Do ALL people with Aspergers have the triad of impairment?

By the way, DSM-5 does include sensory sensitivity as a diagnostic criteria (as a 2 out of 4 option, not a requirement), so things are getting better I think.

Re the triad: I'm currently undiagnosed (though just referred, yay!) I've had a health proffesional in the past tell me I can't be asd as I'm too good at conversation.  Yet to find out if that's actually true for me, but what I'm learning is that impairment of social skills doesn't mean no social skills.  Of course there is the thing about women being able to mask symptoms: so in a way its not that asd women can't do social things, it's that they don't come naturally, have to be thought about, are more difficult and tiring and might include conscious role playing.

I recently did a test that involves trying to work out emotions just from people's eyes (https://www.questionwritertracker.com/quiz/61/Z4MK3TKB.html). As I went through it I thought I was doing quite well, and it would be more evidence for me not being 'bad enough' to be asd.  To my surprise my final score was dead on what was expected for a 'high functioning autistic' (sorry for those that hate the term, it's what the test says...).  But I'd still done quite well: I won't give away the figures, but the difference in scores between me and an average neurotypical is actually only about 11%.  So that's not far off saying if you asked me and a neurotypical 10 questions the difference in scores would be about 1 question. Not that much!  Of course this is only one tiny piece of reality: still pictures of eyes instead of moving whole faces that are perhaps overwhelming to look at, but it's still interesting that it shows so little difference (if still significant difference...) on a task that you'd expect to be hard for autistics.

So overall I wouldn't rule out your daughter being diagnosable on the triad!

However, going back to the question of can you be autistic without the triad, I think in a way it depends on what autism 'is'.  At the moment we don't really know what autism is.  We know that if you have it you are also more likely to have some other conditions (dyspraxia, dyslexia, adhd, tourettes...).  We know that there are a great many genes that seem to be linked to asd, which means it's probably not a single syndrome, but a mix of many genetic and enviromental factors. We also know there tend to be some differences in the structure of the brain.  For instance neurons in asd brains tend to each have more connections to other neurons.  The normal pattern of development of brains is that they initially grow more connections (and neurons I think) than are actually needed. Then the uneeded/unused ones die away (this process is happening after birth). So possibly what autism 'is' is that this 'pruning' hasn't happened to the 'usual' extent.  Another way of looking at this is that the nt brain throws away what probably won't be needed, and is therefore more efficient. The autistic brain retains the ability to 'see' all sorts of stuff, which personally I think is nice, but is less efficient.

But... if autism is defined as 'more complex brain wiring' then what about the other linked conditions?  If you look just at the movement co-ordination aspects of dyspraxia (I think there is a condition name for people who just have these aspects, can't remember what), then I have heard this explained as being also due to excess connections not having passed out of use, just this time in the part of the brain that controls movement.  So basically the same thing, just in a different part of the brain?

So basically I think that the difference between those different conditions listed may simply be borders decided by humans, just in the same way as we decided to put a border between France and Germany.  Sure they are different countries, and that's important in many ways, but do you see that much difference if you are standing on the border?  You may find the same type of rock underneath the surface both sides of the border.

Currently we don't really have much idea of what underlies autism.  So it may be that there's dyspraxics with the same underlying syndrome/cause as some autistics, while other autistics actually have something totally different.  So yes, I sort of do believe it's possible that your daughter could be 'autistic' without the triad (dyspraxic might be the current label!)

But what you probably want right now is to get her assessed and find the current label that is best for you to use....

By the way, DSM-5 does include sensory sensitivity as a diagnostic criteria (as a 2 out of 4 option, not a requirement), so things are getting better I think.

Re the triad: I'm currently undiagnosed (though just referred, yay!) I've had a health proffesional in the past tell me I can't be asd as I'm too good at conversation.  Yet to find out if that's actually true for me, but what I'm learning is that impairment of social skills doesn't mean no social skills.  Of course there is the thing about women being able to mask symptoms: so in a way its not that asd women can't do social things, it's that they don't come naturally, have to be thought about, are more difficult and tiring and might include conscious role playing.

I recently did a test that involves trying to work out emotions just from people's eyes (https://www.questionwritertracker.com/quiz/61/Z4MK3TKB.html). As I went through it I thought I was doing quite well, and it would be more evidence for me not being 'bad enough' to be asd.  To my surprise my final score was dead on what was expected for a 'high functioning autistic' (sorry for those that hate the term, it's what the test says...).  But I'd still done quite well: I won't give away the figures, but the difference in scores between me and an average neurotypical is actually only about 11%.  So that's not far off saying if you asked me and a neurotypical 10 questions the difference in scores would be about 1 question. Not that much!  Of course this is only one tiny piece of reality: still pictures of eyes instead of moving whole faces that are perhaps overwhelming to look at, but it's still interesting that it shows so little difference (if still significant difference...) on a task that you'd expect to be hard for autistics.

So overall I wouldn't rule out your daughter being diagnosable on the triad!

However, going back to the question of can you be autistic without the triad, I think in a way it depends on what autism 'is'.  At the moment we don't really know what autism is.  We know that if you have it you are also more likely to have some other conditions (dyspraxia, dyslexia, adhd, tourettes...).  We know that there are a great many genes that seem to be linked to asd, which means it's probably not a single syndrome, but a mix of many genetic and enviromental factors. We also know there tend to be some differences in the structure of the brain.  For instance neurons in asd brains tend to each have more connections to other neurons.  The normal pattern of development of brains is that they initially grow more connections (and neurons I think) than are actually needed. Then the uneeded/unused ones die away (this process is happening after birth). So possibly what autism 'is' is that this 'pruning' hasn't happened to the 'usual' extent.  Another way of looking at this is that the nt brain throws away what probably won't be needed, and is therefore more efficient. The autistic brain retains the ability to 'see' all sorts of stuff, which personally I think is nice, but is less efficient.

But... if autism is defined as 'more complex brain wiring' then what about the other linked conditions?  If you look just at the movement co-ordination aspects of dyspraxia (I think there is a condition name for people who just have these aspects, can't remember what), then I have heard this explained as being also due to excess connections not having passed out of use, just this time in the part of the brain that controls movement.  So basically the same thing, just in a different part of the brain?

So basically I think that the difference between those different conditions listed may simply be borders decided by humans, just in the same way as we decided to put a border between France and Germany.  Sure they are different countries, and that's important in many ways, but do you see that much difference if you are standing on the border?  You may find the same type of rock underneath the surface both sides of the border.

Currently we don't really have much idea of what underlies autism.  So it may be that there's dyspraxics with the same underlying syndrome/cause as some autistics, while other autistics actually have something totally different.  So yes, I sort of do believe it's possible that your daughter could be 'autistic' without the triad (dyspraxic might be the current label!)

But what you probably want right now is to get her assessed and find the current label that is best for you to use....