When it comes to diagnosis of certain diseases you either have it or not.

For example, you are either HIV positive or HIV negative, you either have a hepatitis or you don't have it, etc.

However, when it comes to autism and Asperger's I'd rather say that there aren't any kinds of specific syndromes or diagnoses, but just a spectrum that engulfs entire human population. Like an IQ, there is also AQ.

So everyone in the world has some AQ.

I think that establishing a threshold AQ after which the person is automatically an Aspie is artificial.

Quote from Wikipedia:

So, 32 is taken as this threshold level.
Or some criteria from DSM.

Why would one with AQ 31 be an NT and one with AQ of 33 an Aspie?

Aren't they just two human beings with pretty simmilar extent of autistic traits?

Also, if one just falls a little short of fullfiling DSM criteria for AS, he is automatically an NT, and the one who barely satisfies the criteria is automatically an Aspie.

I would say, not. I think they are both just two human beings with pretty simmilar levels of autistic traits.

I think that diagnosis is wrong in all cases except LFA, because this separates normal healthy people in two camps, NTs and Aspies.

Why labeling?
Why diagnosis?

If they are both high functioning normal adults, why diagnosis at all?

Why would anyone want to base one's IDENTITY on some kind of diagnosis?

That would be the same as if one based ones identity on being intelligent or being extroverted or being introverted etc. Very little people do this.

I want to base my identity on things such as: my political views, my religious views, my occupation, my family, my nation, my attitude to various social issues, my tastes in music, film, literature, my hobbies etc, and not on some kind of funny diagnosis.


Wheter my AQ is 31 or 33, I will not claim: Hey! I am an NT! Or Hey, I'm an Aspie!

No, I will still say, that I am a liberal Christian, that I love Rock n' Roll and classical music, that I am a Serb from Bosnia, that I root for Red Star, Belgrade, that one of my favorite bands is Guns n' Roses, that I like riding bicycle and rollerblading, that I love my friends, that I am anti abortion, and anti death penalty, etc, etc, etc...

These are the things that constitute my identity, and not my AQ, nor my IQ nor my personality classification according to Jung, etc.

Are you saying that Asperger's Syndrome is a disease?

Are you implying that Aspies can be cured?

Or are you really just denying that A.S. exists in the first place.

Please make your point clear, and in a more concise manner.

You sound like me a few years ago, Yoz. Yes, it does exist, and while diagnosis can be unreliable and 'symptoms' variable, that doesn't mean there isn't some basic fundamental stuff you have in common with every other autistic that you've built your personality on top of.

Flawed argument from the first sentence.

As pointed out, and as I have stated to you in another thread;

Autism is not a disease. For it to be a disease requires there to be a pathogen, for it to be transmittable.

Autism is a genetically transferred neurological variance; there is simply nothing to cure.

This post was last modified: 09-27-2010 12:17 AM by ῦ.

It's called "Begging the Question" - a type of logical fallacy in which the proposition to be proved is assumed implicitly or explicitly in the premise, and is used most often by those who rely on the ignorance of their audiences to advance a hidden agenda.

Although it this case, the OP's agenda is not so hidden.

@Yozla: We are Aspies, not ignorant children!  Nor are we diseased.  Many of us are educated and have successful, long-term careers.  Thus of us who are stand ready to challenge and expose curebies for their bigoted and narrow-minded definitions of how people "should" behave, and for their obsession with altering our minds and personalities to fit their concept of an "Ideal" human.

Yep. Autism, and many other disorders, are variations of the norm--exaggerations of a typical trait, different functioning of the same thing, skills that NTs have, but at different levels...

To answer your question, the diagnostic threshold is at "significant impairment." Whatever your "AQ" is, whether it's high or low or whatever range it is in, doesn't really matter that much. If you fit the criteria for Asperger's, AND you have significant impairment, then you can be diagnosed. If you don't have that significant impairment, then you can't be diagnosed no matter how many autistic traits you have.

Now, this is the medical diagnosis. There's also a cultural and neurological concept of "autistic" which doesn't have to do with impairment; but more to do with neurology. People who are neurologically autistic have a style of thinking, learning, and perceiving the world that overlaps with the autistic traits found in diagnosed autistic people; they may or may not be diagnosable (though most are). In this group are the "broader autism phenotype", neurologically autistic people without significant impairment. The BAP is found in family members of autistics and in the general population and theorized to be the result of having a few genes for autism, but not enough for diagnosis. Neurologically autistic people may also have a "lost diagnosis", which is what happens when a person has been diagnosed with autism, but gains enough coping skills to no longer meet the significant-impairment criterion.

Culturally autistic people are those who identify with autism as part of their identity or part of a group they belong to, more than they belong to the "typical" (NT) group. They may be in the diagnosable autistic, BAP, or lost-diagnosis groups. There are also a few people who are not quite any of those, but who call themselves Spectrum cousins because they have related disorders such as social anxiety disorder, ADHD, schizoid or schizotypal personality, repetitive movement disorder, an eccentric personality, gifted or mental retardation, Tourette's, etc. and have so much in common with autistics that they identify with autistics, though they are technically not autistic. A few people who are in love with an autistic person, or raising an autistic child, also identify more with autistics than NTs.

So yeah... what "autistic" means, what "Asperger's" means... well, depends on what context you're asking in, doesn't it?

Each and every diagnosis is completely different, what your doing is a common trait that Aspies/Autistics are doing all the time! Its called perseverating. your so fixed on this idea of an "alternative" cure.
That you can't think of anything else.

Its like the wee man that can't stop talking about trains, or when I couldn't stop talking about a Japanimation called Pocket Monsters. Just stop perseverating on these subjects your posting.

it definitely exists but yes the boundaries and the definition are confusing.

There are many autoimmune diseases that are neither transmittable nor they involve any pathogen. If autism causes significant problems to a person it is a disease, if not, it is not.
If you don't like the term disease, you can use the term disorder, but the essence is pretty much the same.

what about when it causes problems for some and not others? i'm not saying that is my belief btw. also not really sure why you're here if you think that way.

Oh god.....

I think that I am probably some sort of "autistic cousin" (even though no one in my family had autism).

I have some traits but probably not enough for a diagnoses.

I am quite weird, but my weirdness I don't find very desirable UNLESS I really think it is interesting or cool for some reasons. That's why I appreciate and respect some of my eccentricities and quirks, while I pretty much hate others.

For those who are affected in a way that causes them significant problems, it is a disease or disorder,
for others it is just a difference, not any kind of disease.

One of the methods that trolls employ for stirring up trouble is to redefine terms to their advantage.  Thus, to a Curebie-Troll, Asperger's Syndrome is a "disease", an ongoing mitigative treatment is a "cure", and people who like who being who they are have "cognitive dissonance".