twistedmic said:
One from personal experience; A former co-worker claimed that he had Asperger's Syndrome yet he was expressive, understood sarcasm and non-literal figures of speech (for the most part) and was extremely extroverted and talkative. The exact opposite of what a person with Asperger's would be (according to my mom).
And there are a few examples that my mom, a trained and licensed psychologist, has run into, both in the course of her work and through T.V. shows.
As for a person meeting X-number of criteria to get Y-diagnosis, Someone can have quite a few side-effects/symptoms of Asperger's yet not have key symptoms.
To give a non-psychological example (as I have never studied psychology); Someone can have a few symptoms/side-effects of a broken leg- Pain in the leg, inability to put weight on the injured leg, potential swelling and tenderness, yet not have a broken bone.
Those same symptoms/side-effects can be applied to a sprained knee/ankle or a torn muscle.
Anecdotes aren't really enough to count as evidence for such a sweeping claim as you made though, especially as your mother never met the co-worker and so her expertise while valid wouldn't be foolproof. In this case I can comment further since I actually have Aspergers myself (before you ask, properly diagnosed as a child) and those aren't necessarily indicators of a lack of Aspergers, for example:
[li]Sarcasm and non-literal speech: Higher functioning autistic people can often learn both of these to a degree, I can understand them and use them though I can't always tell whether other people are using them, especially sarcasm.[/li]
[li]Extroverted and talkative: it's a misconception that AS people are always quiet, withdrawn types. I
do follow that pattern in real life but equally autistic people can be the exact opposite: if anything the talkative ones struggle even more since they often can't spot when people are getting bored and end up talking the poor recipient's ear off. [/li]
And yes, psychology is basically far behind physical medicine in that disorders are
only defined by their symptoms. It is quite likely there are multiple causes for many illnesses and syndromes we class currently as just one, but with our limited understanding that's the best we can do.
