High Functioning Autism and Aspergers

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Well after several months, I've been diagnosed with high functioning autism. while it is a sigh of relief, I'm still curious as to what the defining differences there are to Aspergers, and can I accurately describe myself as an aspie?

First: Congrats!
Second: It has been discussed for years, and the difference is difficult to pinpoint, if it is there at all. The trouble ends this summer, when every variant on the spectrum is going to be called ASD - number this or that.
Aspergers will be named ASD level 1.

This is controversial:

People with Aspergers are said to be relatively strong verbally.

People with HFA are said to be relatively strong visually.

What do you mean? What's changing? (I do agree that's it's pretty difficult to actually establish differences between HFA and AS though.)

How does one go about getting "diagnosed?" I went to a counselor, took a few test, etc. and he never indicated if I was or wasn't on the spectrum. I'm not even sure if he had a tool in which to assess me. So, I stopped seeing him. Any suggestions as to oh to get assessed?

The ICD=11 release has been pushed back to 2017 http://www.who.int/classifications/icd/revision/en/

Aspergers has been put back in the BETA version

http://apps.who.int/classifications/icd11/browse/l-m/en#/http%3a%2f%2fid.who.int%2ficd%2fentity%2f437815624

ICD-11 Beta draft is:
•NOT FINAL
•updated on a daily basis
•It is not approved by WHO
•NOT TO BE USED for CODING except for agreed FIELD TRIALS


Autism Spectrum Disorder is characterized by persistent deficits in reciprocal social interaction and social communication, and by a range of restricted, repetitive, inflexible patterns of behaviour and interests and sensory sensitivities that may change in intensity, frequency and focus over the course of development. These deficits are usually a pervasive feature of the individual’s functioning in all settings, although they may vary in degree according to the social, educational, or other context. In many cases, development is abnormal in infancy, although this may only become evident in retrospect. Symptoms usually emerge during early childhood, but for some individuals do not become fully manifest until social demands exceed capacities.

Inclusions
•kanner's syndrome
•Autistic disorder
•Infantile: autism
•Kanner syndrome
•Infantile: psychosis
•Asperger's disorder
•Pervasive developmental delay

Exclusions
• autistic psychopathy


expand


All Index Terms
•Autism spectrum disorder
•Childhood autism
•kanner's syndrome
•Autistic disorder
•Infantile: autism
•Kanner syndrome
•autistic
•autistic disorder of childhood onset
•kanner
•Infantile: psychosis
•child psychosis nos
•childhood psychosis
•infantile psychotic
•Asperger's disorder
•Pervasive developmental delay

My personal rule of thumb is, if you didn't have a significant speech delay (learning to talk) and are Level 1, the differences between HFA and aspie are insignificant and you call yourself either one.

^^^ which is why I tend to tell people that I'm autistic even though my specific diagnosis was Asperger's. I'm a very strong visual spatial thinker with very real verbal communication issues and challenges.

Under DSM 5 it's all autism anyhow...

Somewhere I read, that the difficulty distinguishing the subtypes (many overlaps) made scientific results unreliable, so it was decided, in order to give it all akind of a new start, to regard it all as a spectrum of the same disorder and name severity by number, - aspergers being level 1.

The difference is speech delay. I also think people with HFA started out as classic autistic and then they matured and now function at an aspie level now. Temple Granin would be an example of someone with HFA because of her early history. Reason why I am not HFA is because I had hearing loss so that was the caise of my delay and perhaps other things. I bet I would have been considered HFA if I didn't have hearing loss as a infant and toddler and still had those delays.

Hmm, I'm aware of the issues distinguishing between the diagnoses and how they were given inconsistently, because the DSM stated that as their reasoning for the changes in the DSM-5. I know that AS and HFA are often considered equivalent to the diagnosis of ASD level 1 under the DSM-5.

Was it a recent article? As far as I know, the DSM and ICD are the only manuals used for ASD diagnoses and as ASPartOfMe mentioned, ICD-11 won't be out until 2017 and they still seem to be debating whether they're going to keep AS as a diagnosis.

The problem is that autism versus Asperger's labels are based on history and some professionals want to diagnose only based on what they can themselves observe. It is not possible to look at a person as a teen or adult and observe clear markers the person was language delayed enough to have been autistic versus having aspergers.

History is a major contributor to who we are and enormously useful in diagnosing medical and psychological problems and personally I do not agree with diagnosing autism in everyone who develops enough language. However I understand that's what happens in a lot of places in the US rendering the distinction pretty meaningless as the labels have come to be applied.

You would be surprised how unknown autism is even in New York City.

To most people I encounter--many of whom are reasonably intelligent--"autism" is that disorder where people constantly stim, scream, spin objects, and never look people in the eye. This is, pretty much, what autism was before the 1990s.

Asperger's, to these people, is something which is a possible diagnosis for some school killers.

I am around women with children they worry about. They don't accept me most of them, but a lot have heard of both. I wonder though, do you think there's more fear of violence from men?

They're concerned about their kids, so they (I'm only speculating!) Google their symptoms--and Asperger's/autism comes up. Then they research it a bit further. Thus, they know more about Asperger's/autism than the average person.

To tell you the truth, I'm not sure if there's a heightened fear of violence done by men with Asperger's. It's possible that some people might believe people with Asperger's are unpredictable and unstable--hence there might be heightened fear of violence in these instances.

What makes you think these women don't accept you?

I had a slight speech delay but became pretty good verbally after abit except I had problems pronouncing certain sounds that required speech therapy till I started high-school; high verbal vocabulary thou I sometimes say the wrong words due to my dyslexia. I never been much of a visual person but I do have a low vision disorder & I have problems with my brain not processing things I do see. I say I'm an Aspie sense I seem to fit the profile minus having Aspie or autistic strengths. Would I be HFA with the slight speech delay?