Do you have High-Functioning Asperger's Syndrome?

I come in at 22 on the Wired test.

I have a weird story about me and living with people-- I've never heard of anything else like it, but this crowd is as likely a place as any to see if someone else has experienced or heard of something similar.

Up into adulthood, I was moderately bad at social interaction, and also not interested in "that boring people stuff". When Asperger's came on the public radar, I wondered if I had it (I'm 57-- if I'd been born later, there might have been an effort at diagnosis and treatment, but as it was, I was simply the sort of person who deserved to be bullied), but the emotional tone for people with Asperger's seemed to be that they tried to be social, couldn't make it work, and were sad about it. I was angry, and I hadn't tried especially hard, either. I was inclined to think I had a combination of being naturally somewhat socially inept and having grown up in an emotionally abusive family.

Anyway, sometime in my 30s (I don't have the autistic thing about dates), I was at an Alexander Technique workshop led by Tommy Thompson who has a background in meditation, and he had the class pair off and pay attention to each other for what was probably one or two minutes. That was when I found out that I'd had a lifelong pattern of my attention skidding away quickly whenever I was faced with a human being, and it didn't have to be like that.

It didn't feel as though I was learning not to have a bad habit, it felt like a developmental stage I'd missed. Being able to notice and pay attention to people as having long term patterns was an instant and permanent change for me, including that I came into much better focus for myself and that I was more interested in fictional characters.

I overestimated how complete the change was, and therapy at that time probably would have been a very good idea, but I've gradually become more social-- to the point where I can actually enjoy (reasonably intelligent) mundane conversation for an hour or two at a time, though I do start to get lack-of-abstraction claustrophobia after a while. I'm going to see if there's some way to get people out of the highly concrete chitchat vortex. (I recently spent a couple of hours with computer word game social group, and only found out afterwards that one of them was pacifist lawyer who works with conscientious objectors and is very glad to talk about it-- would have been much more interesting that the conversation I was in.)

Aside from my particular story, I'm beginning to wonder if a lot of what seems like innate incompetence (being bad at math for example) is that sort of correctable attentional skid.

Good post. I'm not sure how much advantage one would get out of identifying one's autism, but it's probably good to know either way.

I think the most glaring atypical-for-people-with-Asperger's trait among the Less Wrong and especially SIAI community is the lack of an "all-absorbing narrow interest"; I and many others had such traits as children, but these days a lot of what I see among SIAI Visiting Fellows and my vague impression of folks here on Less Wrong are academic generalists, or even true renaissance man generalists.

I'm not sure if it's atypical that I built up my generalist nature via obsessively practicing skills for 6 months to 2 years at a time and then moving on. I spent a year constantly playing basketball, then 2 solid years on guitar and music theory, then 6 months learning social skills, then 2-month spurts of studying chess, then 6 months devouring the Sequences and cognitive psychology studies, et cetera, until it came to be that I have a solid base for doing whatever it is I may want to do. (Of course, I dropped out of high school in the process, but I feel it was probably worth it.) Do others have similar experiences?

I came to the conclusion that I have autistic tendencies a long time ago - lack of understanding of social cues, constant pattern recognition, stuttering, habitual actions... Given the high autism rates in Silicon Valley, it seems likely to me that there is indeed a genetic component, and "high-functioning" autistics have a heterozygous genotype. (Although I don't think it's yet ruled out that it could be caused by some type of improper socialization.)

However, I seem to have an uncommon level of ability to self-modify (from my discussions with other people, including rationalists), and since discovering rationality I've been attempting to ruthlessly optimize various aspects of myself. For my most recent example, because I didn't understand social cues I took a PUA seminar and within days I could successfully approach and charm people in bars and clubs, a world that I always thought would be inaccessible to me. It turns out I was just unconsciously sending low-status signals, because I never paid any attention to what myself or others were doing.

This also helps me deal with the symptoms as well. I have habitual actions, but I don't allow myself to be disturbed if they are interrupted. (In fact, I think settling too quickly into habits means we don't explore the possibility space thoroughly enough, so I consciously try to break up my routines and find new ways of doing things.) I have narrow interests, but I rotate between different things, in a type of serial immersion. I can even use conscious control over my mouth, tongue and throat to relax my muscles and effectively stop my stuttering.

For what it's worth I scored a 22. I predict that number will be lower in the future.

I've read quite a bit of (non-technical) writing about autism -- partly because I thought I fit some of the superficial criteria. But I came to the conclusion that the popular narrative is a bit silly.

Autism is a sensory processing thing. I've never heard of an autistic person without some non-standard sensory stuff. A lot of us may be better at logical thinking than socializing, for various reasons (including habit and preference!) but we mostly deal with sensory stimuli in a perfectly conventional way. I don't get overwhelmed by the sights and sounds of a supermarket. I don't have a visual imagination. I don't find particular textures/tastes/sounds intolerable. I don't get any special zing from stimulation (pen clicking, reflective objects, etc.) These are pretty typical self-described traits of actual autistics, from what I've read from blogs and memoirs. And I don't have a single one of them. Sure, I'm a (mild) introvert, and I'm interested in academic and technical subjects, but I suspect that has absolutely nothing to do with autism.

The empathizing/systematizing brain-types stuff is really odd to me. Empathy and social skills are on one side; detail-oriented thinking and technical or abstract interests are on the other. Why should those things necessarily be on a linear spectrum? What about gregarious tech wizards? What about empathetic but socially awkward people? I don't know on what basis you project all these traits onto one dimension. Add in Baron-Cohen's shaky speculations about gender and you get something that just doesn't seem to hold up.

A relevant comment from a few years ago (on _Lonely Dissent_):

What takes real courage is braving the outright incomprehension of the people around you,

I suspect that autistics are far more willing than neurotypicals to be true iconoclast because many neurotypicals find autistics incomprehensible regardless of what the autistics believe. So the price of being an intellectual iconoclast is lower for autistics than for most other people.

Sounds plausible on the surface, but if the reasoning is "An autistic person will suffer about the same social cost whether or not they are perceived as an intellectual iconoclast, so if they are inclined to be an intellectual iconoclast, they will realize that they may as well allow themselves to do so", then there might be a problem: the real reason might just be that they don't process social costs as well (if at all) in the first place. But then this hypothesis might work if we adjust it to account for that: "An autistic person will be less likely to realize or care about the potential social cost of being perceived as an intellectual iconoclast, so if they are inclined to be an intellectual iconoclast, they will see little reason not to allow themselves to do so". Any thoughts on this?

If your childhood involved... getting... picked last for sports team

I got picked last for sports teams because the other kids were better at sports than me.

Your poll doesn't let responders get out of answering the second question if they haven't been diagnosed. Anyway, I scored a 27 but I'm pretty sure the fact that I have ADHD and some anxiety issues distorts my score.

(Edit: Apparently the DSM prohibits co-diagnosis of an ASD and ADHD which is really interesting. More and more I think a lot of psychological disorders are just random clusters of atypical neurological traits and not organized in any scientifically justifiable way)

Oh, and my approach to normative ethics is basically the opposite of the systematized, axiom-based approach of traditional normative ethics as exemplified by utilitarianism and strong deontology.

I've not been diagnosed but I suspect that I fall in some where under the umbrella spectrum. Our oldest son has infantile Autism, there's something "odd" about our middle son and he's definitely nerdy but he's in a regular class in a regular school, our youngest son has ADHD. All of them score very high on some areas of IQ tests designed for their age group and have a high average score on these tests. The oldest and the youngest had their tests adjusted for their suspected disabilities (weren't diagnosed at time of testing).

My husband and I are "odd" and nerdy. When the psychologist needed to ask additional questions reg. family history and about ourselves, I couldn't resist correcting her spelling error or wrong use of terms and words (pedantic) and when she asked my husband about his field of work, he endeavored on a half hour long monologue until I kicked his ankle. In both cases, we were embarrassed by the other one's behavior, but we couldn't individually see that our own behavior was inappropriate.

We are strange and difficult to get along with according to even our closest relatives and much has been made of my asocial nature all of my life. I scored 35 on the AQ test. I've never formally had my IQ tested but the less math, the higher the score. Lots of math questions; score as low as 67-72, only pattern and spatial; score average 96- 101, mainly language and problem solving situation questions not involving math; 166-172.

My husband and I both excelled in academics from an early age. He studied in a supportive environment, has a good education and a successful career. I didn't, couldn't understand what my problem was in life, tried to flea...whatever, so now I have an 8th grade language comprehension in my first language and around a 12th grade(some college) comprehension in English. My verbal communication skills are truly terrible in any language! My grammar is often backward or just "odd" (I know, I've made repetitive use of that word and possibly used it incorrectly) and in chit-chat situations or social use of language, my vocabulary can appear limited and my social behavior can appear aggressive and awkward (I fill too much in a room or blend in with the wallpaper). Given time/shown patience or being allowed to communicate in writing either improves my ability to communicate or perhaps it just gives others something more tangible to aid them in understand me?!

On a scale of ordinary success criteria, I'm a complete failure! I recognize many aspects of my oldest son's infantile autism and ADHD in myself, though I don't squirm in a seat, don't get in to fights but I do "suffer" from hyper speech. It's like imagining my brain is a bottle turned upside down. My thoughts, information and process all have the space they need in my brain, but my brain can't figure out what to "pour" out first and in which order so either everything gets stuck or EVERYTHING pours out in one massive splash and nothing makes sense to anyone else and even I lose track once it's out of my mouth or when it comes to executing plans.

I'm very good at solving other people's problems though:-)

My own take is similar to that of Simon Baron-Cohen: that ....

I got really really confused for a moment. But no, totally different person:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacha_Baron_Cohen

A few comments that might not be too popular.

1. It occurs to me that people with an impaired social awareness and capabilities are less likely to be aware of their impairment, much like the Anosognosic’s Dilemma. As the Wired survey is a self-diagnosis, I would not place too much confidence in its scores, at least as conventionally interpreted. High scores might suggest a high degree of self-awareness that there is a problem (which is good!)

2. I also wonder if 'AS' is some innate and unchangeable characteristic of a person, beyond his ability to control, or if it is more like a learned behavior shaped by experience. This whole 'diagnosis' mentality suggests AS is a medical condition, but if it is not, then we are not helping those who might be able to change, and instead encouraging them to see it as a natural and permanent characteristic of themselves.

From the popular literature on the subject, in terms of autism, I'd classify myself as "very slightly autistic, but still basically neurotypical." I don't have great social skills, but they're usually good enough. To the extent that my brain is atypical, it's mostly in other ways; I was diagnosed with both ADD and Tourette's syndrome as a young child. I can't stand not having something to do. I carry a book or portable game system with me everywhere so I have something to direct my mental focus on, and my final line of defense is simply to put my head down and take a nap. If I can't even do that, then I start freaking out. I'm also on antidepressants.

I just took the wired test, and scored a 31. I'm not sure what to make of this. For years now I've wondered whether I have asperger's symptoms, and gone back and forth on it, but never been able to make up my mind - seeking a formal diagnosis seems like waste of time, since there isn't any real treatment. But I AM curious about it.

My opinion seems to go back and forth depending on whose description of the symptoms I'm reading - sometimes I'll read something on asperger's and think "Yes, that's totally me", and other times I'll read something and say "no, not me at all". It really seems to depend on how the author phrases the symptoms.

The big thing to me seems to be the "inability to read social cues/read between the lines/read facial expressions".... That doesn't sound like me - I definitely feel I am able to pick up and read these kinds of cues - better than most people in fact.... I just have a very hard time responding in kind. As to understanding politeness/social appropriateness, it's not so much that I don't UNDERSTAND these things, as that I find them silly, and can't force myself to play along with things that I see as stupid status games masquerading as meaningful social interaction.

I see two possible explanations for this discrepancy:

• Asperger's symptoms are consistently misunderstood by the researchers who study them - they observe people failing to appropriately RESPOND to social cues, etc, and incorrectly assume they're failing to UNDERSTAND those cues.
• I don't have asperger's.

I'm not sure how to evaluate the relative likelihood of these two possibilities. Does anyone else here with aspeger's or other autism spectrum disorders have similar experiences?

Is there a way to quantify these Gillberg diagnostic criteria ? For example, what does "motor clumsiness" mean ? Presumably, there are various degrees of clumsiness, from "assembles micro-miniature sculptures in his spare time, while balancing on one foot on a highwire", to "can't pick up a coffee cup without breaking it". Similarly, "impositions of routines and interests" can vary from "enjoys fantasy novels" to "talks about elves all the time", to "has a shrine to Tolkien in his room, carries a sword, stabs people with said sword because he thinks they're orcs". There's quite a gamut there.

I scored 17 - almost exactly normal. My brother was, I am sure, an medium functioning Aspergers and an uncle was a highly functioning one. On the other hand, I do not feel like a 'normal'. But that feeling is on a different spectrum. On the autism to schizophrenic spectrum, I am normal and feel it.

'Yes, sometimes.'

I am able to develop temporary 'Aspergers' symptoms in myself through particular kinds of mental activity and suspect that activity might determine personality as much as the other way round.

If I indulge myself doing c.15 minutes of anagramming or similarly highly focused, repetitive thinking, I find myself socially inhibited for the next two hours or so and feel as if I am controlling myself at one remove, my own puppeteer.

Perhaps this is a result of assuming a particular set of mind ('pattern recognition' mode/laser-like focus or somesuch), or of inhibiting empathy through mental activity-type (intense, repetitive and rapid thinking may lead the brain to bypass those parts that make ethical decisions - I think I have read something to this effect somewhere) or of inhibiting emotions by inhibiting physical expression (recent research suggests that the internal emotional life of the bebotoxed is stunted by their being unable to express emotion facially).

I have had ample opportunity to observe this strange effect, as I have the quintessentially socially demanding job as a primary school teacher. Despite having a fair amount of experience under my belt and having internalised most of what the job involves, I am not able to resist the effect and so no longer anagram nor play sudoku before or during work.

I have also noticed, recently, that I feel more people-centred after focused mental work that involves marshalling intuition - this was after hitting high dual n back levels (12+) for which conscious rehearsal strategies were necessarily eschewed in favour of recourse to 'feel'. However, using intuition does not give me the subsequent boost to laser-like focus that I need for my off-season study sessions - in fact, it seems to deplete concentration power.

Would be interesting to hear if others can carry out short-term manipulations of this kind...

I scored 27. My brother has aspergers (diagnosted at 38 years old) and I am pretty sure both my parents have it, although they won't get tested. I am not sure I have it, although I have many of the characteristics - IQ 132, fast processor, overachiever, say weird things inappropriately, small talk makes me uncomfortable, etc. Compared to my parents and brother, however, I always seemed like the odd one out in our little family. I am super friendly, make friends easily but have the narrow focused, intellectual pursuit thing for sure. I have been seeing a systems therapist analyst who says studies now say that it's likely that my neural pathways for natural empathy, etc that would have developed with a different mother probably didn't fire up (ages 1-3). I am working on "getting it", ie the cues for social intelligence, but feel limited like it isn't going to happen. Intellectually, I can understand someone talking about their feelings, but don't really like doing it. I can reflective listen for only so long and then I just get super bored. My husband is a gem and starting to understand that nothing is personal - I just do what I do. Anyone have research or thought on this area.

26 on the wired test. I am 53. I noticed on many of the questions that i would have answered differently when I was younger, but that I had it seemed rationally figured things out or learned them in therapy.

I have for years wondered if a lot of what goes into scientists is sub-clinical autism/aspbergers. I listen to some of the concerns of parents about their aspberger kids and think "that's like me, it is part of how I got a PhD in Physics."

Anyone here have non-psychotic auditory hallucinations? Apparently they're surprisingly common.

I've been suspected of being autism spectrum, and I scored 31.

Mentioned this on another thread - I don't know if you are all already familiar with this, but this is probably a good place to point out that there's now pretty good evidence that autism has an "opposite" in schizophrenia; neurotypicality is then in the middle of the resulting spectrum.

(Clarification: This isn't something I actually have much knowledge about at all; this is just something I saw some time ago and the CNV evidence seems pretty compelling.)

I get the idea we should probably be trying to account for this somehow? I'll admit it seems unlikely that we get so many people from that end of the spectrum here, but scales that don't account for that do seem like a good way to end running into a fallacy of compression.

For what it's worth, DSM-V eliminated the distinction between Asperger's Syndrome and autism.

I scored 13 on the test. My most autistic trait is that I am not great at conversational eye contact, which the test didn't ask about. I also generally consider myself to be bad at phone conversations.

I'm actually on the ADHD spectrum -- I could make a post of the same format as this one for ADHD, which is probably just as prevalent here as among other forums heavy with programmer-type-people. For some reason I expect that ADHD thread would be controversial, but I guess that really depends on how I framed the questions.

I scored 20 on Baron-Cohen's AQ test which appears to put me slightly above average but quite a bit below the threshold. Incidentally, Simon Baron-Cohen was my abnormal psychology lecturer at university but I don't really remember much from his autism lectures. I am always quite amused by the fact that he is Borat's cousin. I don't consider myself a utilitarian or a strict consequentialist.

I got a 22 on that test. I am fairly convinced I do not have Aspergers Syndrome, not only because I've not been diagnosed and that's lower than the cutoff point given, but the experiences described for those who have it seem quite different from mine in several respects. I am convinced that I am intensely introverted, however. It's not that I don't like other people, but that I have a lot more energy and enthusiasm when I have plenty of time to myself.

I have not yet been tested for or diagnosed with AS but believe that I may be high-functioning and have learned to cope with or overcome certain aspects of it over time. I scored a 33 on the AQ test and I have a 146 IQ. As a child I was very very quiet with very few friends my own age. I have had two extreme periods of anxiety for otherwise common social situations with no clear reason.

For two years, while in Elementary school, I was so scared to go into class that my father would drive me to school every day (around the corner) and talk to me in the parking lot for up to an hour before I felt comfortable enough to finally get out of the car. I had to wait until all of the other students were in their classes, so I was always late. My parents, teachers and school psychologist believed that I was being bullied, but I wasn't. I just couldn't go in.

In my senior year of High School I became very ill with Mono. After that I developed severe agoraphobia but worked to push through it. A teacher was kind enough to come to my house every other day to bring me my work and give me tests. I missed several months of school, but managed to graduate. After a year I was able to push through the worst of it, but I didn't fully recover for five years.

I have an extremely difficult time in social situations but I have managed to learn how to work within them. I can read facial and body expressions because I have taught myself how to do so. I have learned how to give appropriate verbal reactions, although there are still some that I have problems with - like accepting compliments. I very often don't realize that someone is joking with me unless they say "have you heard this joke". I do like to be in social situations, I enjoy talking to people, but I can rarely start a conversation and I often have a hard time keeping it up. I do best when the conversation is between three or more people I can listen and appear to be in the conversation.

As a child my parents believed that I was very shy. I usually played alone, was very quiet and had few friends. So they enrolled me in an acting class in San Francisco. It was difficult but I enjoyed it. I think this helped me through some of the social problems that I had and helped me to be more high-functioning today.

I got 40 on the test, and 5 of Gillberg's 6 criteria for Asperger's apply to me moderately well (all but motor clumsiness). I've never seriously considered the possibility that I could have Asperger's though, so I don't quite know what to make of this.

I'm undecided about consequentialism. In practice, I lean towards rule consequentialism, but I've been withholding committing until I could huddle down in a cave for six months and exhaustively study moral philosophy with no distractions (ha, no desire for systematization there!).

My score on the test was 35, which I found surprising. I felt my answers were fairly mixed between autistic-sounding and not, and was expecting to be closer to average.

I don't think I have anything that could be called autism; for one thing, I am often preoccupied with what other people think to the point of near-madness.

ADHD and Autism share early social difficulties and is nonspecific. One thing that differentiates the two is different profiles of impairment in executive function.

Autism has deficits in verbal working memory, while ADHD has deficits in motor inhibition.

The base rates of ADHD are also much higher than that of autism, so factor that into your calculations.

In a hurry right now, but suffice to say for statistical purposes (regarding Less Wrong) that I've been diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome- however at least on a sentimental level I have very little appreciation for consequentialism/utilitarianism if slightly more for it's preference utilitarian form.

I forgot to add that I'm very good at putting things in to order, structuring, organizing but I can't maintain it. On 6 out of 7 days it looks like my whole life is one big mess and spinning out of control. For about 1 hour, 1 day a week, I look like I've got my stuff together.

Full disclosure: I have been diagnosed with Asperger's (and prior to that, PDD-NOS and ADHD). I am also female and 31 years old at the time of this writing.

All that said, one thing I persistently have trouble with is thinking in terms of "isms" in the first place (well, with the exception of "autism", though that is a neurological configuration rather than an ideology). Hence I have no idea, really, whether my default mode(s) of thought fall into the "utilitarian/consequentialist" schools, and I have a very difficult time following the sorts of discussions wherein people are constantly trying to figure out whether a given notion fits in with this-ism or that-ism, or even where folks seem to be worrying about keeping everything they decide in line with a given, externally-sourced "system" of organizing ideas.

(This, incidentally, is why I stopped identifying as a "transhumanist" -- I just could not figure out what the word meant, it seemed to "lose meaning" the more I examined it, and eventually I determined the energy expenditure of even continuing to attempt discerning that thing was not worth it, so I disconnected myself from identification with the term. I still maintain my strong interests in longevity, human-machine interface, and whatnot, but I do not believe they NEED an over-arching ideology or what-have-you in order for my interest to be legitimate).

As far as making ethical decisions goes for me, my impression (as much as my own insight can be considered reliable here; I don't know for sure) is that I do usually invoke certain very basic principles (bodily autonomy, for instance) but that I tend to consider specific situations on a very individual basis each time, without concerning myself so much over being "consistent". Different situations can certainly share pattern-elements with one another, of course, and I can notice that, but for the most part -- and I don't know if it is a language processing thing or what -- I seem to have more trouble than most people on this site (who frequent it) with "ism"-based discussions. Moreover, while I believe my thinking to be quite rational and logical most of the time, I sort of burned out on heavy debate/argument over the 2006-2008 time frame and hence I say less about "heavy" subjects on the Internet than I used to these days,

EDIT: ...and the point of all that was to basically suggest (albeit without reference to data other than my own observations and pattern-identification skills, so take the suggestion for whatever you think it is worth on that basis) that while you may indeed find SOME correlation between AS/autism and whatever you consider to be particularly "utilitarian" or "consequentialist" thought, my take is that this is only one specific possible manifestation of "autistic specialization". Which is to say that some of us may indeed specialize in more abstract areas, however, there are also those of us who remain welded to the "concrete" and hence are less likely to be found as, say, regular LW commenters. Personally I identify, for instance, more with the "engineer" than the "philosopher" archetype, though that has little to no bearing on the presence of otherwise-inclined autistic persons in this or other forums.

I got 11 (there's nowhere to report this on the poll; I selected '10 or less', as that seemed like where the missing 11 should go based on how the numbers are grouped).

I'm a utilitarian. Before taking the test, I figured I'd get something in the 16-20 range.

I got a 30. It's possible that I could have mild aspergers, but as far as I can tell, I don't match any common psychological pigeonhole.

Also, I skimmed the article and didn't see the request for people who have not yet seen the article not to take the poll until I responded to the poll.

I used to think that I had Autism/Aspbergers. I used to think that the same could be said about virtually everyone on this site. Now I know better. Roko, there is a world of difference between someone like you or I, who, if our parents cared about that sort of thing, could have easily found a psychologist willing to diagnose us with Autism/Aspbergers and someone like Tom McCabe or Alicorn. Perhaps it is not obvious in our interactions with them (as we are, in fact, fairly similar in many ways), and it may not be entirely obvious to others, as most people lack the skill to identify the various shades of non-social, but I think the both of us know that that difference is real.

Took the poll. Got a 34 on the Wired thingy. I did notice that a lot of the questions ('enjoy meeting new people') would have been answered more in the AS direction when I was, say, 20 years old.

I got a 28 on the AQ test.

I'm a 13 on the AQ scale. In high-school I used to wonder if I was on the Autism spectrum, because I tended to prefer to be alone. I later realized I just had serious social anxiety (I was always a very shy child). My sisters were also shy, and one of them suffered from selective mutism until she was 10.

The good thing about Social Anxiety compared to Asperger's is that exposure therapy can really help break the pattern. Asperger's is really an aspect of the personality, it doesn't change.

You mention at the beginning of your article that those with Aspergers "are often accused of being disrespectful and rude."  You also say that they "seldom show affection to others."  Then you mention those with Aspergers are "unable to determine the feelings of those around them"  and that, " People suffering from Asperger's syndrome can be said to lack both social and emotional reciprocity."  Yet in the Gillberg Diagnostic Criteria which you cite there is no mention of a lack of unfeelingness, a lack of empathy and/or a concern for others or rudeness.

Good luck with your research.

You mention at the beginning of your article that those with Aspergers "are often accused of being disrespectful and rude."  You also say that they "seldom show affection to others."  Then you mention those with Aspergers are "unable to determine the feelings of those around them"  and that, " People suffering from Asperger's syndrome can be said to lack both social and emotional reciprocity."  Yet in the Gillberg Diagnostic Criteria which you cite there is no mention of a lack of unfeelingness, a lack of empathy and/or a concern for others or rudeness.

Good luck with your research.

Here is another indication of Aspergers that I ran across here and thought that others might like to look at it in connection with their scores on the Aspergers test Roko supplied. Interestingly I was normal on the previous test but have a lot of these features.

The most common structural (morphological) features found in the ASD children included:

Sandal gap toes (59%) Facial asymmetry (46%) Abnormal non-frontal hair whorl (39%) High narrow palate (37%) Attached ear lobes (35%) Hypermobile joints (33%)

Some morphological features were found in the ASD that were absent in the 224 controls including:

Brachycephaly,
Mouth asymmetry,
Eyes asymmetry, Ear lobe crease,
Macrostomia (large mouth), Limited facial expression, Open mouth appearance, Abnormal whorl, Prominent lower jaw

I'm several days late answering, but FWIW, I scored a 30 but only checked off one of the five diagnostic questions. I've never had my IQ tested as an adult.

I do obsessively pursue my chosen interests but given that one of those is language, I don't have the social / verbal awkwardness. I don't -like- social situations but I can function just fine in them.

33. I was a little surprised, and give more credence to the occasional accusations/suggestions that I could be diagnosed with Asperger's.

I am

1.Here on lesswrong 2.my intelligence is most strongly suited for analytical/mathematical thinking

1. I understand social situations not so much out of natural intuition, but out of a "learned" intuition. Like, reading game/roissy has made me MUCH better with women, more than my non-mathematical inclined friends.

But, most importantly, i actually was diagnosed with a "maybe aspergers" at a young age. Another doctor overruled it, and said I was severe ADD. But, im on the autism spectrum nonetheless.

Its a good place to be right now. Us science guys own the world.

Are there known genetic correlates of Asperger's or autism?

I believe Asperger's and autism are being combined in the DSM V.

I got an averagish 17, which is well down from my score a couple of years ago. At the same time, however, my thinking has become more utilitarian rather than less.

Call it the difference between desire to socialize and desire to eliminate social influence.

I suspect my boss has high functioning AS. I Googled her personality traits, and a page full of info came up on AS. I am in shock, but now it makes more sense. She does not recognize social cues, lacks empathy (for others), imposes whatever her current interest or issue is, with extreme tenacity, upon others, is extremely indecisive in some areas (not all), and has a nervous 'bark' or clearing of throat. She does not get along with others. However, she is the head anesthesiologist at the local hospital. She is not clumsy, but does have one eye that is visibly lower than the other. She does not pick up on jokes or sarcasm and only laughs if she sees others doing so. Intense? WOW. Whatever the current 'bee in her bonnet' happens to be, is treated with such intensity, tenacity and ferocity that is is like she is in a trance until her desire is fulfilled.

Anyone have an opinion on this?

I normally get 31 when I take that test. But have been relatively asocial for a few days, and am on lesswrong atm, and I got 38.

Interesting.

I scored 36 on the test, which was way higher than I was expecting. I think I can do a pretty decent impression of a normally social person. Perhaps my responses are skewed by my having programmed for the last 7 hours. Maybe I should take the test again after spending a couple of hours interacting with my wife and kids.

Didn't see the poll until now so not filling it in as per your request, but for the record I got 15.

My all-absorbing narrow interest is optimization.

I scored 17 but was a little worried that my responses were biased by a desire to believe I am socially proficient. I guess I have no reason to believe I suffer from this bias more than the average person.

Does this qualify?

Say, I understand what people will feel when I say something, and I am adept at social situations and humor. However, i dont feel this is "natural" I feel that this process is learned, like an intuition developed for thinking about evolutionary psychology.

I feel i know "what goes on" through an entirelly different way then the people next to me.

I scored 24, responded to the poll. Non-AS that I know of, I do fit "all-absorbing interests" to some extent.

Got 28 on the test, which a bit surprised me as my answers were all over the presumed AS scale. I've been always a mix of AS traits and very non AS traits; for example I have a strong visual imagination that was almost compulsive when I was a kid (e.g. after I saw a movie or a video game certain events and visual styles were frequently and automatically mashed into my view field). I'm also somewhat prone to obsessive attention to an area, interested in gathering various data and trivia, I'm pretty anxious and uncomfortable around new or too much people, have a hard time emotionally connecting to people, have problems with phone calls and often have to remind myself to make eye contact. However, I have great motor and visuospatial skills and I'm also a good speaker; for example, I'm doing fine in front of an arbitrary number of people and I'm refined and well structured. Generally I'm a good speaker when I'm teaching or explaining something, but I'm much worse when it comes to chat.

I'm highly consequentialist and utilitarian.

I got 17 on that test (average is 16.4), and 0 on Gillberg diagnostic criteria, and I found plenty of questions highly wtf-ish. This leads me to believe that Aspergers might be a genuine thing - people who consistently reply so far unlike me to those wtf-ish questions must be seriously weird, not just differ in minor quantitative ways.

I'm not sure if I'm really utilitarian, but I certainly find all deontologies used as more than quick heuristics facepalmingly stupid.

My oldest kid was diagnosed with PDD; he's gotten quite a bit more functional since, but he has all of the above. I'll ask him to take the test when he grows up ;)

I've been told that I might be autism-spectrum by non-experts, but the counselors I've talked to suggest I have attention-deficit disorder. I got 20 on the test.

Your poll forces the respondent to pick at least one check-box in question two.

Be careful when doing self-diagnose over the internet. And Asperger's may be going away, to be replaced by high-functioning autism, just another part of the spectrum.

If your childhood involved extreme trouble with other kids, getting bullied, picked last for sports team, etc, but not for an obvious reason such as being very fat or of a racial minority, then add some evidence-points to the "AS" hypothesis.

If someone was not bullied etc despite such "obvious" reasons, that would count against the AS hypothesis, correct?

So, in fact, any bullying is evidence for AS?

don't trust the diagnoses to tell you everything about yourself