Would you rather be aspergers or high funtioning autistic,.

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AS is HFA so your post doesn't make any sense.

There is a difference.

Erm, most aspies are not wealthy and not geniuses (I would imagine that most aspies are within the normal IQ range). According to the national autistic society (UK) most autistics (this includes people diagnosed with aspergers) find employment very difficult.

I was initially diagnosed with autistic disorder. However, it was changed to aspergers when they thought it was more appropriote for my developmental level at the time. So I do have a history of language delays and obvious did fit the rest of the necessary criteria and yet I am now recognised as an aspie. There was no magical transformation. They just said "right, this diagnosis will be more useful to her right now". Many of my friends ahd a similar experience. In fact, one of my closest friends had an even longer, more severe speech delay (they thought he would never learn to speak) and now he is higher functioning than I am and not obviously on the spectrum.

To me, the only difference between AS and HFA is semantics. In other words, there is no difference.

Also, AspieGuy, for someone with a low intellect, you are very eloquent

I'm not even sure if I have AS. Like AspieGuy I dont consider myself to be a very intelligent person (low GPA in college) and I have difficulty with reading and concentrating...and I have severe social anxiety. When people talk to me it takes me minutes to process what they say and the create a proper response. I dont talk as much as my friends who also have AS.

I'm certain that I have some form of good functioning autism (I can drive a car but it took year to get over the anxiety issues in order to do so). I just dont have a clue anymore.

Can you explain what it is, then?

I know a girl with high functioning autism. She has trouble speaking, trouble explaining herself even when writing and could not be a part of a forum like this. She will never be able to live by her self and lives in full time care. She was delayed in many milestones and was not toilet trained till she was ten. Her intelligence is with in normal ranges. She is officially high functioning. I have high functioning autism that is a lot less severe than her but I also live in care. I am near enough to aspergers to maybe actually have that. I do think there is a difference between her and people I know with aspergers. The main thing I have in common with her is a lack of interest in people, and delayed mile stones.

I know people who have a diagnosis of aspergers who are just like this, so your arguement still doesn't explain the differences. All you have explained is that there are people who are called high functioning for superficial reasons even though, by objective standards, they are probably verging towards moderate functioning or even low functioning.

Of course, I don't know you or the person you are talking about. However, I think anecdotal evidence (while it can be useful for making a point) is not really useful right now when there is already research that suggests otherwise:

http://www.sacramentoasis.com/docs/8-22-03/as_&_hfa.pdf
http://aut.sagepub.com/content/4/1/11.abstract
http://www.aspergers.com/aspcrit.htm (have a look at the Gillberg criteria which I think some diagnosticians use).

I'm sorry I haven't provided substantial evidence (I'm not a scientist or really that scientific) but I want to use this as an example of how the science seems to be in favor of aspergers merging with autism.

Can anyone provide me with research that suggests otherwise? That would be interesting I (and you guys could probably provide much better, more reliable and much more detailed info than me).

Also (n regards to the DSM IV criteria that I provided along with the Gillberg criteria) don't you think that criterion E totally contradicts criterion C?

Yes, what is it, this difference?

My offical diagosis isn't AS but HFA. Aren't HFA and AS the same thing anyway?

Yup. They're even being merged in the DSM in a few years.

i would rather hfa int the thought proceess that if i was hfa instead of aspergers it would have shown more when i was little so the things im doing now would seem more like accomplishments to other people instead of people expecting so much more from me that i struggle to accomplish

I have niether 'High Functioning Autism' nor 'Aspergers', and I think you can be happy however you choose to identify, so long as that identification does not equal supremacy. Nothing makes me madder than when the so called 'high functioning/aspies' distance themselves rom their not-so high functioning brothers and sisters, as well as those currently diagnosed with PDD-NOS.

I'm sorry to say the unemployment rate and underemployment rate is very similar for autistic and Asperger people. While there are certainly some rich and successful Aspergian geeks, wealth eludes most.

I've been diagnosed as having Asperger Syndrome, but technically speaking I should've been diagnosed as High Functioning Autism because I had a speech delay (didn't start speaking til I was 4).

I don't see much difference between AS and HFA besides the initial speech delay in HFA.

However a paper written by Dr. Peter Enticott at Alfred Hospital in Melbourne suggests there may be a neurobiological difference between AS and HFA. In particular, there is less GABA-ergic inhibition in people with HFA for Mirror Neuron activity, something like that.

The link is here:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 665.x/full