What is the difference between Mild Autism and Aspergers?

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Hi,
I am trying to educate myself about autism and where my son may fall on the spectrum to better help him to exceed. I have come across a lot of websites with different approaches to learning and I am more than a little overwhelmed. My son turned 3 in January so he is still a little young so anything can change.

I have seem a lot of things that can either point to Mild Autism, Aspergers or even Developmentally delayed (or slow). Based on your own understanding, I would like to know if you know what the difference is between all 3. Any opinion is welcome.

Thanks again.

My daughter is almost 4 now and around 8 months ago she was offically diagnosed as Mild/Moderate Autism. Based on what we were told, she is good in some areas so mild and and a little behind in some areas so moderate. It confused the hell out of us and still does. So we have stopped worrying about now. as parents we know what we need to work on with our daughter. I know this doesn't exactly answer your question but I think these so called labels are given too much emphases, so dont read too much into it.

So your son has not officially been diagnosed? Is there anything concerning for you to think he might be on the spectrum. I know some kids who never spoke or do age appropriate things and yet they were perfectly fine as time went by.

btw, I always thought mild autism, aspergers and high functioning were all the same?

My son was evaluated by the school district and I was told that he was on the spectrum. He scored 31 and 30 and above is on the spectrum. In hindsight, I should have asked them more about this test so I could get a better understanding, but I was in a sort of shock. He does about 60% echolalia and 40% his own words. He has other symptoms but most of his issues are with communication. He can ask for things in his own way, sometimes as questions and sometimes outright and he will come to me and say "up" when he wants me to pick him up or say "kiss" when he wants me to kiss him. Sometimes he really tunes me out and I have to get close to face to get his attention while othertimes he responds right away.

The pedi thinks he has developmental delays and the neurologist thinks he has autistic traits but he wouldn't say he is autistic. The neurologist says he thinks he would benefit greatly from all the programs for autistic children though. The 2 main reasons why the label matters is it will determine how much assistance I get from the school district. The other reason is, it will hopefully help me to find the tried and tested ways to help my son reach his full potential. I am not really bothered by him being "labeled" by the "system" or anything like that. I am my sons advocate until he can be his own advocate. I want to better understand what we are dealing with so that we can help him the best we can.

I read a book about this, and basically what they said was that HFA(high functioning Autsim) communicate to get needs and watns met. Aspergers people communicate casue they WANT to interact socially, they just go about it differently.Like for an AS person, socialization might be going to someone and talking endlessly about their special intrest. HFA people typically dont want to socially interact.

My son has a freind who is HFA, and she is just like that. She can talk, but only uses her words to get something that she wants. She prefers to be alone, and if my son or someone goes to play with her she will leave, or even get physical like hit or pinch them if they insist on trying to play with or near her.

My son is Aspergers, talks to any and everyone non stop. He loves younger and older kids(not so much his peers) but he will approach others to play (his choice of play of course...lol). He wants to interact, he just goes about it without much regard to others thoughts or feelings.

it is difficult to get a label or concrete diagnosis at 3 casue things can change...but when your child is school age they will have to give him an official lable to get services.

I forget the name of the book but I BELIVE it was by Dr. tony Attowwd.

http://www.sacramentoasis.com/docs/8-22-03/as_&_hfa.pdf

Excerpt from Tony Attwood's book on aspergers syndrome. It says there isn't really a difference between the two.

This is the summary of the three pages or so

Conclusion
Having reviewed the literature, we may be able to answer the question, is there a difference between Asperger's syndrome and High Functioning Autism? The reply is that the research and clinical experience would suggest that there is no clear evidence that they are different disorders. Their similarities are greater than their differences. We appear to be taking, particularly in Europe and Australia, a dimensional view of autism
and Asperger' syndrome rather than a categorical approach. (Leekam, Libby, Wing Gould and Gillberg 2000). At present both terms can be used interchangeably in clinical practice.

this excerpt from that book fromthe PP shows that there is a differencein the 2:

"Asperger's syndrome could be
differentiated from autism by an examination of the child's early development and the
existence of some characteristics that were rare in children with autism. They considered
that early language and cognitive skills are not delayed significantly in children with
Asperger's syndrome. There is also no clinically significant delay in age-appropriate selfhelp
skills, adaptive behaviour and curiosity about the environment in childhood. The
clinical profile of a child with Asperger's syndrome is also less likely to include motor
mannerisms and preoccupation with parts of objects as occurs in autism but the child
can have a circumscribed interest that consumes a great deal of their time amassing
information and facts. They also noted that the profile of social skills in children with
autism includes self-isolation or rigid social approaches, while in Asperger's syndrome
there can be a motivation to socialise but this is achieved in a highly eccentric, one-sided,
verbose and insensitive manner."

In the DSM, the only difference is the presence or lack of an speech delay in early development.

Various professionals have their own view of what the differences are, like the desire or lack of desire to socialize but it is all pretty much subjective at that point.

They spoke of merging the two (Asperger's and HFA) in the next version of the DSM so that they would all warrant a diagnosis of Autism, but I'm not sure where they are on that stance anymore.

Essentially: there is little to no difference.

Regarding developmentally delayed: I haven't done any research on this subject specifically so I decline to comment due to lack of information.

Thanks so much for the insight. I read the article and it seems my son has traits for both. He is very friendly with adults and babies and will seek out their company for play or hugs or kisses, but he will ignore his peers. He had average development for everything except for his letters, numbers, shapes, etc which was above average and still is. Unfortunately, his language, which had lagged, regressed. He is just now finding his voice again and you can see how proud he feels when he realizes that something has a name and he knows the name. He is calling the names of things while pointing to them and he seems so happy about it.

This is probably why they say he is on the spectrum, or has autistic traits, but they can't pin down what he has. There is so many contraditions.

That excerpt from the book posted by MMJMOM does a good job of presenting the differences, but many people on the spectrum have overlapping traits. Also, as high functioning Autistics mature and learn to deal with their disorder, their condition often becomes more like Asperger's Syndrome, to the point where it is not possible to distinguish between the two. Asperger's is itself basically the high end of Autism. From what you describe, your child is high functioning Autistic, but with some Asperger's traits. This means that he may eventually merge up to the Asperger's level as he gets older. Due to his age, though it can be hard to accurately diagnosis him right now. It will be easier to do that once he is older. A lot of other wise normal kids sometimes have delays, and problems, at least for a while, and then out grow them, so this does hinder diagnosis at an early age. Do try to get a preliminary one, though, as it will help you get some help for your son.

After reading plenty I came to the conclusion......
Spectrum: Classic autism......then HFA.......then Asperger....then sometimes....High functioning Asperger......than PDD NOS or also known as 'atypical autism'.

Difference between HFA and AS is speech developement.....AS not having delied speech, but can have problems with auditory processing....abstract reasoning exct.

PDD NOS doesnt meet all the criteria for autism, but some, for example difficulty in social interaction.

Also, often...AS will be caracterize by presence of high levels of anxiety and sometimes OCD traids.

Hope this helps a bit......

Thanks for all the comments.

Regarding High anxiety, my son seems to be a little confused about if he is or not. There are 2 things that seem to get him riled up, sharing and wearing what I want him to wear. Regarding sharing, I am not sure if that is his age, personality or anything to do with AS. As for wearing what I want him to wear, we have been experimenting with this and he gets upset for a while (at most 5 mins) and then he moves on. He may remember here and there, but he is not visibly upset by it. He also gets upset when he tired and hungry but that might be a toddler thing. Normally he is pretty laid back.

I also checked the OCD thing. He doesn't have much rituals and doesn't seem too concerned with any changes. In fact, he loves going to new places and seems really comfortable meeting new people. He does occationally spin and toe walks and flaps his arms but if you add it up for the whole day, it probably all last for 4-5 mins. He is indifferent if I stop him. He has an oral fixation but is indifferent to noise, light, touch, etc.

He has echolalia and probably does 60% echolalia and 40% his own words. His language was a little delayed in that he spoke a lot of jibberish until he was about 24 with an occational word here and there. I am not sure how delayed that is, but his brother spoke very early so his language by comparison seemed delayed. He started speaking more from about 24-34 months then his language stalled and he started to loose some. Now, after 2.5 weeks of forcing him to talk, his speech has improved.

He seems to have some parts of the classic autism and some parts of Aspergers.

Funny, my son didnt have any noise issues, he could be around loud noises and not care. he always had an oral fixation and hanst outgrown it, to the point of me buying him chewies so he can chew something safe. As he got older, he NOW is sensitive to sounds...he will covor his ears and tell me something is too loud and we need to leave. But he didnt do that as a toddler or preschooler.

I think the reasoning behind the DSM-V changes to autism diagnosis is becasue of all the confusion and overlap of symptoms of autism, Aspergers and PDD Nos. One doc can say it is Aspergers, one can say HFA, another can say PDD-NOS.

You are on the right track...you will have more answers as he ages.

My son wasn't diagnosed until he was 8 but showed signs of being different when he was young. The most important thing to understand in these early years, IMO, is that these kids cannot take perspective. If he cannot share or accept your clothing choices, he cannot understand that other kids want to play, nor why you are deciding his clothing choices. He can only think about his own perspective. That other people have their own perspective is something you have to gently teach him over time.

One of the clearest examples to understand this is.... Joe Aspie gets bumped in the hallway at school. He screams, "They did it on purpose!" Joe Aspie must come to this conclusion b/c he got bumped and he got hurt. He cannot understand getting hurt without it being on purpose. People use the term Theory of Mind (TOM) for this.

IMO, HFA and aspie kids develop anziety and OCD when TOM is not understood. This is the struggle throughout their childhood and beyond.