Is LFA really on a spectrum with Asperger's?

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It seems to me that this idea that low functioning autism and HFA/Asperger's are the same condition just with different levels of severity is a very strange way of looking at it.

For example, people with AS have average/above average intelligence and often make enormous contributions to society.

People with LFA are often non-verbal, low IQ, and frequently need constant care.

Even MRI/PET studies show that AS people have significant differences in brain activity relative to LFA (for example, the way the amygdala are activated in response to facial expressions is totally different in AS from NTs, but this isn't the case with LFA).

Then there are videos like this of LFA type behavior: -

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykigdgHnlqM[/youtube]

I think LFA and HFA/AS are too distinct to be placed on a spectrum with each other. Anyone have any thoughts on this either way?

Yes, they are all on the same spectrum. You could also say "are those really mild Aspies who are practically indistinguishable from NTs really on a spectrum with high-mid functioning autism". Yes, they are. A spectrum means just that: a spectrum of severities. Some will be very mild, some will be very severe, and some will fall on every possible point in between the two extremes. I see nothing wrong with both being ASDs.

I have the same sorts of problems that someone with LFA has, just have them interfere with my life much less. It's a spectrum of severity and functioning level.

If you actually look at cases that aren't at extremes then its a lot easier to see the spectrum - littlelily613 is actually helpful for that, her posts help show what it is like to be lower functioning than I am. Other aspies are high functioning and more mild than my case to the point where looking at different cases only in Asperger's makes it hard to see the similarities between people.

It's a big spectrum. Think of it like the Solar System. Earth and Pluto are in the same system and have some similarities, but...

Well, I'm already bored with this metaphor, but you get the point.

When you put a well-functioning Aspie and a nonverbal LFA who needs constant care next to each other, it seems like they are completely different. But if you put a well-functioning Aspie next to a poorly-functioning Aspie and put that person next to a poorly-functioning HFA and put that person next to someone with MFA and put that person next to someone with LFA who can cope well and put that person next to the nonverbal LFA who needs constant care, you start seeing why it's all a spectrum.

I have a lot in common with some people labeled LFA, and not much in common with some people labeled Asperger's. Just because their autism is a lot more obvious doesn't mean it's a fundamentally different thing. In fact, I think we benefit from it being recognized as the same thing. I use some of the same strategies that people with really obvious, severe autism use to survive. If I didn't know that their cases were related to mine, I'd never have hit on some of those ideas.

Think of a broken leg. Not all need a full leg brace. Depends on where and how severe the break is. Some don't even need a cast. So, your location on the spectrum could be anywhere. The severity of the break in that local could be a mild fracture or a shattering of bone.

This is my husband's analogy. Made great sense to me.

We all are autistic. It's fabulous really.

They're both on the same spectrum along with everything else mentioned on the main page of WP.

Well looking at the IQ specifically for example. The average IQ in the population is 100. People with mild-autism are typically average or above average, whereas people with LFA are typically low IQ. This doesn't strike me as a spectrum because some autism is good for IQ whereas more severe autism is bad for IQ -- this means autism severity and IQ does not have a linear positive correlation as one would expect from a spectrum.

e.g.



I think psychologists/neurobiologists need to rethink this. Not only would it make more sense to define LFA and HFA/AS separately, it would also lead to less confusion (the word autism usually evokes images of LFA).

I don't think there's any point to testing IQ's for Auties. The problem is that autistic minds work in a completely different way from NT minds. Intelligence is a weird thing. Look, for example, at the "do people consider you a genius or an idiot?" thread. I think most people here are considered both, at times.

Because IQ is not what defines functioning level. There are Aspies with below average IQ and people who are non-verbal who understand college level physics before the age of 10. IQ is actually all over the board for people on the spectrum. It's just that the stereotype of an aspie is a genius, while the stereotype of someone with LFA is someone with mental retardation. Both of these are stereotypes.

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here. You are correct, IQ does not seem to have any correlation to AS, but I'm not sure why you think it would, any more than hair color would. Other than the rather arbitrarily chosen division that a below normal IQ rules out an Asperger's diagnosis, I am unaware of any mention of IQ relating to an ASD diagnosis. Why do you expect to find a correlation?

Another way to look at it is that the two - ASDs and IQs - are two different spectrums, with different bell curves. A person could easily be at different points on each of them.

I think the spread looks a whole lot more like this:



Note how the majority of the values clump around the mean, and the frequency decreases with each standard deviation across the board. At least I hope that's how it looks. I'm not very good at making scatter plots.

IQ is really meaningless. If you take Carly Fleischmann for example, a girl diagnosed with both LFA and mental retardation, you might see someone different than a person with mild Aspergers. After she learned how to type, however, they realized she is not really ret*d at all. She just need to learn the keys to communication. Last I heard, she is in the advanced class at school---but still very LFA, and still seemingly "ret*d" to those who do not take the time to get to know what is within. LFA and HFA belong on the same spectrum because that is the definition of the word spectrum.

I agree with all this, but sometimes threads on LFA vs HFA causes a lot of bickering. But I know what you mean. Even though all ASD people are different, there are still different levels of severity that can be identified and grouped together to form a type of ASD. It's common sense, really.
OK, I smack myself in the head, but this is when I get angry with myself. I think NTs can do this too anyway. My mum is NT, and she's slapped herself in the head before when she has had an argument with my dad. But when I slap myself in the head, I don't do it all day every day like this young man in the video does. I am often yelling, ''I HATE MYSELF I AM SO STUPID NOBODY LIKES ME I AM AN UGLY MUG!! !!'' and stuff like that whilst I'm smacking myself in the head. I don't just do it non-verbally, all day every day, needing special helmets to stop myself from harming myself.

Actually, and a bit oddly, 100 is the average by age cohort but also isn't the average, at least if the same test were given from generation to generation. Which it isn't. Tests get "re-normed" so, yes, indeedy, the "average" score will be 100, but when later generations are given the same test as earlier ones, the "average" score will be roughly three or so points higher, an observed but inexplicable phenomenon that's been christened the Flynn Effect (link) It is almost as though the 100 meter dash becomes the 103 meter dash, the 106 meter dash, etc.. since somebody somewhere decided a nice even number (20 seconds? 22 seconds?) would be the average time for all candidates to cross the finish line and would always and forever be the average time. So in order to do this, they mess with the race's length.

And strangest of all, some are now claiming that the Flynn Effect has either stalled or even reversed itself, which would certainly suck.



How many cases of Aspergers or even HFA do you think go undiagnosed, particularly among the poor? My personal belief is "a lot," but we really have no way of knowing. And I guess you're positing the opposite: that "very few" go undiagnosed, otherwise your chart really wouldn't be of much use, right? After all, the debilities accompanying LFA are typically so severe it is kind of a tough diagnosis to miss. Rich, poor or middle-class. But Asperger/HFA? Certainly it is caught more than in the past, but I'm thinking someone middle or upper middle class is going to be less likely to accept a pediatrician who trots out the "boys talk late" or "just ignore the arm flapping, he'll outgrow it" diagnosis than someone poor or working class. And there is a correlation between family income and a child's IQ, I do know that. Not overwhelming, but observable. Possible -- I'd say probable, given what I've seen of how the worlds works -- selection bias, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, like, oh I dunno evidence that I'm all wet and Asperger/HFA is diagnosed at the same rate as LFA relative to the entire population afflicted either or that diagnosed cases are no more likely to come from wealthy than from poor families. That sort of thing.



You have empirical evidence that "some autism" is "good for IQ?" As in "some autism" being the demonstrated causation of a raised IQ? I mean, beyond your squiggles, which as you even point out show at most a correlation. This is news to me. Please, by all means, enlighten me with this study or studies that toss out family income, whatever other heritiability factors might relate to IQ, and ultimately pronounce "some autism" the winner and new world champion.

[quote-- this means autism severity and IQ does not have a linear positive correlation as one would expect from a spectrum.[/quote]

Why would you think something not following a linear path would not be a spectrum? For me to talk about science of this sort is silly, me knowing beans about it, but isn't the "spectrum" of the human eye to visible light a bell curve? And the "spectrum" of plant photosynthesis to visible light a rather strange looking valley? (High on either end, a big dip in the middle.)

Last edited by WorldsEdge on 14 Aug 2011, 5:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.