If LFA/MFA was an amplified form of AS.

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If LFA/MFA were an amplified form of AS as I know it (I'm skeptical that it is), then I imagine this is how such individuals would perceive the world.

Any change to routine or environment would be incredibly distressing. The individual would feel as if they were in a totally foreign environment in which there was no predictability, no consistency, and which was entirely unfamiliar to them, even if it was only a shelf that was moved, or someone familiar to them changed their hair color.

The individual would be so adverse to change that they have no desire to change any aspect of their lifestyle. In a sense, a form of "I won't grow up" syndrome.

The individual would be extremely hypersensitive, to the point of being aware of such minute stimulus as certain body functions that most people are unaware of.

The individual perceive certain objects not much differently, and no less interesting than they did the first time they had contact with them. A leaf would be just as fascinating to them at age 12 as it was at age 2 when they were learning what a leaf was, because their brain never properly processes the information. Thus it always remains an object of interest. This also extends to activities.

Absorbing themselves in their fascination with these objects would be akin to zen. Not much different than when a person does some form of meditation. The person simply wants to be alone during this time.

Any transition away from such instances would be highly distressing. The task of which they are being forced to switch to would seem insurmountable.

The individual would be aware of people around them, and might be aware that these people are sentient beings, however, would not understand the concept of interacting with other people as sentient beings. Reaching out to another person would be a foreign concept.

Much as when one is very young, the world continues to look big and fragmented as the brain never accustoms to it to form a more streamlined perspective.

Because of these things, the individual's only defense in the face of adversity is to shut down or internalize.

But this doesn't explain a lot of things so I doubt it's completely accurate.

I've thought about that too;If the differences were because of increased sensory sensitivity.

My family has AS traits on both sides and both sides could communicate with the dead for generations. I think people with autism/AS are just so sensetive they can pick up on things most people are unware of.

I'm not sure I understand the distinction. You can be low functioning and have Asperger's. The distinction between classic autism and Asperger's is in language development, not overall functioning, no?

An important distinction is IQ test score. Language development may be all that differentiates the medical records of people with HFA and people with Aspergers. But people labeled LFA or MFA tend to also have an IQ test score <70 in their medical records. I realize that the terms LFA, MFA and HFA don't actually appear in medical records. What actually appears is "autism". But the point remains that nobody whose medical record says "Aspergers" has an IQ test score <70.

Note that I am saying "low IQ score in medical records" rather than " mentally ret*d", although that's what it also says in their medical records (despite the misconception at WP that the medical community has retired that term). There have been some autistic people (considered LFA or MFA) who have scored considerably better on the Ravens Matrices IQ test than they have on conventional IQ tests, at which people with Aspergers excell. It may be perceptual differences, differences in the way that their intelligence and thoughts are organized, that leads to this. I guess Chronos is trying to get some sort of handle on what those differences are. They go far beyond language acquisition. Why do some autistic people score very well indeed on conventional IQ tests (thus getting the lable HFA or Aspergers based on language acquistion) while other people score very low (thus getting the label LFA or MFA, based seemingly on whether they are verbal at all or not) but sometimes score far higher on a Ravens Matrices test? The term "mental retardation" doesn't explore the reasons at all. And there have to be reasons. Maybe the reasons are perceptual?


I use my own daughter as a reference point for this. (I know I have tunnel vision because I see autism through her, it's an inevitability of being a parent.) She scored far below 70 on a conventional IQ test (and has not taken Ravens Matrices because the whole testing process has run its course) but she is quite talkative indeed so her doctors say MFA instead of LFA because talkativeness seems to be their unofficial benchmark (LFA, MFA and HFA don't appear in medical records as far as I know because they are unofficial terms). Letters and numbers only make marginal sense to her so I can't say "she was just having a bad day". There is a real difference. But what exactly is that difference?

Unlike Chronos's guess, she is well aware of other people and interacts just fine (as long as those people are adults and not fellow children, of whom she is deeply wary). Just like Chronos' guess she prefers predictability in her routine and surroundings and will replace objects in the house that have been moved (and so she is rather well organized and always knows where things are so long as I put them away in the same place). Other people with the LFA or MFA label might match or not match other parts of Chronos' guess. Everyone is an individual but there must be something that is causing people with one label to do so well on the conventional IQ tests while people with a different but related label are doing so poorly. There has to be a reason.

As I mentioned in an different thread, the IQ distribution is not a diagnostic distinction. IQ skews higher in those with Asperger's but it is possible to have a very high IQ and be HFA and have a low IQ and have Asperger's. Part of this may be simply that extremely low IQ correlates with language difficulties even outside the spectrum.

It isn't possible to have a low IQ and an Aspergers diagnosis. Part of the defintion of Aspergers is that there be no cognitive disability: no IQ score in the mentally ret*d range. Whatever the underlying neurology may be that leads to different IQ scores for different people, doctors can't write "Aspergers Syndrome" in somebody's medical records if they also have a recorded IQ test score <70, the cutoff for official mental retardation. It's disallowed by the current DSM definition of Aspergers.

In the new DSM, that all may change. If "Aspergers" ceases to exist as a category, then people will simply be "autistic" regardless of their IQ score. But the current edition requires an IQ test score >70 for an Aspergers diagnosis.

I don't see anything in either the ICD 10 or DSM IV referencing IQ as part of the Asperger's diagnosis. Can you point me to something? I would appreciate it. I hate having wrong facts in my head and I need to stamp it out.

Here is the DSM criteria:

www.autreat.com/dsm4-aspergers.html


section V says "no clinically significant delay in cognitive development". What that means is that they can't score in the mentally ret*d range (<70) on an IQ test and get an Aspergers diagnosis.

I guess that seems rather subjective to me. Can you direct me to something that defines "clinically significant delay in cognitive development"? Not trying to be an ass, it's just my Aspergian obsession with details kicking into overdrive

When I see people I just see other species. A species far more confusing than cats, dogs or birds. I cannot relate to them at all.

I get very distressed over any slight change. Once the backyard was full of leaves and it made me almost have a meltdown. Once a vase was not on the table it was usually on. I felt uncomfortable.

Switching between tasks is the most distressing thing I can't even begin to describe it. It just doesn't feel right. It maybe feels like confusion or panic.

My sensory issues are also very intense that I just shutdown when around it for too long. Vibrations cause me panic, as do flickers of light on the ground from the sunlight. I have a very poor spatial ability and so any close movement near me feels like I'll be hit. I don't hide this fact either. I tell people and sometimes cry and jump out of the way.

I can look at objects like a pen for hours and see every detail of it, although I only look at one part.

Interesting about the bodily functions. I can tell what every slight function is. People are surprised I know what every food, drink or medicine will do to it because I'm so in tune with it.

You left out the part about meltdowns because a child that cannot communicate will lash out and an autistic who can not communicate well can only show distress this way. That's pretty much what I do. My mum does a much more high functioning version.

I'm a bit below HFA. I might be ok when at home and around those I trust, but in town around strangers I begin flapping and staring upwards and lose motor skills.

I do think that LF/MF is a more severe form of AS with a verbal delay and low VQ. I seem to be a much more intense, rigid and sensitive version of AS. I had a slight verbal delay and struggled with language until recently. Although I've gone back to not knowing how to communicate properly.

There's a LOT of traits that gets classed as autistic. Low / high functioning just measures a few of those traits, it doesn't say anything about the rest. Someone with AS could be way stricter about routines than someone with autism, since the functioning levels don't measure that. If you tried to class functioning along all the traits, you'd find they don't correlate. So, your hypothesis is false.

I googled the phrase "clinically significant delay in cognitive development" and wound up with page after page of definitions of Aspergers Syndrome that specify that those with Aspergers don't have it. So I guess it's one of those terms that is meant tom be self explanatory. I actually don't think it's subjective. The term "clinically significant" implies that there is a measurable problem in cognitive development and the only way we currently have to measure problems in cognitive development is IQ tests. So I don't see how somebody could have both a low IQ and normal cognitive development. But I can't find a website that spells it out exactly. They just assume that you will come to the conclusion that low IQ and cognitive delay go hand in hand.

You did say that you think people can have Aspergers Syndrome and a low IQ. Do you have any links to back that up? I find link after link saying you can't have a clinically significant delay in cognitive developmet and get an Aspergers Syndrome diagnosis. I think that no doctor hands out an Aspergers diagnosis to somebody with an IQ <70 because they will take that score to be evidence of "clinically significant delay in cognitive development." But you think that people actually are getting Aspergers diagnoses even with an IQ <70. So do you have links for that assertion?

Well crap. Now I have to go look some stuff up. I remember recently reading a paper that discussed this very issue. But since I am not writing a thesis or anything, I don't record where and when I read it. I'll see if I can find it. The gist of the argument was that higher IQ was an artifact of diagnostic bias, not of objective criteria



I understand the point you are making. It reinforces the idea of autism as a spectrum. It makes sense that a sub 70 IQ would have cognitive development delay and as such be excluded. I suppose things like this are what make diagnosis part art form and part science.

I agree that usually what the distinction between LF and HF is, is usually measured along a very few traits indeed. Which particular traits are used to make the distinction varies depending on which traits the person making the distinction finds the most valuable. As such, LF/HF isn't a meaningful distinction at all. There's also plenty of evidence against the division in the research literature although I don't know as much about that (I know several researchers who make this point though).

This isn't to say there aren't various divisions among autistic people. It's just to say that LF/MF/HF is a distraction. It's false divisions, not real ones. Real divisions ought to produce people in each group who are fairly similar to each other in most respects. Those divisions never do that. (Neither does autism/AS/PDDNOS/etc for that matter).

I've had "low functioning" and "severe" written in my medical records before (and never "high functioning" or "mild" that I'm aware of at least not about autism). Not as the official diagnosis but as observations by the psychiatrist who diagnosed me. Many other people tend to read me that way as well. Note however that I reject utterly being classified as either LF, MF, or HF. All of them are terms I find vaguely insulting among other things. So I talk as someone frequently classified as LF, not someone who is LF. (At the same time, saying I'm not LF doesn't mean I'm MF or HF, any more than saying I'm not HF means I'm MF or LF. Some people have been very happy that I don't classify myself as LF, believing this means I'm 'admitting' to being HF. Nothing could be further from the truth.)

Anyway, as someone who's frequently read this way, I really resent (and have since long before this post was made) the entire concept that someone like me is someone with "AS" or "HF", only more extreme. Usually this takes the form of someone who considers themselves "AS" or "HF" deciding that whatever their personal traits are (and maybe picking out the ones that mean the most to them), mine are more extreme versions of that. Which isn't true at all, or at least is rarely true. (And sometimes when it is true, it's a trait the person barely notices in themselves.)

A related assumption people make is that my traits must be just like their traits in early childhood. So for instance, if they once had sensory experiences like mine, but they disappeared by the age of four or five? They tend to assume that I must be as confused as they were at 4 or 5. When the reality is that if you keep those experiences your whole life, then just like more typical experiences, they grow into a whole way of understanding and relating to the world. Expecting me to still have the experiences they had at 4 or 5 is like expecting a fairly typical nonautistic person to be as confused as they were at 4 or 5 because they still have the same general way of relating to the world. It just doesn't make sense.

Anyway a lot of what makes me different from most autistic people I run into online (but by no means all), is more about a different type of experience than a different degree of experience. (And these seem to cause at least part of the differences in how I'm perceived appearance-wise.)

So... a lot of autistic people seem to have a particular setting they've clicked into somehow. Where they have trouble perceiving and understanding non-language information but find it easier to understand language (barring the fact that they might have auditory processing problems). So a lot will assume that someone like me would understand far less body language and intonation than they would. Except that's not true at all for me. I have a lot of trouble not only understanding language, but keeping propped up the entire idea that language is something in the world that can exist at all. And while I don't understand body language in the exact same way nonautistic people do, I find it far easier to read body language and intonation than I find it to understand language. Interestingly, when I do have to concentrate on language, this pattern reverses entirely. This makes me suspect that autistic people often have trouble understanding both of these things at one time, but which one we understand can vary from person to person and even from moment to moment in the same person.

Similarly, a lot of autistic people are always talking about how much they rely on logic, rational thinking, and ideas in order to think and understand things. That's... not me. Not unless I'm trying hard to be someone I'm not, and if I do that, my brain melts, to borrow an expression from someone in another thread. After melting, it goes back to my normal pattern of thinking. Which has no ideas, nothing like logic, or any of that. The bset I can describe, it's about direct experiences and the patterns between them. (This is also how I learned to handle language, by slowly figuring out which patterns of words generally accompanied which experiences.)

Those are two of the biggest things affecting my experience of the world, and both of them are extremely different from what people expect if they just decide I'm whatever they are only more so.

The other things that tend to set me apart are expressions of what's been diagnosed as a movement disorder related to autism. But it affects other actions besides traditional movement. The most concise way I've ever heard it described is that difficulties {starting, stopping, executing, continuing, combining, switching} may affect {postures, actions, speech, thoughts, perceptions, emotions, memories}. Additionally, there's a huge spread between deliberately doing something, and doing it automatically, involuntarily, or in a way triggered by outside events. So if I just try to remember something, or move a certain way, it ranges from difficult to impossible. But if something happens that triggers a memory or a movement, or the memory or movement just crop up randomly, I have an excellent memory and/or movement. This confuses people a good deal because it seems inconsistent, but it's perfectly consistent. Additionally, this movement disorder can give my movements a very odd look in some ways (I don't know how to describe it, but it makes people draw weird conclusions about me). While this sort of thing used to only affect voluntary movement, it now affects even some involuntary or nonvoluntary movements to a degree.

That last thing is the only one that I could really see as a more extreme example of what a lot of autistic people on the Internet experience, except they tend to give those experiences so little attention or meaning that they often don't realize that they have them, and may attribute their difficulties in that area to something else entirely without noticing the pattern. Here's a good article on the topic (which addresses these differences as existing in general, not in terms of the experience I have of this getting more intense over the years, which is something slightly different): http://www.iidc.indiana.edu/?pageId=468

Anyway, those are the three things that seem to make people perceive me differently than they perceive most other online autistic people. And two out of three are experiences that either most don't have, or most have only during early childhood and then it stops long before it becomes an established part of their experience of the world. And while I don't endorse any functioning labels, this is why I find "the difference between those who get designated HF and those who get designated LF is degree", a questionable idea at best. (And usually they don't put the "who get designated" on there, meaning they believe in HF and LF, which is even more questionable.)

As far as IQ goes, first off it's a crappy measure of anything. Second off, a "low IQ" can have different meanings. To some people an IQ of 70-85 is low, it's just not as low as other things. And people have been diagnosed with AS even with IQs under 70 because they fit the criteria otherwise and the doctor didn't want to put them in a category s/he thought was inaccurate.