Learn from the mistakes of others

In case it didn't come through, I didn't mean to imply that adults can't have AS. What I described is a set of beliefs about AS which I have encountered. My own attitude is that definitions of a lot of things vary, but that differing definitions of AS really only affect the label that is attached to a person's condition, and have nothing to do with what that person experiences.

Also, I know there is a pretty wide range of degrees to which AS can affect people. There are people who have suffered AS all their lives until eventually it is diagnosed well into their adulthoods, and people think they are a bit strange but otherwise they get by just fine (including being able to work full-time without great difficulty). And there are others for whom AS is crippling. As far as disability pension support is concerned, AS is really a bit like asthma... Many asthmatics get a little wheezy every now and then, while a few are so bad they can't walk down their front path, so having asthma shouldn't qualify you for DSP unless you further specify the effects of your asthma.

But the effects of asthma are a lot easier to describe, and for a non-sufferer to understand, than the effects of AS.

So essentially, I think the government departments need to work harder at understanding what is really going on with AS, and not try to just fit people into neat little boxes.

As for my wife, she has severe sleep phase cycle disorder. Essentially, she sleeps at the wrong time of day. She comes to bed at about the time I get up to go to work, and gets up at about the time I get home. In theory, I suppose she could work nights, except I'm not sure employers are even allowed to roster people on permanent night shift.