When Autism and Schizoaffective Converge

Cissi Tsang www.samarobryn.com There have been various studies and speculation abounding regarding the relationship between the autism spectrum and the schizophrenia spectrum. That is not surprising because there are some similarities in behaviours between the two. Both conditions feature such things as social withdrawal, difficulty with empathy and difficulty with reading verbal and non-verbal cues. What happens if both conditions collide and exist together within a person? This is an area that is not often explored. It is almost as if the population of people who have both an autism spectrum diagnosis and a schizophrenia spectrum diagnosis do not exist in the minds of most people. However — such people do exist. I am one of them. I have Asperger’s syndrome, as well as Schizoaffective Disorder. How can it be, though? I must note that the DSM-IV-TR does note this possibility. Although rare, it does happen. With this article, I…