatible with AS - even down to the unpredictable nature of the courtroom - which in my experience, it is not actually as unpredictable as it seems on the surface; there is protocol, there are defined results - just a large number of different ones. What you describe is how an aspie could be with a "special interest".

I also lack the inhibitions that make an NT nervous of standing in front of people a deliver argument in a dispassionate and/or arrogant way, and a lack of emotional attachment would be a great benefit to a lawyer.

HOWEVER - I would not make a good lawyer, because I could not represent something I didn't believe in (I guess you can turn clients down) but also because failure to get a result I believe in destroys me. Even, getting the "right" result for the "wrong" reason leaves me an angry wreck. The black-and-white thinking with respect to morals and justice to me, is too great an issue.

You say nothing that would instantly discount AS - but on the other hand you would need to look at the real 'diagnostic' criteria to see if you have a "match". The clinching factors are lifelong issues with non-verbal communication / socialisation and imagination....have you always felt you were "wired differently"? Also - do the AS traits cause you any problems. Its not impossible, but rather unlikely, you would be diagnosed if you don't have any current/lasting "issues".

29 is actually low for AS. A little higher than normal, but really in the gray areas. You should also note that some professions tend to score higher than average anyway, especially ones that reward intelligence. Just a 10 to 20 point differential in IQ can result in communication and socialization challenges. People with genius level IQs commonly share some traits with autistics.

If you are not distressed by anything related to this then is doesn't really matter. If you are exhibiting behaviors that interfere with your life, then it might be worth investigating further.

sam_wi: i know about what you are saying that besides the unpredictability of courtrooms to have an underlying order, and i agree with you... also, while i cannot turn clients down i have free discretion to assign clients to other colleagues in the firm i work for... also, i find that lies are the tools of mediocrity, a good lawyer use the truth presented in the most beneficial way to my client... i won several causes where i got the opposing lawyer totally lost by using truth instead of lies and denials (normally lawyers that do not know me.... the ones that have experience with me in courtrooms are more wary of my unconventional tactics).

i also suffer a lot when the result of a lawsuit is off the spectrum of probable results. i do not have problems when a result, even a bad one, is among the most probable results, but i really get angry and anxious when a bad result comes out of the blue, specially when it is clearly because of a lazy judge that simply did not read or saw some evidence that cleary contradicts the judgement conclusions...

About current "issues", according to my wife i have serious socialization problems outside of work, in fact, i only know one of my neighbors because he is a lawyer too and we meet at court sometimes, i do not have any idea of who are my other neighbours or even their names... i also tend to isolate myself in non-work related social gatherings and, unless my wife starts a conversation or invites someone to our table i can spend an entire party without talking to anyone at all... my sister also insists that i´m not really "normal" and tend to isolate myself in "my own world" excluding everyone else... i do notice that i have a serious tendency of "daydreaming" when not actively doing something that "exercises the mind"...

thanks for the answers people.... i think i will try to work out my current issues without clinical help yet... and consider myself a naurotypical with autistic tendencies for now...

Another successful lawyer here ... with diagnosed AS.

If it helps.

You sound extremely intelligent, when I was diagnosed I was surprised and shocked as well.