[Brigianna]

I've been diagnosed with:
Childhood Mutism
Elective Mutism with Hyperlexia and Autistic behaviors
Hearing Impairment with Autistic behaviors (this one's wrong; I have excellent hearing)
Nonverbal Learning Disability with obsessive behaviors and social anxiety
Classic Autism (as an adult)
Asperger Syndrome (as an adult)

But the Asperger dx is not really accurate; AS requires no childhood speech problems, which I clearly had (and to a small extent still do). My first daughter, however, is a clear Asperger autistic, although undiagnosed.

 

[Brigianna]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Individuation Can you always talk? My dx changed from Asperger's once I finally admitted that I can't always talk (among other red flags, apparently). The neuro-psych had only seen me at my best, but then he started asking probing questions, and suddenly he was talking classic autism--he eventually settled on PDD-NOS but says he "isn't happy" with that diagnosis, as he's basically using it as a catchall to say "Too autistic for Asperger's, but not Kanner enough for autism." I'm perfectly fine and hyper-verbal a big part of the time, but it comes and goes. My husband deal with the situation VERY well and has other ways of communicating with me when I can't talk (using echolalia as a communicative method, books, using phrases that I taught my parakeet). Wellbutrin helped my verbal ability for a short time, but not very much.

Not exactly, but I don't know how relevant it is. I have this other issue, not autism related, that causes chronic fatigue, including, sometimes, cognitive fatigue. When I have those sort of moments, sometimes I lose the ability to talk comprehensibly or at all. And sometimes I momentarily can't talk because of extreme anxiety. But the rest of the time I'm fine. Between about age 10 (when I "recovered" from full selective mutism) and the time when I developed this other issue, I could talk almost all the time, although I had a few moments.

If the PDD-NOS dx had been around when I was a kid, I probably would have gotten that.

 

[Brigianna]

Quote:

Originally Posted by myjulybabes Hiya. Another suspected/self-diagnosed person here. Asperger's seems to suit me best, as I've never had any speech or language trouble--talked and read early, actually. It's just sensory and social. I was officially dx with ADHD in the mid-90s, but I think that may have been before the DSM criteria for ASCs changed, so I wouldn't have fit then, but I do now...does that make sense? NVLD has been suggested to me recently, but I'm still trying to puzzle out how exactly that's different from AS. If anyone's got good info on that, I'd be open to hearing it. Though it's far from official or definitive, any of those online quizzes for PDD and whatnot you can find, I'll score pretty high on. So I don't have the same past experiences of being "treated" for autism or any of that, but I can definitely relate to the posts here about not being able to make friends easily, loving message boards because you have time to think over your words and can find people who share your obsessions, etc. Oh, and my 5 yr old ds is on the spectrum. His official dx is just the blanket "ASD", because they thought he has tons of room for "improvment", whatever that means. I think Classic Autism would suit him though.

NVLD is an extremely vague term. In the most widely-accepted sense, it means difficulty with non-verbal problem solving and communication. There is an overlap between this kind of NVLD and ASCs. However, NVLD can, paradoxically, manifest itself in problems with verbal communication. So if you're good at reading and writing and speaking but have problems with visual-spacial skills, you could be NVLD, but if you're good at visual-spacial skills but have trouble communicating in words, that could also be NVLD. It's not quite a catch-all diagnosis, but it's close.

 

[Brigianna]

Has anyone read Women from Another Planet? That is my favorite ASC-themed book so far.

Quote:

Originally Posted by meowee I'd like to ask the other AS/ HFA mothers how they can do things cooperatively/ as a team with their kids? I find it unbearable to do anything with a partner/ on a team and this is a constant struggle for me... I want to do science experiments and cook with my kids but I'm on the verge of melting down every time I try. I've always been like this-- I can work either in complete isolation, or not at all.

I mostly do things alongside my kids (parallel play, if you will). That doesn't bother me as much as actual cooperative work.

 

[Brigianna]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nataliachick7 wow....ok...i am with you on the "formal diagnosis" thing. i cant believe i didnt think of those things. i also didnt realize that could be used as a pre existing condition. well now im kind of dissapointed. i was hoping after the appointment i could tell everyone the reason for my behavior all of my life is bc im apies though i have a feeling the doctor wont be too familiar with apergers anyway.

You can still tell people that even if you don't have diagnostic papers. Many adult Asperger autistics are self-diagnosed.

 

[Brigianna]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Individuation Do any of you homeschool an NT child? How does that work out?

I homeschool my mostly-NT 4 yr old son, but he also goes to play-based preschool 3 days a week because I can't keep up with his sociability. I don't know what I'm going to do when he gets too old for the preschool group, because I'm not putting him in school, but he'll be bored to tears at home with us all day. So this is still being worked out. And of course the babies, neurotype not yet known, are at home, as well as my Aspergic 7 yr old daughter. I'm really hoping to find something post-preschool, less than school, more than extracurricular activity to meet Eli's social needs next year.

 

[Brigianna]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mengmommy Are there things you just don't understand, no matter how hard you try? Politics is one thing I can't fully grasp (despite having taken college politics in high school and passing). Like I know the things I believe in, but the rest is just totally out of my realm of comprehension. Dh and my dad try and try and try to explain it to me, but I just : . I know that dh and I are pretty much identical on the stuff I understand, so I just vote what he votes and let him take care of the rest.

Code words, or buzzwords, or whatever you want to call them. I've gotten into so much trouble for using the wrong buzzwords, misunderstanding other people's buzzwords, not intuitively knowing that certain terms are, in fact, buzzwords... I can understand almost all politics except for the buzzwords part.

 

[Brigianna]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Individuation I scored 46... I want Brigianna to take it.

48.

As I was answering, ds2 came over and crawled into my lap, and I talked to him for a while, then went back to answering the questions where I thought I had left off. After I clicked through the rest of the questions, the screen still said I'd answered only 49 out of 50, so I scrolled up to find the question I'd missed--If there is an interruption, I can switch back to what I was doing very quickly. Maybe not.

 

[Brigianna]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Individuation You always win.

Only to impress you.

I'm not sure the questionnaire is all that meaningful; some of the statements' relationship to ASC or lack thereof seems dubious, but I won't dispute being 96% autistic, give or take a few traits...

 

[Brigianna]

While we're taking quizzes, I'm curious how the other ASC people score on the quiz in this thread...

 

[Brigianna]

I was a very "easy" child, by mainstream standards. My ASC daughter also happens to be my easiest. I have actually read that while autistic boys are likely to be hyperactive and "difficult," autistic girls are more likely to be quiet and withdrawn and obedient, and more likely to go unnoticed. This is one theory about why ASCs are more often diagnosed in boys than in girls.