<p>With all this talk about Asperger's Syndrome, I looked it up and found that is surprisingly sounds like me...
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Engaging in one-sided, long-winded conversations, without noticing if the listener is listening or trying to change the subject <em>Check, but I can tell if they are not interested.
Displaying unusual nonverbal communication, such as lack of eye contact, few facial expressions, or awkward body postures and gestures </em>I have to force myself to keep eye contact, but in normal situations, I only occasionally make eye contact... Only to people I care about.
Showing an intense obsession with one or two specific, narrow subjects, such as baseball statistics, train schedules, weather or snakes <em>I have been programming since I was 11, I just finished doing 4 problems in CS...
Appearing not to understand, empathize with or be sensitive to others' feelings** I notice a lot of things about the person, but I usually have no empathy. I am almost heartless...*
Having a hard time "reading" other people or understanding humor </em>Takes a while for me to "get" the spur of the moment verbal humor or sarcasm. However, I am able to get visual or grammatical puns rather quickly.
Speaking in a voice that is monotonous, rigid or unusually fast <em>I am very monotone and "rigid". A running joke with friends is whether or not I am truly human or just a robot...
Moving clumsily, with poor coordination </em>Very clumsy. Can't catch a ball 30% of the time...
[/quote]
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<p>So where can I get this checked out and diagnosed? I mean it isn't some kind of disorder that you can diagnose in a controlled environment... It is a everyday situation.</p>
<p>First off, Aspergers is not uncommon in bright kids, esp those in the STEM fields.</p>
<p>Second, why are you interested in being ‘diagnosed?’ Think about what difference it would make to your life if you are indeed an Aspie and if you are diagnosed? BTW, it’s not a yes or no but rather a gradation so subject to interpretation. Many people with Aspergers, esp those with mild cases, are never ‘diagnosed’ and get by in their life just fine. If you are happy with your life, have friends, and do what you want to do (academically and socially), then how would this change your life? My son likely has a ‘touch of Aspie’ but we have never felt the need to investigate it further other than to note his quirks.</p>
<p>If you did want to look into it more, an evaluation with a neuropsychologist would likely be in order.</p>
<p>You are in college, correct? The place to start is your school’s counseling center. They have professionals who can help you. If you have issues with social interaction, they can help you learn ways to cope. What matters is that you recognize that you may need to figure out better ways to interact with others … whether you are truly on the autism spectrum or just Sheldon Cooper in the flesh (although who knows - maybe he would be diagnosed with Asperger’s IRL).</p>
<p>My SIL was diagnosed with ADD in her 40’s. The diagnosis & subsequent counseling helped her tremendously.</p>
<p>Agree with the check the school’s counseling center it’s always better earlier than never when it comes to these conditions. Social interaction is so important in college and beyond.</p>
<p>To share, I ran around smashing my GPA and friends to small bits with my bipolar for a bit before I finally got it diagnosed and treated after getting scarily near academic probation.</p>
<p>It is great you are looking into this, because it is so much better having the information, and finding out how to cope with other people. There are little things you can learn that will help you be more comfortable around others, and others more comfortable around you. Many brilliant people have Aspergers, and function very well.</p>
<p>But also consider that some of those things may be totally unrelated. Have you taken the Myers-Briggs personality test? I thought maybe one of my kids was low on the spectrum Aspergers, and he decided it was more likely that he had the INTJ personality type.</p>
<p>David, they standards for diagnosis of Autism & Aspergers are being rewritten for the DSM V, and at this point it looks like they will do away with the “Aspergers” category and instead go for a diagnostic criteria based on severity of symptoms. </p>
<p>That is because just about everything you might read on a list of Asperger’s traits could also be a normal personality trait – the question isn’t whether a person has qualities A, B, and C, it is how persistent and severe those qualities are and whether they impact the person’s ability to function.</p>
<p>Notice part D of the new criteria: " Symptoms together limit and impair everyday functioning."</p>
<p>Also notice the chart for “severity”.</p>
<p>The point isn’t really what label can be attached to your personality traits, it is: do you need help? If you do feel you need help, then as a young adult the best route would be through some sort of counseling, to work on the areas where you feel you need help. </p>
<p>I think that the motivation behind the new DSM V criteria is partly because there has been a trend toward too much labeling, and it really doesn’t help anyone when normal variations in personality are pathologized. That is, it doesn’t help a person who is a little bit quirky to be seen as having some sort of “disorder” - and it doesn’t help the people who really do need a support when the severity of their condition is trivialized when they are lumped together under the same label as individuals who function well without support.</p>
<p>There are degrees of severity of every medical disorder defined by some sort of scale. A blood pressure of 200/100 is bad but not as bad as 250/130… This doesn’t mean that the mild end isn’t a problem… </p>
<p>As such there are some people who are diagnosed with Asperger syndrome who are milder than others. People with Asperger syndrome exhibit the characteristics they do for a reason. Having a specific diagnosis helps them to understand why they behave as they do…They are not ‘relatively lacking in empathy’ for the same reason a person with sociopathy is… for example. </p>
<p>It is the understanding of the why which makes diagnosis important for many. The why tells you how you can anticipate challenge, how you can learn to cope… not the what. </p>
<p>I am very mindful of the over-attribution of Asperger Syndrome, ADHD and even mild Autism in the patient population I work in. But, I am also mindful of the huge relief it is when someone who has been appropriately diagnosed develops a meaningful understanding of why they think and behave the way they do. It is very powerful. I agree, overdiagnosis is a big issue for the population where impact is severe… </p>
<p>The new DSM V categorization is evidently being fought- one last time- by the APA membership- who are also looking at other DSM V changes. </p>
<p>I listened to the members of the committee describe the key reasons why they are doing away with Asperger syndrome at a conference last year. The bottom line explanation was because an assessment tool that is used to diagnose Autism- the ADOS, does not give different results for kids who get Asperger diagnoses and kids who get High Functioning Autism diagnoses. Therefore, the rationale that they are not really different diagnoses!! This was really what it came down to. If this is the case, it is very disappointing. A diagnosis is not made by a test alone. There are probably many good reasons to do away with the Asperger diagnosis, but that is the worst one I can imagine… Just because we do not have a sensitive enough test to differentiate it clinically at the moment, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist as a unique entity. The old criterion have a severity requirement as well… That is nothing new. The symptoms need to impact your daily living. On top of the mess they are creating, they are adding a new category ‘social communicative disorder’ under the speech/language disorder diagnoses. This will become the new ‘diagnosis of the moment’ for quirky kids… they are just being shifted from one place to another, as far as I can tell… </p>
<p>To the original poster, you can start with your school mental health service, but don’t stop there unless you run into someone who can do a good neuropsychological assessment…</p>
<p>That makes sense. I do wonder though, how far an individual in his situation should go to get a “good” evaluation. If he persues a neuropsych assessment, but finds the assessment is not covered ( lets say because it does not meet criteria for medical nesccesity), how to proceed? Is it only worth it if it’s covered, or is it worth HIS out of pocket payment of a few thousand dollars? Why or why not?</p>
<p>It can be pretty hard to get a diagnosis however, my daughter was part of a different study at a research facility at UW-Seattle, and I mentioned her anosmia, her lack of pain response ( as evidenced by her pulling strips of skin from her feet) & other evidence of tactile dysfunction, asking if she might be on the spectrum but they told me since she looked at them when they spoke to her, it wasn’t autism.</p>
<p>They seemed to place all her various behaviors under " quirky". Big. Help.</p>
<p>In my area, services for “spectrum” disorders are primarily though our regional center, and based on severity. You have to funtion in the MR range to get them, and of coure there is a finite amount of services.</p>
<p>“Ouch!! I’m INTJ, know a lot of / work with a lot of INTJ’s, and we’re definitely not Asperger’s!”</p>
<p>“Another INTJ here who thinks there is a world of difference…”</p>
<p>I didn’t say they were the same thing. I just said that we thought my son was low on the spectrum Aspergers, and he decided he was INTJ instead. I read about it, and with his particular personality qualities, it could go either way. Maybe both. Most people would probably just say “introverted” or “quirky”, but it is hard to categorize people in only one way. It is not always obvious.</p>
<p>When you consider the information below about INTJ personalities, you could see how it might be hard to decide between low spectrum Aspergers or INTJ:</p>
<p>"Personal relationships, particularly romantic ones, can be the INTJ’s Achilles heel. While they are capable of caring deeply for others (usually a select few), and are willing to spend a great deal of time and effort on a relationship, the knowledge and self-confidence that make them so successful in other areas can suddenly abandon or mislead them in interpersonal situations.</p>
<p>This happens in part because many INTJs do not readily grasp the social rituals; for instance, they tend to have little patience and less understanding of such things as small talk and flirtation (which most types consider half the fun of a relationship). To complicate matters, INTJs are usually extremely private people, and can often be naturally impassive as well, which makes them easy to misread and misunderstand. Perhaps the most fundamental problem, however, is that INTJs really want people to make sense. This sometimes results in a peculiar naivete’, paralleling that of many Fs – only instead of expecting inexhaustible affection and empathy from a romantic relationship, the INTJ will expect inexhaustible reasonability and directness."</p>
<p>Yeah, I get that; but I think it’s not that INTJ’s don’t understand social rituals, they just don’t value them, which is an important difference. In other words, any INTJ can certainly engage quite socially with people and even be the life of the party when needed – when they want to, and with ample recovery time built in at the back end. That’s different from not understanding at all why it’s important to greet people and engage in small talk.</p>
<p>There you go. Sounds more like you’re just lacking confidence and need more experience interacting with people. </p>
<p>My understanding is that, depending on the level of severity, people with Asperger’s genuinely have a hard time understanding and relating to the emotions of other people. They don’t make eye contact not because they’re shy around strangers, which seems more to be the case with you, but rather because they don’t intuitively perceive the function of doing so.</p>
<p>The thing with psychology is that it is rather ambiguous IMHO. I have identified myself as an INTJ for years, but being an INTJ myself, I question. What if Asperger’s is identifying INTJ as a disorder? I mean human psychology is not a strict science (not trying to be offensive). Everyone is slightly different and, therefore, are not repeatable events.</p>
<p>People that don’t have extensive PERSONAL experience with adult autism should probably not be posting on this thread, at all, even a little bit. I got my autism diagnosis, which was THE BEST THING that has ever happened to me, because someone on this site thankfully KNOWLEDGEABLE said the right things to me when I PMed them to ask about asperger’s. You have the power to change the course of someone’s life forever when you respond to these kinds of queries. Think very hard about whether you are prepared for that responsibility before you open your mouth with your opinion. Having autism and not having the knowledge to combat it, even if you are high functioning enough to pass for neurotypical, can RUIN your life. Don’t encourage someone to take that risk unless you know what you are talking about.</p>
<p>OP: I was diagnosed with high-functioning autism/asperger’s when I was a junior in college, which was almost two years ago now. If you think you might have it, I would recommend you consider getting tested. Do weigh the pros and cons of doing so, the knowledge of whether you have it will change your life permanently-- positively or negatively depends on you. If you would like advice about how to go about getting tested, resources about autism spectrum disorders, or someone to talk to who’s been where you are to help you decide-- you may PM me. I can’t read this thread from start to finish without getting angry, so I won’t be able to contribute to this discussion beyond that.</p>
<p>Holy mother of God, you guys are actually setting stock by the Meyers-Briggs tests? That test is about as scientifically based as palmistry. It’s entirely self-affirmed, and if you’ve ever read the different “types” (a ridiculous concept anyway) then you will probably find that more than one type could apply to you. I’m like, mortally offended that you would take the test seriously.</p>
<p>David,
It seems that you are trying to find an excuse for your social awkwardness. As a fellow INTJ who suffered for years with stuttering, monotone, lack of eye contact, all of the traits of a person to avoid at a party, I am going to give you the one piece of wisdom I wish I had at your age - personality is a tendency, not an immutable law of nature. You can change your behavior and it will change how others perceive you.</p>
<p>People learn a lot by mimicry. Find someone that is seen as interesting; notice their eye contact, the way they smile at everyone, the energy when they interact, the amount of inflection and the loudness of their voice. Remember it and copy it. Fake their confidence. Video yourself and see how you are doing. Practice making small talk with strangers and telling stories to groups of people. Gauge the reactions, and excuse yourself if you see any of the signs they are losing interest.</p>
<p>Human interaction is a dance of give and take, one that people naturally crave. You are a smart guy - learn the dance. ENTJ is often the personality type of the most charming and the best conversationalists, and you already have most of what you need.</p>
This sometimes results in a peculiar naivete’, paralleling that of many Fs – only instead of expecting inexhaustible affection and empathy from a romantic relationship, the INTJ will expect inexhaustible reasonability and directness."</p>