Is AS possibly something totally different than Clas autism?

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I was diagnosed with mild AS, but I've never felt autistic in my life. Instead I feel I'm an eccentric person who gets highly anxious and feels strong emotions and expresses them a lot, verbally and non-verbally. I have a good sense of humour, a creative mind, good social imagination, interested in social gossip, pick up on body language instictively, socially awkward in other ways, and I'm rather afflicted with social phobia, attention issues, eccentric (hyper) behaviour, and stress/anxiety disorder. So I feel I have lots of NT traits, mixed with some AS traits and ADHD too. I don't feel one bit autistic.

An African rock hyrax looks much an American gopher. But DNA tests show that the hyrax is not related to the rodent order, and is closer to elephants than it is to gophers.

A French Citreon car looks superficially like a VW bug. But mechanically theyre quite different.

Same could be true of aspergers vs HFA. Similar destinations coming from different causes and different points of origin. Who knows?

If we were to use the Solitary Forager Hypothesis we'd see that Clas Autism is probably HFA gone awry.

Autism would have been extremely beneficial back in Neanderthal times as a means of solo survival in the wild. Hearing and visual sensitivity, the instinct for collecting and categorizing things, observing patterns - especially those created by flora and fauna, avoiding eye contact (eye contact often seen as a threat by man and animal), poor social skills as a result of limited or no interaction with social groups, rigid thinking/black and white thinking/friend or foe thinking - no exceptions, extreme curiosity and preference for seeing projects through from imagination to creation, special recognition, etc. All benefits back in the day.

Clas Autism is malfunctioning autism, if you will. The survival instinct is greatly reduced in that LFA folks often remain in one place when they are told to stay somewhere - deadly in past times. A meltdown as a means of attention would get you killed in the wild because of bringing unwanted attention to yourself. Absolute silence is a virtue, probably why some kids don't start speaking till they're four or five, sometimes never. The incontinence some kids have is probably related to situational awareness gone amok for lack of social instructions.

Basically, in autism, the amygdala/limbic system (the flight or fight system in the brain) is in hyperdrive compared to NT's. IN LFA the amygdala is probably misfiring, sending out erratic signals.

Of course, I'm just guessing. Much more research needs to be done.

I am one of those who totally like the term "Autistic Spectrum" instead of having to choose by force whether someone is Asperger or autistic. This and the new DSM-V categories make us (health/education professionals) see more under the stereotypic two main groups, and define the syndrome in terms of what is important: amount of help needed, and whether there is language or intellectual impairment or not. This big "spectrum" term makes easier to see that the people in it are all diverse, and not just 2 different types. Specially it doesn't make sense any more when somebody says "I was autistic as a child but now I'm Asperger", then you see clearly how irrelevant the distinction is. It's better to say that you had a severe language impairment which you overcame. But you are some one in the autistic spectrum from the cradle to the grave.
And it's proved already that the neuro-anatomical bases are common to everyone in the spectrum. Whenever I find again where I read it, I will share it.

I find it unlikely that there isn't some sort of neurological link between all forms of autism. Regardless of any biological divergence, the prevalence of common traits can't be completely coincidental.

Perhaps there is a difference that separates different forms of autism, but I've yet to see definitive proof that there is a clear-cut division of autistic types beyond artificially-created diagnostic criteria-based separation. The biggest sign of a division seems to be whether or not verbal skills are developed at a normal rate or are delayed, but that could be due to any number of things, e.g. a secondary effect that autism might cause under certain conditions or it could be as a result of an increased severity of certain atypical neurological traits.

I suppose this is what makes people believe Asperger Syndrome might be something separate, but is it like saying that if everyone is a car, AS and autism are just similar-looking cars? I don't believe so. It's more like if everyone is a car, AS and autism are bikes (motorcycles), but AS bikes have built-in headlights, whilst other forms of autism need to have them installed after production. Yet should bikes be separated into categories based on when they got their headlights (and how good those headlights are)? No, bikes come in all shapes and forms, with all sorts of specs that are different, for better or for worse.

Great neuropsychological revision article of 2012, which analizes the findings in functional MRI throughout the different processes which are anomalous in autism (communication, social cognition...) and makes no distinction between forms of autism.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3513685/

"Likely due at least in part to the heterogeneity of symptom expression in ASDs, there is no unifying account of brain dysfunction that explains all the core symptoms of ASDs. Instead, the triad of defining ASD symptoms (ie, impaired social functioning, impaired communication, and restricted and repetitive behaviors and interests) suggests distinct neural systems. Additionally, it is common for some cognitive systems to be spared in individuals with ASDs (eg, even severe cases of ASDs may be accompanied by high intelligence and other so-called “islets of ability”8), suggesting that brain dysfunction in ASDs may be domain-specific"

Aspergers or whatever you want to call is a subcatagory of Autism like different genders or races are subcatogories of human. Prostrate cancers are generally milder then liver cancers in that you will likely die of something else instead the prostrate cancer, if you have liver cancer you are in trouble. Not in all cases like with aspergers there is severe prostrate cancer. Nobody makes a seperate disease of prostrate cancer and nobody eliminates the prostrate cancer diagnosis and calls it cancer severity level one because it is really just all cancer or saying you have prostrate cancer makes you ableist against prople with more severe cancer. For the most part we subcatogorize stuff because us helps define and therefore deal with situations. But with autism we can't do that, it must be just autism, anything else divides the community and just plain offensive smh.

Now remember: I didn't say I had Asperger's. I wouldn't have been diagnosed with it under the DSM-IV. Instead, I said I was ASPERGIAN. This means, in a subjective sense, I present more as Asperger's than as someone with Classic Autism. I'm not putting down Classic Autism. I feel we are all part of a Spectrum.

I was actually diagnosed with Classic Autism when I was about three. I had no speech, and I had no awareness of many things. Alas, my parents don't remember too much else about that time.

If one would read "Elijah's Cup," one would see what I mean when somebody presents as Kanners as a young child, then presents as Aspergian when older.

Thanks for the clarification, I had not picked up on the distinction in your post.

Following my diagnosis of AS last year it started to click that not only have I always displayed similarities to those of my friends who also have Asperger's, but also a lot in common with those with more classical Autism.

^Yes, but those things are generalizations. They don't apply to everyone with AS or HFA.