difference between Asperger's and high functioning autism

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Having AS does not always mean you want and seek friends. In fact, the DSM-IV criteria states that lack of social reciprocity and failure to make friends your own age are used to diagnose AS.
It's inaccurate to make statements like "Auties don't seek friends but Aspies do". The DSM doesn't say that.

There was a period in my childhood (probably most of it) where I absolutely had no desire for friends, much to the worry of my mother. She would tell me every school year, "Now, I want to you try and make one new friend this year." I didn't see the point whatsoever. I remember having other priorities in life. I wonder if I subconsciously knew I didn't have the skills to acquire friends.

It wasn't until high school, when people approached me to be my friend (not the other way around), that I learned about friendships. And I don't know if it was correlation or causation, but around that point my autistic tendencies started significantly diminishing.

I often think I would have been better off without the desire for friendship. When I was in school I wanted friends but didn't have any and it seemed like everyone I knew was against me having them, too. When I tried to make one my peers would say to whomever was being friendly to me, "Why would you want to be friends with her?" or something similar, only they weren't so nice in their phrasing. This was one thing that stood in the way of me having them. People had negative opinions about me, generally, which didn't help me finding any.


By the time I got to high school I was so tired of it all, the same people and the same problems finishing all the work, I felt everything was a lost cause. By then I had lost all hope. At that point my anxiety was high, I wasn't talking to many people. I wrote letters to people who lived in different states instead. It was easier and I could disguise my flaws that way so it soon became my favorite mode of communication. I stopped trying to fit in and make friends with people around me who I thought hated me anyway. I sat at my desk and wrote letters instead of doodling and it was usually about how lame I thought my surroundings were, kind of like now, heh. Old habits die hard.

The DSM-IV-TR also says

Note the use of may. It's supposed to mean it's typical, but not present in every case of AS.

It's SO easy to be somewhere in the fuzzy territory between AS and classic autism. All you need is a little delay there, some odd speech there, a little mutism or speech difficulty or (for that matter) just a tendency to appear delayed even if you actually aren't... There's no clear cutoff and they are simply not two distinct groups. They blend into each other pretty much seamlessly. I'm diagnosed AS and in the fuzzy space thanks to using scripted and echolalic speech as a youngster (but learning to read so early that I made up for it and became overly pedantic instead), plus some self-help skill difficulty, an obvious VIQ>PIQ gap, a stereotypically Aspie love of categorizing and collecting facts, sensory processing disorder, and good academic ability--a mixed bag with bits from each idealized type. There are a lot of us in the fuzzy space between the two categories, and as much as the concrete thinkers among us would love to see two distinct boxes, it just isn't going to happen--autism is simply too variable.

You might be able to pick a couple of non-delayed verbal teens-or-older and say, "This person is definitely Kanner's" and "This person is definitely Asperger's", but that's the exception, not the rule. In general, the differences vanish by six years old, almost always by the teens.

And for someone who is 32 when they hadn't even defined AS back then, all of those details are forgotten memories to my parents. If my mother had taken up the offer to have me tested back in 1985, I can't even imagine what they would have come up with!

And even remembering these clearly can turn out not to help you in the slightest. It doesn't help me though I have succeeded in collecting a lot of information and gained a lot of insight into my early childhood development.

Not true for me. I walked at 16 months which is the later end of average. I had a speech delay, even though my first word was spoken at 9 months I didn't speak in full sentences until the age of 5/6. Before then it was only 2-3 word sentences and echolalia. So according to the DSM I should be HFA, but AS still suits my personality better I think.


Hmm, not sure about this. I started off just socialising when it suits me but now I seek enjoyement all the time even if I do spend alot of time alone.


True for me, my sensory issues are very mild and usually only apply to touch. But I know that aspies can have severe sensory issues, this site proves it.


True for me, I prefer learning to be more spontanious.


I started off being really literal now I'm only a little bit literal.


No I do find aspies are just as varied ad HFAs and NTs, I've known aspies that were in the bottom set at school.


I don't know what that means, if it means severity then I disagree. Because I think HFAs and aspies both have a wide range, you can have an aspies who's more severe than a HFautie, and vice versa.


No, not true I don't think. I'm still a bit unsure about personal space myself, I can follow someone around too much or be too distant.

I haven't bothered to read the entire thread, so maybe someone else pointed this out already, but diagnostically the only differences between autistic disorder and Asperger's are:
1. Asperger's people cannot by definition have an IQ below 70; autistics may or may not have an IQ below 70.
2. Aspies cannot have had an early language delay, ie. they must have used words by age 2 and spoken in sentences by age 3; autistics must have had significant communication impairments (category B in DSM criteria), and this generally means a speech delay. By late childhood or adulthood, the DSM doesn't say anything about there needing to be a difference, so Aspie adults can have language problems (usually not nonverbal because this is very unlikely to occur in later childhood) and auties may speak normally.

3. Aspies cannot have had significant impairmetns in self-help skills, adaptive behavior except for that needed for social interaction, or curiosity about the environment, in early childhood. Note again, DSM doesn't say anything about older children or adults.
4. Autistic disorder must have been apparent before age 3; there is no specific age requirement for Asperger's except that it's said to happen "throughout life".

IMO, if an adult or adolescent speaks and has an IQ above 70, there is no way to tell whether they are AS or autistic by their current presentation.

Whats FG syndrome?

http://www.healthline.com/galecontent/fg-syndrome

The division between AS and HFA isn't artificial because they are exactly the same. It's artificial because there aren't two distinct categories. There are probably dozens of categories. We are all very unique.

My personal analogy for the autism spectrum is a sound equalizer. People not on the spectrum tend to have a level profile in their skills and intellectual abilities while people on the autism spectrum often very vastly from one area to another. In other words NT's tend to have the "jack of all trades" neurology while our brains are more wired for specialized thinking styles.

The defecits that seem to be intrinsic to autism are the ones that require a very wide range of mental processes all working together at once. There isn't a specific "social center" of the brain that's defective with people on the autism spectrum. The reason we have difficulty with socializing is related to the entire brain being wired towards specialized thinking. Social interaction is hard because it requires a wide variety of mental processes to operate simultaneously. The entire brain is utilized during social interaction because humans evolved as social creatures.

Last edited by marshall on 01 Aug 2009, 12:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Marshall, what an excellent analysis.

A question you can ask also, what's the difference between Schizoid PD of childhood onset and AS and HFA?

In the defining paper, Wing said AS is a form of Schizoid PD of childhood onset, but that it'd be more prudent to place it in the Kanner's Autism category and its related conditions due to severity, and until more neurological evidence is attained to differentiate it from other conditions.

Influenza and parainfluenza often cause the same symptoms, it's just that severity between the two is often different (but not always with "mild" influenza. This is a good analogy for AS and HFA, and also SPD and LFA added to the mix too).

I think schizoid PD only describes those who don't seek social interaction, don't desire it, etc. At least that's how schizoid PD in adults is described: neither desires nor enjoys being part of a social group, almost always prefers solitery activities, little or no interest in sexual relationship, etc. Plus there has to be flattened affect or apparent indifference to praise and criticism. I for one don't meet the criteria for schizoid PD at all.

That pretty much describes one presentation of AS. It's just that there's more along for the ride in AS (greater level of handicap in addition to several symptoms of Kanner's).

People often neglect to mention that those with Schizoid PD also have an intense area of interest (solitude tends to do that), but again, it's not to as great an extent as is seen in AS.