Could a diagnosis of AS have been overlooked during my childhood?

[JC1986]

While growing up, my younger brother was diagnosed with Duchenne's muscular dystrophy, A genetic muscle wasting disease. This was back in 1994. We were close in age. He was in Kindergarten and I was in the first grade. I feel that my parents were so deeply involved with him to notice what was going on with me. My elementary school did not have me in counseling or therapy either. Looking back, I had and still have all of the classic AS symptoms. After doing a Biology undergrad with a psych minor and a neuroscience concentration, I am now a bit more aware of how different I actually am. I have felt different from NT's my entire life. I am now 27 and I sometimes wonder if my parents were too busy to get me diagnosed and sort of "missed it". Could this be possible?

 

[Arashi222]

Welcome to AC. Having my own degree in clinical social work, I suggest getting tested yourself in terms of just knowing for sure what is going on with you it might just be terrible anixety or other things relating to what has happened in your life or it could be ASD.. In reality it is possible they didn't notice, Its harder to tell ASD's in girls usually more on the higher functioning end. Do you have trouble with social skills, issues with friendships having issues keeping maintaining friendships of your own age group, do you get upset with disruption of your routine or have set OCD's that might take place. Do you have repetitive behaviors? Do you have sensitivities to things that most people don't to taste, sight, smell, touch? Do you know you are very different from others? There are a lot of things that go into having ASD. Maybe explore those thoughts. Maybe get tested for it now that you are older. Find someone who is experienced in Females with Autism because we do not tend to be like our male counterparts often...not always though.

 

[Kelly]

I can't really add more to what Arashi has already said as it was a great post, but have you tried some of the online tests to see what the outcome is? I started to suspect AS and did lots of the tests and then I signed up to forums to find out a bit more and it was like reading about myself when I read posts by others, finally I went for an assessment and got a diagnosis. For some people it's enough to be self-diagnosed, it helps them understand themselves and their life better but for others they need to know for definite.