Use of the word "autism"

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I see what you're saying, but I gotta say, you must not have met many autistic people. From what I've come to understand, HFA is very similar to AS as far as average intelligence levels and ability to interact with and function in the world.
I can't really say what the differences are because there are many disagreements about that part, (a lot of professionals even think there are no differences) but I can tell you that there was never a point in my life where I appeared classically autistic. I never flapped my hands or rocked or was unable to speak. Most people just thought I was an immature brat when I was younger, and today, none of my friends or acquaintances are aware that I have autism. But I don't believe I have AS and was misdiagnosed, because I'm still significantly different from most of the people on WP.
So your idea of autism is, I think, somewhat narrower than the true definition, and it also seems to be significantly tainted by stereotype.

Some autistic people here seem to have a higher level of self awareness than some AS people I met irl, so maybe I'm a bit prejudiced. However, I have a theory about many swedish HFA people being misdiagnosed as AS. I can't speak for other countries because psychiatry and society varies from one nation to the next. I've met several cases of super obvious AS where I live, but these people have been undiagnosed. The diagnosed people I met have mostly been clueless about themselves and so slow minded that it's hard to believe. When I was 14 and put in a special AS class, my first thought when I saw the others and heard them speak were "damn... these guys look like the mentally ret*d people at the daycare centre for adults in my neighbourhood". It was a shock to me to see at what level they were. They were oblivious about EVERYTHING going on around them even though they were verbally on a normal level. Their speech was slooooooooooow and monotone and they seemed to view others as objects which evolved around them, rather than people. Any form of two-way communication which wasn't just exchanging words was futile. They were faceblind, stared into nowhere and so ignorant and completely naive about the world around them. It puzzles me how some people who call themselves "autists" rather than "AS" on here seem to be on a much higher level than those AS diagnosed boys.

Put in mind that AS is a form of autism so lot of people call aspies "autistic" and they call themselves that too. They're not saying they are autistic and don't have AS. They mean what they mean. They know they have AS but they are using "Autistic" as a category. Even doctors do that, not all of them but some. My health clinic did that to me. They put in "infantile autism" and I asked my doctor about it and he said that's what they put for Aspergers. At first I thought it was from my early childhood diagnoses and I couldn't understand why it was in the system when I thought the diagnoses got erased later in life so I asked my doctor about it.

AS is actually an incredibly rare condition, if it is actually diagnosed according to what the DSM actually says. It has a higher potential in functioning than classical autism does, as it rwequires either 4 or more of the base symptoms to be present, where as classical requires 6 or more to be present. Also, for classical, there has to be some sort of cognitive delay. Odds are if you present more than 5 base symptoms, there will be some form of cognitive delay. For me, I had a cognitive delay in one area noone payed much attention to, which is why I am diagnosed AS rather than HFA. Right now, I show hardly any signs of autism, and you could not pick me out of a crowd and say I am autistic. AS is supposed to be the highest functioning form of autism, but truth is, there are HFAs that outperform aspies. I would be one of them. I would like my diagnosis to be changed to reflect what I have, but odds are, I present as NT for the most part, so I would probably lose my diagnosis altogether, and I cannot afford to lose the diagnosis... ever... My childhood was rather disturbing though... Autism made it more of a hell for me than most people should have gone through, yet at the same time, autism protected me from a lot of bs I would have otherwise been exposed to.

Autism for me means the entire spectrum, PDD-NOS inclusive. Autistic is anyone in any of the autism conditions. AS is just AS.

I just say under the autism spectrum. If I didn't have the speech delay I would easily have been labeled as AS... but I am tired of analyzing where on the spectrum I really fall.. so I am just plain somewhere under the autism spectrum.

14 is still young, maybe the people you had class with had not yet woken up to the world. I mean, obviously they hadn't, but maybe they did soon after that. I've seen that happen. Suddenly there will be awareness that wasn't there before.

Anyway, when I went to private school, (a sort of catch-all school for kids who were a bit different) there were a few kids like that, but they were the minority. Most of the people there were awkward and some were a little naive, but they did not act like zombies and they were definitely able to recognize other people as human and have real conversations and relationships. I don't know which ones had autism or AS, because we never talked about that kind of thing, but I don't think it really matters because no two of us were alike.

I'm glad I got to go to school with all of them, because I think I gained a lot of understanding of a wide variety of different mental situations that I wouldn't have been exposed to otherwise. In which case, I might have ended up thinking the way you do. Autism and similar conditions are not just fancy labels for stupidity. Even LFA is not what it seems to be. Have you seen this person's videos?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fUi1EYq ... annel_page That's the first one I saw, and it was really enlightening and fascinating. (And also slightly maddening.) I still have a hard time understanding some things about classical autism (like why, if the woman in the video can keep her mind on a topic long enough to type long and well-thought-out articles, she can't just tell herself "get the kettle, put in some water, turn on the stove, let it boil") but I'm starting to think that it's really rare to come across a mind that is truly just a useless pile of mush. It seems like if someone's mind is that bad, they'll usually be in a coma.

Last edited by wigglyspider on 30 May 2009, 11:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ummm.... not really... Although not the best example, look up Tsukasa from dotHack//sign. She goes into a coma, and her mind is trapped somewhere seperate from her body.

I say "autism", or "autistic", I usually mean everyone on spectrum.
I specify if I need to, but that's rare here, only slightly more common in real life.
It's all autism to me.

I didn't say all people in comas had bad minds. :B There are different causes for comas, and so there are different mental states that are possible for people in comas.

Thanks for the input you guys, sorry I'm not replying to everything in this thread even though some of it is really good insight/info. I just can't think of anything worthwhile to say back, (mostly just stuff like "I agree!" or "oh, that's interesting!") and I don't want to make you guys read my bland-oatmeal opinions. :B

you can't make us and that is a good thing

OTL;;;;

OTL 225 up, 71 down
OTL is the term used to express a situation where you are so upset that you feel like getting on your hands on the floor and knees down to start crying. The term introduced first in the u.s. by Peter Si(1980).
O shows head down
T shows stretching arms down on the floor
L shows kneel down
OTL ! I had $50 parking tix this morning!

I am formally dx'ed as Asperger's, but I prefer to use the term autism as it places all of us together in a manner that is far more in keeping with my wish for egalitarianisn, and with my aversion to hierarchies (which can happen in any group.)

So, as Inventor has said...THE BIG A.

The other reason i prefer to self-identify as someone who has autism is that I seem to be all over the place with my traits.
I stim and rock a lot. I fixate on points a lot and stare into space. I have a history of self-harm that is more akin to a supposed HFA classification. I have a very marked verbal acuity which fits with an AS dx.

So, it is all autism - and it lives in me as a wonderful and painful part of me.

Well put Padium!

Just one thing; classical autism does not require a cognitive delay according to both DSM-IV-TR and ICD-10. It allows it, but you don't have to have it to be HFA.

Then I misinterpreted the article, but anyways, contrary to popular belief, it also doesn't require a speech delay, and if it does require a delay, it is some form of developmental delay, of which speech is one.