Aspies For Freedom

I don't think it's shocking, it's great! That's what happened to me, and I'm so glad, to finally know what's wrong (and right!) with me.
It'll put an end to a lot of misery, if all the mad eccentrics, will be understood, instead of ridiculed for a change.
Tony Attwood is such a hero, IMO. :grin:

Um, I think that statistic was for just AS, not the whole spectrum.

When you count in all the people with a few autistic traits, you will end up with a lot of people. I don't know where you would draw the line between a person with autistic traits and a person with clinical autism, either.

And that's only really four times more than what I originally heard.

I would be surprised if the rate of autism (when you count in all the supposedly more mildly affected people) is much lower than 10%.

I also think that females are generally underdiagnosed; perhaps because doctors are less likely to believe they have autism or because they present differently to males or have been diagnosed with mental disorders instead of autism.

I don't know that we Aspie adults really need a lot of government "services". Being high-functioning, we can hold down jobs and pay for our own social-skills training and such... Having those services available for people who, thanks to comorbids or severe AS, can't pay for them, is a good thing; but I don't think there will be a huge upswing in the amount of money the government spends on Aspies.

After all, before we were known to be Aspies, we were diagnosed with all sorts of things; and all those things had government services attached to them. What's more, a lot of Aspies, without treatment, without support, and being subjected to ridicule and abuse, have fallen into things like alcoholism, uncontrolled anger, depression, and personality disorders... With the knowledge that we are simply different, not defective, those things can be headed off before they even start.

I think that knowing that Asperger's exists is not going to result in a bigger expenditure for the government at all. Those of us who needed assistance before Asperger's became known, were probably getting it for some other problem--a false diagnosis or comorbid. And those of us who didn't need assistance, or paid for our own assistance, won't need government assistance after we found out about Asperger's.

All in all, AS adults are not going to be a problem for the government. What will be a problem are the children who used to be labeled "ADHD" or "oppositional-defiant" or "***"... will now be correctly labeled "Asperger's"; and their parents, scared by the thought of having an autistic child, will insist on huge amounts of government assistance, because, oh, no, you can't raise an Aspie child by just being consistent and loving and teaching what the kid needs to learn... you have to put the poor kid in ABA classes and therapy and whatnot, or he'll end up institutionalized!!!

(sigh.)

It's about time somebody got sense enough to look into the possibility of adult Aspies. I hate to say this but I knew it all the time.
And I'll bet half of the undiagnosed adult Aspies are drunks.
If this guy wants to find adult Aspies, an AA meeting would probably be a good place to start.

Is there a possibility.......
Please don't misunderstand me here--a lot of physiological differences and many disorders and diseases follow racial and ethnic lines. I  have been wondering if there is the same incidence of AS in all races. Or is it too early to tell?
Does anybody have any knowlege of this?

Callista, I might be working but I'm not on a high wage and so can't afford the sort of counselling that might help me. Plenty of others are in the same situation.

I don't need many services over and above what is already available, but know of other adult Aspies who need help with proper accommodation and supervision if they are to move out of their parent's places.

They are high enough functioning to have intermittent employment but cannot function entirely on their own.

Even somebody highly functioning like me can get into really bad scrapes when we run out of our medication or if things in our homes break because our impairments stop us from effectively asking for help. The situation can get really critical before someone else notices and does something.

Just to see what would happen, I just emailed Tony Attwood. If he responds, I will ask his permission to post the response here.  This is the largest part of my email:

I do not know how old the above statement is, but I have wondered why nobody has bothered to consider this possibility. I am aware of at least three generations of Aspies in my own family, dating back to 1918 and perhaps 1906, with a great uncle who was possibly AS, born in the 1870s.  Needless to add, in order to avoid familial discord, I have kept quiet about my suspicions.

My own searching has led to no other Aspies my own age (DOB 2-7-36); the closest in age being fifty-something.

In short, I seriously wonder if there really is a sudden Aspie population explosion as many people seem to believe, or if it is just that people are starting to notice us. There has never been a lack of geeks, nerds, or absent-minded professors, many of whom are alleged to be HFA or AS.

Including me, actually.

I'm assuming that most adult Aspies fall into two categories:
1. Those who need assistance. Many of these will already be receiving assistance, prior to diagnosis as AS, for some other disorder.
2. Those who don't need assistance--and will not need it after being diagnosed as AS, either.

I'm actually in the first category; I was diagnosed with depression and the government has paid for my psychologist's bills and for a total of fifteen days in the hospital. I've actually needed less assistance after my diagnosis than before--knowing about my AS pretty much helped stabilize my depression, which was on the way towards remission at the time.

I think that the category of Aspie adults the article seems to worry about--those who have not needed assistance before diagnosis, but somehow require it afterwards--is a very small category.

I hate the lack of an edit feature.

Forgot to sum up the info in my last post: Basically, what I mean is that there are a lot of adult Aspies; some need assistance, and some don't; but that they are finally being diagnosed won't appreciably change how much the government has to spend on them: Only the number of diagnosed Aspies, and not the amount they collectively need for assistance, has changed.

Wow. "Duh" information.