• Welcome to Autism Forums, a friendly forum to discuss Aspergers Syndrome, Autism, High Functioning Autism and related conditions.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Private Member only forums for more serious discussions that you may wish to not have guests or search engines access to.
    • Your very own blog. Write about anything you like on your own individual blog.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon! Please also check us out @ https://www.twitter.com/aspiescentral

What does it mean to be autistic?

Granta_Omega

Well-Known Member
Yesterday, during my feedback session, my psychologist wasn't willing to say that I had autism, even though he was willing to say I have aspergers. He clearly implied that he hates the new DSM-5 standards, and that he wasn't going by them when doing his test. He did say that the criteria wasn't a test, but just a list. However, I had to question him for an hour, and ask if it was according to the criteria, it would be autism, and he eventually said yes, but wouldn't actually say it. He said that aspergers was a mild autism, but since there were no verbal communication delays, he ruled out autism, which seemed contradictory, because I thought Aspergers was a form of autism.

When people say someone is autistic, does that generally mean they just have classic autism, or does that term really apply to everyone with an autism spectrum disorder?

This seems like a weird question to ask, but it is kind of bothersome to me that he was not willing to say that my condition he diagnosed me with somehow was part of autism.
 
Heh.. that's funny. When I got diagnosed, they told me I didn't have the communication delay either and therefore I should be classified as an aspie.

However, because of Asperger's being merged into ASD it might be that some just look for autism in general.
 
The general public and some professionals use "autism" to mean classic autism. It is generally professionally accepted that Asperger's Syndrome is a subtype of autism, but not everyone agrees with this distinction and it is by no means conclusive; some accept that it is accurate, but find it clinically useful to distinguish the two.
 
See, here is where I have some trouble.

Whether classic autism or aspergers, there still is the triad of disorders with correlations. I didn't have too much trouble with imagination type of play, with some exceptions, but I had no difficulty with verbal communication. Even when looking at kids with classic autism, I still see some correlations, which is why I don't really see why they have to distinguish a different name instead of just a different level of support needed as the DSM-5 specifies.
 
Yesterday, during my feedback session, my psychologist wasn't willing to say that I had autism, even though he was willing to say I have aspergers. He clearly implied that he hates the new DSM-5 standards, and that he wasn't going by them when doing his test. He did say that the criteria wasn't a test, but just a list. However, I had to question him for an hour, and ask if it was according to the criteria, it would be autism, and he eventually said yes, but wouldn't actually say it. He said that aspergers was a mild autism, but since there were no verbal communication delays, he ruled out autism, which seemed contradictory, because I thought Aspergers was a form of autism.

When people say someone is autistic, does that generally mean they just have classic autism, or does that term really apply to everyone with an autism spectrum disorder?

This seems like a weird question to ask, but it is kind of bothersome to me that he was not willing to say that my condition he diagnosed me with somehow was part of autism.

Could it be that the therapist did not know either?

Autism is a very complicated condition and I think that there is no one out there that can really know all specifics about it.

I have a lot of Aspie traits and a lot of general autistic traits. I also have traits of many other unrelated conditions and abilities.
 

New Threads

Top Bottom