Looking at your family................

I think that you are largely correct, Janie. Children are not diagnosed with "personality disorders", because a person's personality is not considered fully "formed" until they are of reasonably adult age. Whereas children are diagnosed with "developmental disorders" such as Asperger's and adults would seldom if ever be diagnosed such unless they exhibited fairly extreme symptoms. Also, a schizoid might seem fairly normal as a child, maybe a little shy, and not really exhibit many characteristics till late adolescence or early adulthood.

There is in all practicality, considerable overlap, simply because psychiatric categories are not precise things. A lot of time and energy has gone into the writing of diagnostic manuals in order to clarify these categories but the manuals themselves emphasize that there are many variables and any given individual might have symptoms from several different categories. There is even a category for personality disorders that don't quite fit any of the other categories. A real "dustbin" category that... how would you like to be diagnosed; "Personality Disorder NOS" You wouldn't know exactly what you were... "Hi.. I'm disordered."

A person who was diagnosed as having Asperger's as a child would probably not be reclassified as a schizoid when they become an adult but would continue to be classified as Asperger's... even though their symptoms might be no different than a schizoid's. So it would largely depend on when one was diagnosed, I would think, but there are differences between psychiatrists especially about more subtle points and their own clinical experiences might have one favoring one diagnosis or the other.

Gary

Adults can be diagnosed with Aspergers.

And a lot of 'loner' kids don't get diagnosed with anything. They're just naturally loners. *shrugs* As my dad observed when I was about 9, I'm just naturally a lone wolf. I thoroughly agreed. I hadn't realised other people weren't lone wolves... but it certainly explained why other people though it was cool to go round each other's houses and I regarded it as a nuisance and torture that I had to go through for no readily apparent reason.

Paracelcus wrote:Well I really don't think they're related. From Wikipedia:

A person with AS may have trouble understanding the emotions of other people: the messages that are conveyed by facial expression, eye contact and body language are often missed. They also might have trouble showing empathy with other people. Thus, people with AS might be seen as egotistical, selfish or uncaring. In most cases, these are unfair labels because affected people are neurologically unable to understand other people's emotional states. They are usually shocked, upset and remorseful when told that their actions are hurtful or inappropriate. It is clear that people with AS do not lack emotions. The concrete nature of emotional attachments they might have (i.e., to objects rather than to people), however, often seems curious or can even be a cause of concern to people who do not share their perspective.[19]

Literal interpretation is another common, but not universal hallmark of this condition. Attwood gives the example of a girl with AS who answered the telephone one day and was asked, "Is Paul there?" Although the Paul in question was in the house, he was not in the room with her, so after looking around to ascertain this, she simply said "no" and hung up. The person on the other end had to call back and explain to her that he meant for her to find him and get him to pick up the telephone.[24]

It seems a big part of AS is an inability to communicate, whereas SPD is a lack of interest in communication. Nowhere in the AS article is anything on a lack of interest in sex, a preoccupation with fantasy, or a lack of drive to succeed that most people with SPD have. Also, nowhere in the SPD article is anything about literal interpretation, missing nonverbal cues, or being 'too' honest (it seems like people with SPD lie very often to avoid attention).

I seem to have very strong symptoms of both except I have no trouble understanding people, which I'm pretty sure rules out AS. But I speak rather formally (I use 'necessarily' a tonne, in the way someone studying logic would), have problems with motor control (although I suspect it has to do with depth perception; I bump into things a lot), and am very honest to very direct questions.

Well, both are a spectrum. Not everyone shares the same symptoms... there are also different sub-groupings of both aspergers and SPD it would seem. I have read a lot on aspergers and some on SPD, from what I've seen (observation of or by speaking to), a large portion of people diagnosed Aspergers have many, many traits of spd. Usually not that they have an inability to communicate emotions, but more that they do not wish to, perhaps because they dont tend to think with emotions.. but think logically. I cannot help but think it's projection on part of people who observe aspies that they think they should think/feel exactly as they do and thus are handicapped in being able to act as they do.

Shrug, the whole issue is way too complicated, not sure if I've mentioned it in this forum yet but on the NAS uk site (hmm I think I may very well have) it says Aspies are often mis-diagnosed as schizoid.. which would lead one to think they are both quite similar. I for one am diagnosed aspergers but feel more akin to SPD because I don't feel like it is a handicap, more a way of being, like many others who are diagnosed. I was tired of some aspies having a pity party for themselves, brainwashed by people who feel like they are inferior to the "normals". I think most of the things normal people have, think they have or aspire to have is a fantasy, the whole world is running in unison on one big delusion.

To add... regarding the sex thing, there are a hell of a lot of aspies that label themselves asexual. hmm.. the drive to succeed is also kind of split, with a bunch who have it (tend to be the unhappiest from observation, like the paralysed kid that says he wants to play baseball :p) and those who don't.

jeez I keep missing stuff then adding in edits... another one I noticed, the non-verbal cues, isn't it written in the SPD article that they have "defective environment scanning" or somesuch that makes them miss cues? I don't know exactly what was said to describe it but it was something like that.

Also the brief reactive psychosis I would have thought akin to an autistic "meltdown".

To add, I've noticed a pattern with regards to self-pitying aspies and non-self-pitying aspies, those that are diagnosed very early on in life tend to feel very sorry for themselves, having the idea that there is something wrong with them drilled into them from an early age, taught that normality is what is "right" and something to aspire to, usually causing a great deal of stress. People diagnosed later on are generally kind of relieved to know there is something that describes them so well, that there are others like them. They don't feel sorry for themselves because they didnt grow up wearing tinted glasses.

Janie wrote:If a child is never diagnosed as schizoid, what are they diagnosed as? Children who are solitary, have very poor social skills, have no friends, what are they diagnosed as having?

The children I know like that are said to have Asperger's syndrome. If they were diagnosed as adults, they would get the label of ASP, wouldn't they? Thirty year old people with no friends and no social skills are not diagnosed as having Aspergers syndrome. But an 8 year old would be.

What am I missing here?

I'm not even sure what you're talking about here, a child with aspergers will be diagnosed aspergers or some variant. An adult with aspergers will (hopefully) be diagnosed Aspergers, there is no rule that states that an adult that presents with no friends/social skills are diagnosed as SPD and not AS. Generally it depends on whether the diagnosticians have background information on the patient as confirmed by a family member. If symptoms were present throughout life including early childhood they would be diagnosed AS, if not... schizoid.

ah, I mean defective perceptual scanning.

According to Beck and Freeman,[3] people with SPD have “defective perceptual scanning which results in missing environmental cues. The defective perceptual scanning is characterized by a tendency to miss differences and to diffuse the varied elements of experience.” The perception of varied events only increases their fear for intimacy and limits them in their interpersonal relationships.

Paracelcus wrote:
I seem to have very strong symptoms of both except I have no trouble understanding people, which I'm pretty sure rules out AS. But I speak rather formally (I use 'necessarily' a tonne, in the way someone studying logic would), have problems with motor control (although I suspect it has to do with depth perception; I bump into things a lot), and am very honest to very direct questions.

before I started reading about spd, I thought I had aspergers too.
Reasons for thinking that
- I always think in very logical, practical way (tend to overanalyse)
- my social skill are a bit rusty
- I’ve always had other interests compared to my peers (my first presentation ever (I was 8 or 9 at the time) was about the universe and the big bang, while the other kids talked about their pets, dolphins and horses )
- Eye contact doesn’t come naturally
- Fidgeting
- Lack of empathy
- ‘rational’ development before emotional development (= thinking about the meaning of life instead of thinking about dating and boyfriends etc. when you’re 14 or 15)
but, spd seemed to fit better, explaining a lot of other stuff too.
Technically, it doesn’t really matter if it’s A or B or both (or C). There’s nothing that can be changed and no real wish to change either.

bobalobugle wrote:Well, both are a spectrum. Not everyone shares the same symptoms... there are also different sub-groupings of both aspergers and SPD it would seem. I have read a lot on aspergers and some on SPD, from what I've seen (observation of or by speaking to), a large portion of people diagnosed Aspergers have many, many traits of spd. Usually not that they have an inability to communicate emotions, but more that they do not wish to, perhaps because they dont tend to think with emotions.. but think logically. I cannot help but think it's projection on part of people who observe aspies that they think they should think/feel exactly as they do and thus are handicapped in being able to act as they do.

i wonder if AS, having bad social skills, leads to SPD (a way of coping).
I think something like that was the case with me. The fact that I felt different (and a bunch of other reasons too) added up to some anxiety and low self-confidence and that somehow got replaced over the years by indifference. I got my confidence back, but didn’t care anymore about people (and a lot of other stuff unfortunately).

Paracelcus wrote:

Literal interpretation is another common, but not universal hallmark of this condition. Attwood gives the example of a girl with AS who answered the telephone one day and was asked, "Is Paul there?" Although the Paul in question was in the house, he was not in the room with her, so after looking around to ascertain this, she simply said "no" and hung up. The person on the other end had to call back and explain to her that he meant for her to find him and get him to pick up the telephone.[24]

hmz, well that is AS behaviour, but I wouldn’t focus on that stuff since symptoms of autism correlate with intelligence. The smarter a person with AS is , the less problems he or she will have with sayings and figures of speech. AS can go undiagnosed for years if a person’s very good at mimicking social skills and ofcourse doesn’t say anything about his troubles.

paradox wrote:

i wonder if AS, having bad social skills, leads to SPD (a way of coping).
I think something like that was the case with me. The fact that I felt different (and a bunch of other reasons too) added up to some anxiety and low self-confidence and that somehow got replaced over the years by indifference. I got my confidence back, but didn’t care anymore about people (and a lot of other stuff unfortunately).

That sounds like me. I have never had any real life goals or anything like that, heavily unmotivated towards a typical lifestyle anyways, but shortly after school my confidence was pretty damn low, probably very reflective of AvPD at the time, I ended up dropping out of college. A couple years later I had my self-confidence back but I am very, very indifferent. I was somewhat indifferent in the first place, but now it pervades my entire being in many ways.

I definitely engage people on a certain level and feel very uneasy about conversing with anyone below the superficial (in terms of emotionality). Kind of repulsed by emotions/empathy/bonding. As it happens I don't like a lot of emo displays on tv or in movies... it makes me feel kind of uncomfortable, like I want to cringe - I couldn't watch LOTR: return of the king after the king starts crying for some reason (forget what)... it really really put me off the whole thing.

i wonder if AS, having bad social skills, leads to SPD (a way of coping).

Thats correct. i think AS is for children who cant fit in And SPD is for adults who no longer really give a $#%^.

>>>I think AS is for children who cant fit in And SPD is for adults who no longer really give a $#%^.<<<

Just PERFECT! I've got to remember that for shrink friend.


bobalobugle,
Your posts are dead on, lots of good insights. I don't know where you live, but in the US, many people are big on victimhood. So it makes complete sense to me that those people who were diagnosed as children will see themselves as more 'handicapped' rather than just being different from the mainstream and being ok with that, as many adults will feel.

In the US teachers have the attitude that ALL students must be friendly, social, and outgoing. They force children to do LOTS of group projects and all children MUST learn to be 'leaders'. It's an educational goal at every level of schooling, from elementary school through college. It's really awful for even non schizoid kids who might be shy, or quiet, or even, Gawd forbid, introverts. The whole public education system is focused on learning to work in groups and learning to be leaders. They have ZERO respect for children whose personalities are other than outgoing and anxious to participate in class and outside of class with groups of students.
The funny thing is, teachers are usually introverts! But they sure don't want children to be.

Janie wrote:In the US teachers have the attitude that ALL students must be friendly, social, and outgoing. They force children to do LOTS of group projects and all children MUST learn to be 'leaders'. It's an educational goal at every level of schooling, from elementary school through college. It's really awful for even non schizoid kids who might be shy, or quiet, or even, Gawd forbid, introverts. The whole public education system is focused on learning to work in groups and learning to be leaders. They have ZERO respect for children whose personalities are other than outgoing and anxious to participate in class and outside of class with groups of students.

Yeah. The Americans are obssessed with leadership. However, not everyone can be a leader. There's a saying "too many chiefs and too few indians". This leadership mania engenders such dangerous freaks as President Bush.