Is LFA really on a spectrum with Asperger's?

Post Reply New Topic

I have autistic disorder. There has never been a high functioning attached to this label. I do not think of my self as low functioning. I think of my self as autistic. On the spectrum I do not know where I am. I would say maybe some where in the middle? If I am next to some one who is severe you can tell the difference between them and me. If I am next to some one high functioning you can also tell the difference between them and me. But it is all autism. I have speech language difficulties. I have had many years of speech language therapy. I use a mixture of writing and sign and single words and sometimes I manage a sentence which can be difficult for people to understand. some people with autism have less difficulties with this. Some have more difficulties with this. I think it is obvious that it is a spectrum.

I'm convinced the OP just doesn't want to be accociated with them ret*d head banging nappy wearers, am I right? Ammi in the ball park?

That's what I'm picking up..

I think you're right. But who in their right mind would want to be associated with "ret*d head banging nappy wearers?"

We don't have to like it, but it's true. And I feel pretending we're not related is like an NT brother pretending his handicapped sister isn't related to him, it's disrespectful to LFA's.

Well said Phonic.

This is why I want to dissociate myself from the Asperger's label. We're not all early speaking/walking, brilliant little professors that can make a career out of our interests.

I used to bang my head quite a lot for stimulation. The teachers always told me to stop. Sometimes I still like to bang my hands or head when I feel understimulated. Yet you can look at me in the street and the word autistic will not enter your mind, unless you have experience and a lot of knowledge about it.

Just to offer yet another perspective from someone who is somewhere in the middle of the spectrum...

I don't feel like I have a lot in common with people with more severe autism. But then, I don't think I have much in common with people with mild autism/Asperger's either.

Even us early speaking and walking little professors who end up making a career out of a special interest have things in common with those with LFA. My sensory integration dysfunction is fairly bad. I had horrible meltdowns until I was in my 30s (even injured myself during them), and even now I struggle with them to try to avoid losing it to the extent I (or some property) get(s) hurt. Everything isn't black/white, high functioning/low functioning, "mild"/"severe". I think the spectrum concept does a pretty good job of describing what a lot of us deal with, regardless of "label". I even think it's a spectrum on different levels, like I'm not severely affected when it comes to academic pursuits but the sensory integration difficulties, meltdowns, and social problems are much more prominent for me. It all depends on the individual.

~Kate

If by "mild autism" you wants to say HFA and AS, they have average/above-average IQ simply by a matter of definition - mental retardation usually excludes a diagnosis of AS and in the "language of the researchers" (not in common language) HFA means "autistic without mental retardation".

And they're incorrect, because their are intelligent LFA.

You guys have got to remember that IQ is not an intrinsic property of a person. It's not like your height or your weight or your eye color--it doesn't exist independent of the IQ test. An IQ is simply a score on a test; it's not a property of your mind any more than a score on a math test or a score on a reading test would be.

The IQ test was designed and normed for NTs. It was based, originally, on the assumption that children develop either more quickly or more slowly than their peers, but in the same basic way; and it was meant to give a "mental age" so that an eight-year-old who did as well as a six-year-old might be taught the things they expect six-year-olds to learn.

The whole concept of the IQ test just doesn't apply to autistic people. Autistics don't develop on the NT schedule. We don't follow along slowly or rush ahead quickly; it's not that simple. We learn things suddenly or not at all; we can do things that an NT would consider advanced before things they would consider simple. We lose skills and regain them; we can't access skills sometimes, and other times we do things that are much more difficult than we could do usually. We've got splinter skills, learning disabilities, special interests, and even savant syndrome.

Using an IQ test normed for NTs and trying to make it apply to an autistic population just doesn't make sense to me. It's like assuming a cat is the same thing as a horse and trying to train it to carry a rider--you'll just squish the cat under the saddle and probably get clawed into the bargain. Show me an autistic person who's been stereotyped by their IQ score, and I'll show you an autistic who quite likely wishes they had claws to apply to the people who are so fond of stereotypes!

Well, my IQ is 100, which is average!! A lot of Aspies have IQ's a lot higher than mine!

I'm high functioning, didn't meet enough criteria for AS so I'm PDD NOS instead. I've met many low functioning autistics in volunteering programs. And pretty much always I find that they're basically like me with my quirks taken to an extreme, and sometimes other issues thrown in as well.

Sensory issues - I find loud noise upsetting but can tolerate it, one boy I worked with would fall to the ground and start screaming whenever there was loud noise.

Attention - I can pay attention to researching my special interest for several hours, that one boy could spend six hours straight stimming with a fan.

Body language - I felt like I was translating for that boy I worked with, because I could read his body language and no one else could, and he only seemed to know what I was feeling and not anyone else.

The list goes on. I've noticed the same when Amanda Baggs talks about how she thinks, it's usually an exaggeration of my own thinking process (eg I related a lot to her stork analogy, but I have more 'flapping power' than she does).

I agree with everything Callista said (although I thought "savant syndrome" was now called splinter skills).

To add to that, I guess I should mention that the idea that "LFA" are mostly intellectually disabled is actually not empirically validated. As Callista pointed out, IQ tests on autistic people tend to be fairly inaccurate and scores tend to scatter.

And I call myself autistic all the time. I don't care that the word is associated with people who have more severe symptoms and require more care than I do. It seems like an excessive concern about what other people might think.

I would rather dissociate myself from "Asperger's" entirely, though, because I keep getting the impression from people that I am expected to be more capable than I am and my autism to be more mild than it really is because that is my diagnostic label.

You hit the nail right on the head.

Well I've always been labelled as high functioning, and I always will be. I'm not going to change that. It's what I was diagnosed with. I am high-functioning enough to pass of as NT to most, if not, all people I know.

Iq tests are notoriously biased. If you have a verbal or lang impairement u will score very low. The notion of iq is a made up one. We cant all jyst like wipe em out and get a ruler, it is an indirect mesure and the object to be measured is intangable.
There is a test i think it is called the ravens scale that removes the lang component. Nts tend to score the same on this as others while prople with as do far better than on others such as stanford bennit or weschler.