Will include some examples from early childhood and wonder if you see autistic traits, neurological dysfunction, something else or just semi-typical for a child of this age. If so, please explain why you think so.
AQ50: 26 points. All autism tests I have done are on the borderline side (you might have autism/share common traits as autism). The reason I score on the lower end is that I don't have the other typical traits as special interest, stimming, adhering to rules, notice patterns, collect information ... but more on the social side.
DSM-5 https://depts.washington.edu/dbpeds/Screening Tools/DSM-5(ASD.Guidelines)Feb2013.pdf I have done this professionally as an adult, and I just filled the 3 A criteria, which all have to do with socialize. To be considered autistic, you need 2 B criteria which has to do with sensory, rituals, stereotype movements, rigid thinking etc. I did have some in B2, so B2 was 50/50. But that would just make it 1 B criteria.
86% that have autism have motor difficulties. I'm quite a perfectionist in my motor skills, could easily been a pro footballer or tennis player. Everything just comes natural, I just hit the ball, and it lands on the perfect spot.
I'm not into cartoon avatars, dying my hair, or sub cultures.
I do consider myself quite normal, even since a kid, I did everything normal kids did, in the same way, intensity and in same joy, was never an outsider, on the contrary one that did normal things more than normal kids. No ADHD tendencies, very subtle and easy going, good listener, paying respect to people etc.
* No early typical signs of autism, like language deficiency, or playing in a ritual way. But socially, I think I always had a lack of direct eye contact. I always wanted to be with my parents or around adults, I enjoyed listening to their conversations, I enjoyed socializing being in their background. I developed really fast, language, stopped using diaper at 1 year, I had early awareness of the world around me.
* Since I can remember, very high tendency to feel in safe hands by my mom. I even remember being 1 year old, as it was so intensive, when my mom put my in the shopping trolley, if she went behind me, I turned and called mommy, mommy. She told me later around 3 years old, I was playing outside the flat, but every 10 minutes ran into the flat to check if she was at home, or checked her by the window. I never went to kindergarten, was looked after by grandma, so it took some weeks when I was 6 in pre-school to finally feel safe in that env. without my mom being there. But this followed me up until I was 13-14. Could be that I was in a different city with my parents, holiday etc. I just had to keep a very close eye on them. Could be that I never went to kindergarten, most children are trained out of this at 1 year, and surrounded by other children, so that could make them feel safe in the world.
* I was afraid of uncertain things like the sea, on holiday I saw the sea like something stronger than me that I couldn't control, I couldn't swim, so it took some time for my father to give me the confidence that he was next to me all the time, so that I couldn't drown. This eased up once I got the confidence, and fully eased up once I learned to swim later in school.
* I played normally with my toys, video games. I did play with my brother and always had friends outside school. With toys, lego I preferred doing it myself, as I loved the fictitious play world I built up in my head, and could entertain myself like that, which I find normal. I could both set up my own playing rules or imitate some cartoon or film and play according to that.
* In primary school I was always with one friend, two reasons, because we were both from the same country, and our host language skills were not the best. I think he is Asperger/autism ... he was very shy, never said anything, I was the one always talking, but I could only talk to him, I couldn't apply what I said to others, it didn't feel right, like they would find what I was saying strange, or don't understand my thinking patterns. I did have other friends too, but never spent extensive time with them at school. Not only that, but I was appreciated, children saw me as nice.
In primary school I had no problems, I was learning, I was good at maths when it came to our multiplication tests 9*8= 72 ... We did them on time, and I was always first to finish, I have a high process IQ, and excellent motor skills (Something unusual among autism. Great at ball sports.) But then I started to lack at maths when it became more advanced and when there were maths questions with stories, I had a hard time understanding what to do. I was terrible at crosswords, we did them sometime, and encoding information when the teacher was reading a fictional book.
Secondary school was more difficult, because your home lessons were that one needed to memorize what one was reading, and there I saw that I needed to read a page 13 times for me to memorize it. It was really strange, I had to cross the 12-14 times reading it for it to fully get into my head and stay there well for some days. Below this, it was like I didn't remember anything.
* First girlfriend I was 12. I did all those things in time or before many others considered NT. She was very cute, and from an educated family, smart. I couldn't connect with her socially, I think we never spoke. One day another girl which I could socially relate with more took me to her house to see her, because her leg was broken and to write something on her plaster, like my name and a heart. Once I got into their house, I was more intrigued by her brother's C64 PC, and was thinking to ask him if he wanted to exchange games. Once I came into her room, I think I was so shy that I only said hi, didn't ask any questions, and went after writing on her plaster. She dumped me a week later (obviously).
She lived close to me, so I could see her window, once I saw her there playing with another girl, I had binoculars and I started to spy on them, I was basically in love and wanted to see her, watch her. But it never crossed my mind, go over to her, you can be next to her (I feel so retarded now when I think about how I was in these situations.) The thing is I couldn't go over to her, because I would just freeze socially.
Once I was close calling her to come over to my house, so we could play Bingo (TV), something which was popular at that time, but hey it's nothing 12 year olds do. Luckily I never did, I would probably be laughed out. The thing is I didn't have the ability to make cognitive decisions, I relied on my gut feeling, did it feel ok or not?
* I wasn't intrigued by stereotyped use of objects, but I know I made those Bingo lotteries myself on a piece of paper, copying the actual thing, so that I could fictionally play it. It didn't happen often, but there were some occasions that I had this kind of behaviour, I see this as an autistic trait (it just didn't make sense). I remember when I was this age being a paperboy, I never spoke or asked the people that bought the newspaper from me anything. One resident had a sensor lamp, that didn't work, one day I pressed the sensor and the light came on, then every time I did the same thing, the man noticed that the lamp was on when I was there, but I didn't have the ability to explain how I got it on. He must have thought that I was weird. One day he saw me pressing the sensor, and I really felt ashamed. Then he told me, aha, this is how you have to do to make the light go on. I think I stopped after this.
I did have another girlfriend some months later, that went much better, I did socialize, but then I had days I just froze, and didn't have anything to ask or know what to do with her. So this time I ended it, saying that I'm a little shy, and too busy with my football. After this I learned to stay out of relationships, I figured it won't work, and I will feel embarrassed because I don't speak much, and they will wonder why I'm so quiet.
One thing I have noticed is that my dopamine levels when low make me even more introverted. I have to play an FPS game to raise it up, and it will stay up for some days before I need to do it again. When the levels are normal, I'm much more talkative and cognitive. I don't know if this is normal, or because I started playing games at a young age and the dopamine in the brain developed with this need, or if dopamine deficiency is associated with autism or neurological disorder.
I might sound like a total weirdo with these examples, but there are not that many of them, and I did function normally most of the time, I had my laughing moments with my mom, when she was reading stories to me, I even knew if she told the story differently and wrong, and noted that to her. Likewise, I did ask lots of questions both to my mom and dad about things around me, I wanted to learn.
This behaviour more or less eased up once I got 18+, but before that I couldn't control or understand why I was like that, or why I said things sometimes in an awkward way. I still do mistakes, but they are more subtle, and I have no issue of explaining myself if it's not too advanced thinking. Because sometimes I can say something, but when questioned why I think so, I do have a hard time explaining it.
AQ50: 26 points. All autism tests I have done are on the borderline side (you might have autism/share common traits as autism). The reason I score on the lower end is that I don't have the other typical traits as special interest, stimming, adhering to rules, notice patterns, collect information ... but more on the social side.
DSM-5 https://depts.washington.edu/dbpeds/Screening Tools/DSM-5(ASD.Guidelines)Feb2013.pdf I have done this professionally as an adult, and I just filled the 3 A criteria, which all have to do with socialize. To be considered autistic, you need 2 B criteria which has to do with sensory, rituals, stereotype movements, rigid thinking etc. I did have some in B2, so B2 was 50/50. But that would just make it 1 B criteria.
86% that have autism have motor difficulties. I'm quite a perfectionist in my motor skills, could easily been a pro footballer or tennis player. Everything just comes natural, I just hit the ball, and it lands on the perfect spot.
I'm not into cartoon avatars, dying my hair, or sub cultures.
I do consider myself quite normal, even since a kid, I did everything normal kids did, in the same way, intensity and in same joy, was never an outsider, on the contrary one that did normal things more than normal kids. No ADHD tendencies, very subtle and easy going, good listener, paying respect to people etc.
* No early typical signs of autism, like language deficiency, or playing in a ritual way. But socially, I think I always had a lack of direct eye contact. I always wanted to be with my parents or around adults, I enjoyed listening to their conversations, I enjoyed socializing being in their background. I developed really fast, language, stopped using diaper at 1 year, I had early awareness of the world around me.
* Since I can remember, very high tendency to feel in safe hands by my mom. I even remember being 1 year old, as it was so intensive, when my mom put my in the shopping trolley, if she went behind me, I turned and called mommy, mommy. She told me later around 3 years old, I was playing outside the flat, but every 10 minutes ran into the flat to check if she was at home, or checked her by the window. I never went to kindergarten, was looked after by grandma, so it took some weeks when I was 6 in pre-school to finally feel safe in that env. without my mom being there. But this followed me up until I was 13-14. Could be that I was in a different city with my parents, holiday etc. I just had to keep a very close eye on them. Could be that I never went to kindergarten, most children are trained out of this at 1 year, and surrounded by other children, so that could make them feel safe in the world.
* I was afraid of uncertain things like the sea, on holiday I saw the sea like something stronger than me that I couldn't control, I couldn't swim, so it took some time for my father to give me the confidence that he was next to me all the time, so that I couldn't drown. This eased up once I got the confidence, and fully eased up once I learned to swim later in school.
* I played normally with my toys, video games. I did play with my brother and always had friends outside school. With toys, lego I preferred doing it myself, as I loved the fictitious play world I built up in my head, and could entertain myself like that, which I find normal. I could both set up my own playing rules or imitate some cartoon or film and play according to that.
* In primary school I was always with one friend, two reasons, because we were both from the same country, and our host language skills were not the best. I think he is Asperger/autism ... he was very shy, never said anything, I was the one always talking, but I could only talk to him, I couldn't apply what I said to others, it didn't feel right, like they would find what I was saying strange, or don't understand my thinking patterns. I did have other friends too, but never spent extensive time with them at school. Not only that, but I was appreciated, children saw me as nice.
In primary school I had no problems, I was learning, I was good at maths when it came to our multiplication tests 9*8= 72 ... We did them on time, and I was always first to finish, I have a high process IQ, and excellent motor skills (Something unusual among autism. Great at ball sports.) But then I started to lack at maths when it became more advanced and when there were maths questions with stories, I had a hard time understanding what to do. I was terrible at crosswords, we did them sometime, and encoding information when the teacher was reading a fictional book.
Secondary school was more difficult, because your home lessons were that one needed to memorize what one was reading, and there I saw that I needed to read a page 13 times for me to memorize it. It was really strange, I had to cross the 12-14 times reading it for it to fully get into my head and stay there well for some days. Below this, it was like I didn't remember anything.
* First girlfriend I was 12. I did all those things in time or before many others considered NT. She was very cute, and from an educated family, smart. I couldn't connect with her socially, I think we never spoke. One day another girl which I could socially relate with more took me to her house to see her, because her leg was broken and to write something on her plaster, like my name and a heart. Once I got into their house, I was more intrigued by her brother's C64 PC, and was thinking to ask him if he wanted to exchange games. Once I came into her room, I think I was so shy that I only said hi, didn't ask any questions, and went after writing on her plaster. She dumped me a week later (obviously).
She lived close to me, so I could see her window, once I saw her there playing with another girl, I had binoculars and I started to spy on them, I was basically in love and wanted to see her, watch her. But it never crossed my mind, go over to her, you can be next to her (I feel so retarded now when I think about how I was in these situations.) The thing is I couldn't go over to her, because I would just freeze socially.
Once I was close calling her to come over to my house, so we could play Bingo (TV), something which was popular at that time, but hey it's nothing 12 year olds do. Luckily I never did, I would probably be laughed out. The thing is I didn't have the ability to make cognitive decisions, I relied on my gut feeling, did it feel ok or not?
* I wasn't intrigued by stereotyped use of objects, but I know I made those Bingo lotteries myself on a piece of paper, copying the actual thing, so that I could fictionally play it. It didn't happen often, but there were some occasions that I had this kind of behaviour, I see this as an autistic trait (it just didn't make sense). I remember when I was this age being a paperboy, I never spoke or asked the people that bought the newspaper from me anything. One resident had a sensor lamp, that didn't work, one day I pressed the sensor and the light came on, then every time I did the same thing, the man noticed that the lamp was on when I was there, but I didn't have the ability to explain how I got it on. He must have thought that I was weird. One day he saw me pressing the sensor, and I really felt ashamed. Then he told me, aha, this is how you have to do to make the light go on. I think I stopped after this.
I did have another girlfriend some months later, that went much better, I did socialize, but then I had days I just froze, and didn't have anything to ask or know what to do with her. So this time I ended it, saying that I'm a little shy, and too busy with my football. After this I learned to stay out of relationships, I figured it won't work, and I will feel embarrassed because I don't speak much, and they will wonder why I'm so quiet.
One thing I have noticed is that my dopamine levels when low make me even more introverted. I have to play an FPS game to raise it up, and it will stay up for some days before I need to do it again. When the levels are normal, I'm much more talkative and cognitive. I don't know if this is normal, or because I started playing games at a young age and the dopamine in the brain developed with this need, or if dopamine deficiency is associated with autism or neurological disorder.
I might sound like a total weirdo with these examples, but there are not that many of them, and I did function normally most of the time, I had my laughing moments with my mom, when she was reading stories to me, I even knew if she told the story differently and wrong, and noted that to her. Likewise, I did ask lots of questions both to my mom and dad about things around me, I wanted to learn.
This behaviour more or less eased up once I got 18+, but before that I couldn't control or understand why I was like that, or why I said things sometimes in an awkward way. I still do mistakes, but they are more subtle, and I have no issue of explaining myself if it's not too advanced thinking. Because sometimes I can say something, but when questioned why I think so, I do have a hard time explaining it.
