Anxiety Disorder Symptoms Wiki
Could I have Asperger’s Syndrome?
I am 20 years old and my grandmother suspects I have Asperger’s Syndrome. Also, I have been diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder.
Asperger’s symptoms: “Intense preoccupation with a narrow subject, one-sided verbosity, restricted prosody and intonation, and motor clumsiness…” -http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger’s_syndrome
I tend to feel apathetic to peoples feelings, though when I was in elementary school, I would get sad when other kids were crying. I dont really hug anyone and I get bored with most people trying to have a general conversation w/ me. I cant maintain eye contact. My speech is anything but eloquent – actually sloppy and I have a stutter (the silent pause kind).
I pay attention to details that don’t have significance in some subjects which effects me in school.
I am also not physically capable of some things. I’m pretty clumsy and have light tremors in my hands.
Is it possible I may be suffering from AS which effects social, school, and work life?
Dr. Tony Attwood, world reknowned specialist on Aspergers Syndrome recently shared at a conference that if he had given “defining the charecteristics of Aspergers for the DSM” as an assignment, he would have given it a failing grade. In other words — in his opinion as well as others, the DSM definition is inadequate and poorly formulated to say the least, so keep that in mind.
One of the most important thing to know about Aspergers is that if you have met one person with Aspergers, you have only met ONE person with Aspergers — in other words, each person has their own, individual and unique set of charecteristics and behaviors. This makes it quite difficult to diagnose when the person in question does not have some of the more blatent, classic, severe symptoms. Not every one with AS has sterotypical behavior and many people with AS can mask their symptoms in public, but under stress, or in private they loose control and allow AS symptoms to show.
Here are a couple of sites where you can evaluate yourself:
http://www.rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.php
http://myweb.usf.edu/~begeiger/as-symptoms.html
In many cases, people self-dx after learning about Aspergers Syndrome and reading extensively about it.
Not only is Aspergers a “spectrum” disorder, so some people with AS may have severe or very blatant symptoms while other may have mild ones, there is no formula/blood test or genetic marker that currently can be applied. Some researchers have used the term “polar-opposites” in terms of behaviors — so one individual may have a need to maintain rigid routines, while another may not. One person may be very strict about getting to appointments on time and the other may always be late. There are some excellent books on AS — here: http://tinyurl.com/3675u
Each individual with Aspergers Syndrome presents their own unique set of behaviors (as well as level of severity), it appears that there are a few variations on the definitions of what “qualifies” as AS.
Other than the official DSM which in many peoples’ opinion, is poorly formulated, here are a few links that might help you learn about how to recognize AS:
http://spectraquarterly.org/index.php/asd-symptom-list
http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/aspergerscaleAttwood.html
Dr. Tony Attwood decribes Aspergers using the analogy of a puzzle. At a recent conference he said that if you have about 80% of the pieces (including key corner and side pieces) you have AS, and most everyone in the general population has 10-20 pieces so many of us have some AS traits and some people fall in between
The puzzle example explains why one person with AS may stick rigidly to routines while another person with AS does not have a need for strict routines. I specifically asked Dr. Attwood if the absence of a typical AS behavior or symptom could or would rule out an Aspergers diagnosis and he emphatically stated that it wouldn’t. Aspergers is the dx when you have someone with many of the AS behaviors at a high rate of occurance and certain level of severity — but since there each person is unique, not everyone has the same set of traits. He also stated that there are exceptions to the rules….
Hope this helps!
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