Autistic Traits in a Neurotypical Person.

Don't know why your friend said OCD, that sounds like an ADHD hyper focus.

One could argue that many of us have some autistic traits, that is human nature we are all so different. What I struggle with is the constant need to put a label on everything where it is not warranted.

I know what you mean.

My son (27) is being assessed for this now. He is highly functioning, extremely clever, holds down a good job etc, but his therapist thinks he may show some traits. For eg. he get's overly invested in things, sucking up an insane amount of knowledge, and then will tell you all of this stuff, with facts and figures, even if it's of no interest to the normal person.

I myself have certain OCD traits, and have done since a child. I hide them all. Only my DH and DC are aware.

That is absolutely nonsense. I have tonnes of ASD in my family background as have a lot of others I know. I have traits but I don’t have ASD though. I know other people similar to me.

They do ADOS without parents though. Interested as to your role as normally it’s just assessors in there x2. Are you an assessor? How do they end having a multitude of assessments? The waiting list for autism diagnosis is very long, specific people do it. You’d be lucky to get one assessment, not a multitude.🤔

I've wondered this about my ds. He has sensory processing issues (food textures, loud noises, crowds) and dyspraxia (poor handwriting, poor hand eye co-ordination). He is 15. I have put him forward for a neurological assessment mainly to help him when/if he gets to university. But he doesn't have repetitive behaviours, has a very happy time in his drama group and is doing very well at school. He has friends at school but doesn't want to see them out of school. I think he probably just about meets the threshold for a diagnosis and discussing it with people who are on the spectrum, they say they were relieved to have a diagnosis so we're going to try to get an assessment and see what they say.

There is lots of variant within assessment. I have sat in and supported children through ASD assessments for nearly 20 years, both NHS and private. They differ hugely, different areas, different approaches, different systems around the assessor, different depending on whether the parents are there or not.

In addition some children, for long boring reasons, have a multitude of assessments by different practitioners with different outcomes, all contradicting each other.

But they don’t just use the questionnaire, there is other info too. Then when you get through to assessment the family history form is a lot more in depth and comes with a very long( 3 hour in my case) appointment in my case for my dc followed by the ADOS and 2 other very long appointments with my dc alone and supporting evidence from professionals working with them.

Would also like to add my dc and I all have ASC and ADHD NHS disgnosis with different professionals. We all present differently (and similarly) and all had ADOS done by different professionals. We have all got a diagnosis. There is no right or wrong way to ADOS imvho.

This is me, except the chatty and social part. I need to know and like you before I can be chatty. I dont like big crowds or loud noises.

I think the way the symptoms are expressed under stress can mask or expose ASD

I wonder whether If you marry the right person, land in the right job, have a fortunate set of circumstances or good systems for avoiding stressors, you might never meet the significant difficulty threshold.

My in laws are interesting - no diagnoses among them partly because no one recognised their own difficulties as they were normal in the family. Now SW are getting involved around the edges, due to MiL having a long hospital stay and the unusual presentation of visiting family. They broke usual protocol to speak to me because the visiting NoKs were neither asking for nor sharing any information.

The current theory is that its genetic, but its not known right now why that gene has that mutation within. Genes also dont account for all the instances and there is no genetic test for ASD (thats reliable)

And as on the other thread, people are mixing up genetic, with inherited.

Autism is genetic. People with family members who are autistic are most likely autistic themselves. They might not realise because the behaviours to them are what they are used to so think nothing is ‘wrong’. We also tend to gravitate to people like ourselves so asd or adhd will often end up marrying hence the children then having it.

But that is just screening. And they have positive and negative questions. You can game the questionnaire, but only if you know enough about ASD. The ADOS is very specific and the things they pick up on, I don't think you can game. For example, the assessors noted that my daughter used a particular word 3 times in her description of the picture story. It stuck out to them because it was unusual for her age and it was unusual in the context of the story. The assessment is that subtle. Things like eye contact, intonation, reciprocity of conversation, etc.

Yes, as I said on the other thread, we see this a lot with the children we work with in that it will be down to the assessor as to whether they felt that overall, despite only meeting threshold in 2 out of the 3 areas, it was indicative of ASD overall.

Different assessors work differently in that way.

I have a number of traits as do my husband and DC. Mumsnet would 100% diagnose my DC I'm sure of that. But I'm sure we're not autistic because whilst we are all introverts we don't struggle socially when we chose to socialise and we can read social cues. In fact I'm incredibly adept at reading people. I've seen it suggested on here that this in itself is a 'special interest' but I don't buy that. If you don't have struggles with socialising/relating to others/reading people then you are not autistic. I think there has been an awful lot of diagnostic creep in the last 10 years, and added the concept of masking means that it is a lot more subjective. I understand the concept of masking for adults (the Chris Packhams of the world). But that involves a lot of 'study' and effort on their part. I've yet to see good evidence that young children can truly mask key autistic traits. Yet every other parent I know are convinced their DC are ND and are masking at school (I don't exaggerate when I say that, it's become ridiculous). When I think of the autistic people I know, it's completely blomin obvious.

My DD's first diagnosis from the psychiatrist was 'clinically significant autistic traits'. She was re-tested by the same person a few years later and now has an ASD diagnosis. But I figured if that was her diagnosis from an autism specialist psychiatrist, then 'autistic traits' must be a thing. That said, I'm sure the term is way over used.

I think you definitely have traits. I do but I'm not sure whether I would qualify for requiring support although I do think I need some adjustments at work.

They must have misunderstood because of course its perfectly possible to have what are thought of as autistic traits but not reach the threshold for diagnosis.

When I had the interview for my children I gave many, many examples of situations when they had done something, or said something that fit the question. You can't just say 'oh yeah, they're like this...'

I was assessed for autism as a teen, as I have a trait. It was decided i wasn't, so I am neurotypical with an ASD trait. I do have a husband who was diagnosed at 4, so I'm familiar with ASD.

I think that must be true, op. My dd has been through an asd assessment recently and scored well over the threshold in 2 of the 3 areas. Conclusion is she might have asd but she might not (from camhs). I'm not sure either way and imagine time will tell but certainly she has clearly got some of the traits that ordinarily would make up a certain diagnosis.

JFC every day there is someone else who is trying to say they are ND with absolutely nothing to back up that, and minimising what those with ASD actually have to contend with daily and the assessment pathway people (esp kids) have to go through, just to be sure.
People need to give it a rest!