Do you think AS is really autism?

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I didn't mean to refer to AS as mild and I don't actually think that, hence the use of the quotation marks

I was referring to waterdog's earlier comment about "mild autism"; I should've used the quote button there. Here is the quote:

However I stand corrected, I should not have mentioned about "severity" in my post.

Now, from you:



I agree with that, especially about "mild anything". Who's to say a certain problem is not significant to a person? Only the person themselves would be able to say that, because the problem is directly impacting them.

okay well i think you know what im mean though. i read somewhere that 80% of people dx'd with "autism" do not have a normal IQ, but have mental retardation. so its almost exclusivly given to people with MR. and not given to someone who's intelligance is normal.

I believe that literature is BS. I've been chatting at an unrelated forum with "professionals" about the IQ tests. I think that is outdated information based on IQ tests that can't be administered to non speaking people. My son scored low on "cognitive" tests until his speech caught up to his age group.

isn't there some kind of test they can give to someone who doesn't speak to find out what there intelligance is?

I've heard that a fair portion of Asperger's original patients he focused on to develop his autistic psychopathy thesis would've been diagnosed with Autistic Disorder today, too.

I get the feeling that with classic autism the wiring is a lot different. I've talked to someone here who cares for LFA"s for a long time and have also seen a few TV specials where they try to get their take on things. A lot of them seem very NT in the head for the most part but literally can't act it, the compulsions and behaviors are a completely seperate thing from their personality, and it seems like their social skills wouldn't be that bad if they were phyisically able to be themselves.

On the other hand with classic AS, someone who has strong obsessions, thinks literally, and practically thinks in computer script it seems like a whole different ballgame. With a lot of people here I kinda see where AS diagnosis seems like it encompasses both the types of people who are absent-minded professors and the people who are just very high functioning autistic and seem very normal overall. I really hope all the talks of the DSM IV smashing all barriers and calling all autism are rumors because I think that would be a real detrement - afterall if we're all that different I think they could look into subgroups and see that each subgroup has a different wiring scheme. It would seem real counterintuitive to undo all divisions drawn out, especially when parents are trying to draw up an IEP, when someone goes to see a career coach or counselor, or when they're looking for potential medications for comorbids - all that stuff matters.

Actually, what they've found is that standard IQ tests don't measure particularly well in autistic people. So, that figure is way, way, way, lower when given a test that doesn't involve having to understand linguistic directions. Here's my translation of a newspaper article on that: http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/?p=39

A quote:



Not that I'd think there's anything wrong with scoring low on IQ tests, but we apparently often don't even do that if tested properly.

I think I know what you mean, but I suspect it's more complicated than that.

As in... I don't even quite know how to word this one.

My cognition on some level is very fluid. It changes depending on what I am and am not doing.

When I am putting a lot of energy (conscious or not) into a certain kind and level of comprehension of my surroundings, and a certain kind and level of movement, then there is little room left over for a lot of aspects of my personality that might seem more "normal" in some ways.

But when I have simply less control over my body or over my ability to comprehend my environment in those particular ways, I am more likely to be able to be myself.

So it looks at those times -- like when I cannot move or am having extreme difficulty moving -- like if I could just move various ways then I would be "much more normal than I look".

But when I am moving in those ways then I have no more room to be "much more normal than I look" because I am so totally absorbed in all these other areas of functioning.

Not that normal is good or something.

Just that... like I have a high level of social understanding in many areas. Acknowledged by many NTs as good insight into human social behavior and the motivations behind it, generally seen as surprising (a different perspective than usual) but highly accurate.

I get this social understanding through a way of perceiving patterns that is impossible for me to do if I am functioning in anything approximating a typical way. If I am functioning in as close as I get to approximating a typical way (which is not very) then I look totally socially clueless.

But if I am not moving or perceiving in the ways required to "be more typical" (including to understand or use language sometimes) then suddenly I have all this social insight.

(I do not think that social skills are the hallmark of autism anyway but just saying this is one area in which I look more "abnormal" if I function in ways that cosmetically look "more normal".)

I hope this has made sense, it is not the easiest thing to explain. Many people who are so-called high-functioning strike me as people in a kind of overdrive where they have given up various skills that I have in order to gain other skills. Whereas, my brain seems to have hijacked my attempts in that direction and sacrificed the skills it takes to appear "high functioning" in order to gain different skills.

(Disclaimer, I'm not claiming membership in a category, see signature file, but just trying to explain some broad things that probably can't be generalized as much as I'm saying but it's hard to say them and not run out of words.)

Oh also... research has not shown convincing evidence for a difference between high and low functioning, but just rather possibly a difference in focus and a difference in what skills are valued and devalued and so forth. (I'm on the wrong computer to start quoting papers but there's fascinating stuff out there about this.)

I believe AS is autism, in a different form. I disagree that AS is the same form as HFA, though. The language delay is not just a "delay". It's not like you're just a little slower to learn language. It's deficiencies in the ability to use language, often evidenced by language delays. These deficiencies can be small or severe, they can be temporary or permanent and pervasive. That's what the criteria are, evidenced visible signs that often betray the presence of autism.

Actually I've heard the difference (if there is one, which I'm not totally convinced of) is one of what the areas of strength are in each one.

I made a post in a similar topic which seems an appropriate response to your post, anbuend.

I found more stuff on the IQ test stuff by the way, in non-translated English:

http://www.nationalreviewofmedicine.com ... e05_8.html
http://www.nationalreviewofmedicine.com ... e03_9.html

The stuff I was reading by that research team talked about basically... autism and Asperger not being genetically different, but if different at all, being differences in which skills the brain focused on and consequently which skills it discarded as a hindrance.

anbuend, I think I kinda know what your saying. Its like what really happens is you have varying amounts of mental fuel on different days and while some days it seems like you can take on more aspects some days you have to almost let yourself go and look like an h-bomb because you just don't have enough energy to keep yourself looking good for the world and stay lucid. That's at least my problem, and I definitely tend to feel like I'm some type of ultra-hfa as well as certain other people around here. Your right, its complicated, but a lot of the people who are aspies in the strict little professor sense would have absolutely no idea what we're talking about - they act how they want to act, speak exactly how they want to speak, move exactly how they want to move, don't feel parts of their brain very physically twisting into nots or tingling when they're running out of fuel and in one of those almost 2 or 3 times a week 'do or die' situations where you just aren't allowed to take a breather. Of course this is mostly according to them but still, I really doubt that descrepancy between them and us could be chalked up as a different level of perceptiveness or self-knowledge (not because it sounds egotistical, it just doesn't sound realistic that they could go into their 30s and 40s, see the same world, and still not come across these issues).

I dont know how helpful others will find this ,but there is a link on the forum question about "Does AS get worse with age?"Someone wrote about how some internal or external "stressers" effect how well an AS can function on a specific day or specific environment.Basic premise being......I think....certain tasks,like socializing......take an extream amount of focus and energy...if that energy is used up by "supressing steming"....it takes away from the energy needed to try and logically inturpret non-verbal communication....if allowed to stem...the extra energy can be used to do the tasks required for socializing (or other tasks that dont come "naturaly" for AS)...this made alot of sense to me and explained why somedays I "function" better then other days....there were obviously other sensory factores and if I have enough sleep,have remmbered to eat,am preoccupied by a current "interest" or dealing with an emotional stresser...

But then what I've heard others call HFA I would label as merely PDD. I don't consider PDD a form of autism, though it "experts" say it is. I don't consider AS the same as autism just because I've met way too autistics that I don't relate to other than the eye contact avoidance.

anbuend, thanks for those articles. Those're great.