Should Asperger's be renamed to High Functioning Autism?

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I've heard my last ass burger joke, and I'm ready to see the word Asperger be set aside for only talking about Dr. Hans. I know some people don't see HFA and Asperger's as the same thing, but it's since it's on the "higher" side of the spectrum anyway I see it as the easiest solution.

Asperger's syndrome is a rather abhorrent name. Would it not be more accurate to call classic autism kanner's syndrome anyways? I don't see how any one ASD is more autistic than the next, just different.

I'm not sure, but I think there's a difference between AS and HFA. Maybe one of the experts in here can answer this for you. As for the Ass Burger jokes, just consider the source. I have a family member who refers to it as 'Assh*le Syndrome,' jokingly of course. (He always apologizes right before I smack him upside the head).

I voted the third option.

It should not be called HFA because that perpetuates a false and also unscientific divide between HFA and LFA.

I think it should be called something like "autism with typical rate and kind of speech development", if it has to be called anything.

(I think all kinds of autism ought to be called autism, and then the specifics of them described where necessary, without resorting to the crude and misleading categories of HFA, LFA, and AS.)

Last edited by anbuend on 07 Apr 2008, 1:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I dont understand the difference between HFA and Aspergers. what is the difference?

That's a really long name, though. 'ATRKSD' ???

I hear way too many jokes of the name Asperger's, but I don't think High-Functioning Autism would be a good name for it either. I know for a fact whenever a lot of people hear the word autism, they automatically think of low-functioning autistics.

Depends who you ask. On current diagnostic standards in the US, HFA/Classic Autism includes speech delay, while Asperger's does not. However, many researchers, including Tony Attwood, have challenged the validity of this to differentiate diagnosis- after all, I personally had a speech delay, but after a few years speech skills will catch up, so HFA and Asperger's end up at the same level, with no clinically significant differences in adults.

I liked the suggestion put forth recently, that it be called "Asperger's Autism." As opposed to Kanner's Autism, I suppose.
I like the fact that Asperger's Autism suggests it's not quite the same as what people think of as "regular autism," but that it is indeed a form of autism and therefore has a lot of the same strengths and difficulties - people understand the word autism, whereas they don't really know what "Asperger's Syndrome" means until it's explained.

Yeah i had speech delay too. I could speak at 2-3 but not properly. i just said certain words. i dont think any one could engage a proper conversation with me until the age of about 5. So i dont really understand how Hfa and aspergers works..

And i dont think the name should be changed. it would confuse to many people. People make jokes, but then they are stupid. Done in a nice way its okay. Hehe.

xx

I think it should be 'autism without a speech delay'. Likewise there would be 'autism with a speech delay'.

Edit: Alternatively: 'autism with/without adequate speech'. Or another similar description that somehow indicates the ability to use spoken language (as opposed to any other means such as written communication) in a wide range of circumstances (home, school, job, public).

This would open up the possibility to further add a more descriptive and individual evaluation for everybody. I hope that it would also help in aiding autistic people who need certain other ways of communication (or need to find them) by recognising this importance. In explicitly stating it in the name of the disorder.

(I'm pretty sure AS includes atypical speech acquisition rate (too fast, mixed speed) as long as speech is not delayed at any given point.

I'm as sure that it also includes atypical language acquisition.)

Asperger's autism sounds good since it says its autism. Syndrome sounds kind of like an illness.

I refuse to pronounce it as Assburgers, I always say Asperjers even when people correct me.

If you say the j is just... English interpretation and English pronunciation of a German g... you're perfectly correct. And no one should correct you, unless they point out that the g is hard.

No, it would just be autism, no abbreviation needed.

Then if you wanted to speak specifically about people who currently fit the AS criteria, you would mention specifically their speech development.

If you wanted to emphasize some other particular variant on autism, you could as well, without having to call it anything other than autism.

Like, you could say, autism with echolalia, autism without echolalia, autism with difficulty in some particular task, autism without difficulty in some particular task, etc.

That way you could just name straight out which difference between people you're talking about, if you had to talk about a difference. But you would just say 'autism' in general.

Just like non-AS autism tends to work right now, despite there being extreme variation among people diagnosed with it beyond any of the abbreviations available. I view AS as just one more set of variations.

Thank you. I am in England and even when I talk to a friend in America, he says it as Assburgers too. I am trying to convert them

It should just be called "Autism w/o a speech delay."