High functioning or low functioning

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I keep having trouble with this whole high functioning or low functioning terminology. I can't tell who is what, everyone seems pretty equal to me. I have no idea what I would be considered (especially since I'm waiting to get an actual diagnosis). How can anyone tell what someone is, online or in person?

If someone can keep a long conversation?

Just based on IQ:

HFA = IQ over 70/75
LFA = IQ under that

It was used by researchers to separate autism into two groups for various studies (such as outcome and whatnot), to see if IQ meant much.

It's used informally and whatnot nowadays though, but when used like that, there's no set definition (unlike that above, which is the historic and "right" example).

They did the same thing with Schizophrenia too (not many know of that), i.e., high functioning schizophrenia = IQ above 75.

I go by what they say about themselves online about what they can do and what their limitations are.

Mental retardation and autism are separate conditions and sometimes confused. Low functioning or high functioning autism can sometimes be comorbid with mental retardation (Rain man). There are many low functioning autistic individuals who can write beautifully and express their intelligence with assistance.

Last edited by Dreycrux on 25 Jan 2013, 3:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

True, but the official guidlines messure LFA and HFA according to the IQ, but also when you are not able to talk or even dress yourself etc. than you are also considered as LFA, but at the moment this is more seen as an acception than the norm.
NOTE: This is not my personal opinion, I'm just talking about the officiall stuff here.

IQ tests for nonverbal individuals are notoriously unreliable and vulnerable to scores that do not present an accurate picture. They're going to score much lower than they should just from language impairments alone.

Yeah.

Though since they score low, and those who're nonverbal, or have poor speech overall, are usually the most severe, you can grab that correlation and run with it, which is why you'll see most medical literature saying IQ and speech point to a better outcome (which doesn't always say that much). They also state that IQ is a good indicator for symptom severity.

Technically though, most with LFA do have adequate and functional speech by the time of adulthood.

Had to correct my original post, I meant "comorbid with mental retardation" no one seemed to notice though.

First: most people with LFA are so disabeled that they can't even use a computer, therefore I don't think you'll meet many of them on the web, unless it's someone claiming to have LFA when they don't.
IRL is easy telling if someone has HFA or LFA.
People with LFA can't talk most of the times. They must be together with another person because most of the times they can't take care of themselves. They have very violent meltdown when they're among too much people, or when something bothers them.

Not necessarily. Sue Rubin, Carly Fleischman and many others can use computers as LFA people. If you met someone like that online, you would probably not be able to tell their functioning level.

LFA can be roughly divided into two groups - those who have found an alternate way of communicating and are able to show cognitive strengths, and those that haven't. The ones that haven't are probably a mix of individuals who just haven't gotten the right opportunities yet, and individuals who lack the cognitive ability to function any better than they already do.

See, autism and MR are separate but overlapping conditions. And you can be severely autistic with a normal or gifted IQ, and be misdiagnosed as MR due to the severity of your autism or due to coexisting conditions such as motor apraxia (a condition where your body does automatic movements cued by environmental features instead of doing what you actually want it to do).

Hmm. I'm pretty sure this one guy I know is pretty LF, as he has MR and is deaf, but he's able to communicate through sign language (mostly random babbling) and computer. He doesn't mind going places too much and can socialize kinda. This girl I know, however, is intelligent, but doesn't talk to people at all. If you even look at her she completely freezes. Her parents homeschooled her and she was completely isolated from any form of help (because to them, she was perfect ). I wouldn't have thought she'd be considered HF because she can barely function outside her house. She's on her computer a lot and can communicate that way.

Raziel and Verdandi gave great explanations. This is indeed how the two are characterized.

I just wanted to add:

LFA and HFA are terms we're using right now, but they're deceptive and not politically correct. Functioning can mean many things despite IQ results, verbal ability, and whether or not someone needs help with daily tasks.

Mental retardation is sort of one of those labels that needs to go away. I think it may not exist. It's like "idiot." There used to be categories of people with problems socially functioning and some of these categories were idiot, imbecile, etc that we now know as insults. The reason the categories went away is because an "idiot" could mean someone with cognitive impairment due to birth defects, accident, disease, etc but ALSO someone with LFA who is very active and able in ways that aren't recognized. We categorize people differently now, so we have LFA, TBI (traumatic brain injury), and many, many other labels that point more to the biological difference between that person and the typically developing/typically functioning population.

So what does mental retardation mean? Cognitive impairment due to...something. So the person would be categorized differently. With a learning disability, brain damage, a disease, and so on. It could mean that the person doesn't want to respond to tests because he or she doesn't feel like it.

Also, people of color, poor people, immigrants, and other minorities are more likely to be diagnosed with LFA instead of HFA and also ADHD, schizophrenia, cognitive defects, and other stigmatized diagnoses. The term "mental retardation" is also much more likely to be used with minorities than White people from the middle and upper classes.

My understanding was that HFA/LFA was decided based on IQ as stated above and the slightly different measure of severe/mild autism was judged on how affected you are directly by autistic traits (eg, severe being largely mute easily triggered into violent meltdowns). There would still be some degree of overlap but this seems to be quite a straightforward way to differentiate.

I do think that such labels are useful when speaking on broad strokes about autism but, when talking about the individual, I think that spectrum is multidimensional in that each person will have their own particular level of each trait with some not even presenting. I seem to mostly fit the description of mild Asperger's but then I have some traits which are usually associated much more with severe autism so it does seem to make the whole idea of neatly pidgin-holing people on the spectrum a little unrealistic in many cases.

There are surely people with actual LFA on the web, but most of them can't. I talk from my own personal experience, I don't know what other people's experience is like.
However, it's rare to find someone with LFA on the web. The 99% of the people on the web that claim to have autism are AS/HFA.

You can't. The terms have very little meaning. I've been called both.

For the most part, "high-functioning" means that the person using it has a subjective idea that you are better off than some other people with your disability, in some way, perhaps independence, skills, intelligence, or just plain looking less autistic.

I hate those terms, honestly. It seems like whenever they're trotted out, it's to deny you something. If you're "high-functioning", you obviously don't need help; if you're "low-functioning", you can't do this or that and therefore get denied a lot of opportunities. I resist quite strongly whenever someone tries to push me into a box like that.