are Asperger's and High Functioning Autism the same thing?

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I always thought that Asperger's Syndrome and High Functioning Autism were two terms for the same condition but I've read somewhere that they not. Apparently this was once the case, but these are now classed as two separate conditions. And the difference is to do with language/speech in early childhood. Can anyone tell me more about the differences?

My official diagnosis says 'High Functioning Autism' but my school records say 'Asperger Syndrome'. I haven't been able to find much information on this topic from searching on Google, so thanks for any help!

I've just added a poll as I'm curious to see whether we can all agree on an answer

Well officially , according to the DSM V , Asperger syndrome no longer exists as a clinical diagnosis . So now of days those such as myself whom present with more prominent symptoms are diagnosed as simply having Pervasive Developmental Disorder -Not Otherwise Specified / high functioning autism , and those with milder symptoms are diagnosed with Social Communication Disorder . In my personal experience , for what it's worth , those with the latter do not present with such stims as hand flapping , while the former , such as yours truly do . So I have been more noticeably , stereotypically autistic .

A tired constantly repeated topic.

Back in the day when aspergers was recognized as a diagnosis it was essentially a subset of "high functioning autism".

Back in the day when aspergers was an officially recognized diagnosis it was applied to folks who were "high functioning" ( ie came off as acting normal most of the time), but "had no speech delay" ( ie learned to speak at the normal age toddlers learn to speak). Speech lays, or outright mutism is a symptom of autism so if you had a speech delay you were labeled as "high functioning autistic".

First they did away with "aspergers", and then they did away with "functioning level" labels. Except thats BS because they didnt really do away with them. Folks who were labeled "high functioning autistic" are now called "type One autistic" (needing the least support as opposed to type two and type three which need more and still greater support). And folks who were called "aspergian" are now called "type I autistic with no speech delay". Half of a dozen instead of six.

Now it could be argued that "high functioning autistic" isnt really the same thing as "aspergian" because aspies have a high degree of verbal skills (were all "little professors" as tots, like myself) while the rest of the autistic spectrum (including the high functioning ones) have higher visual spatial aptitude than do aspies, but lack the aspie verbal apptitudes. Kinda like VW bugs, and Citreons: aspies and HFA's may look outwardly similar but are really very different animals under the hood. Thats one theory anyway.

If the paid professionals with half a dozen letters behind their name and expensive educations behind their present are after all these years still in flux as to which is what, how much of a chance does some disabled dork like me have in knowing whether Asperger's and HFA are the same thing or not?

They are the same thing. You have it the wrong way around, they made a mistake in the 90s by having Asperger's as a separate diagnosis, but that's been realised and now what was previously called HFA and AS are just one diagnosis in the US (and will be in a couple of years worldwide), as it should be.

I'm not sick of people not knowing, but I am sick of people 100% aware of this clinging onto Asperger's being separate. It's not, it never should have been, and soon it won't be.

For f**k's sake. This is genuinely pissing me off. That may be true for you, fine, but it's not universal ("were all", f*****g hell) and I'm sick of people on this site repeating it like it is. My speech was on time, so according to the beliefs of the autism spectrum from decades ago, I have Asperger's. If I was to go by this idiotic outdated stereotype, I'm definitely not Asperger's, being the complete opposite, so autistic.

When will this finally stop? I get stereotyped more on this site than by the general public, they definitely seem more aware of how people are different.

Yeah I am also getting tired of having to explain this every two weeks myself but we do have new members coming in all the time so here it is.

In professional use the dividing line between high functioning autism and low functioning autism is intelligence levels. If you are autistic and are average to genius intelligence/IQ of 70 or above you are described as high functioning. That is it. Autism functioning levels have nothing to with how one functions in society. Due to a belief that autism was being way underdiagnosed because the criteria was too strict Aspergers Disorder was made a diagnosis in the 90's. It was felt that Asperger's diagnosis would have less of a stigma than the Autism diagnosis so more parents would let their kids get diagnosed.

Aspergers was high functioning autism with "no clinically significant general delay in language (E.G. single words used by age 2 years, communicative phrases used by age 3 years)" "no clinically significant delay in cognitive development or in the development of age-appropriate self help skills, adaptive behavior (other than in social interaction) and curiosity about the environment in childhood.

Autism diagnoses skyrocketed a lot more than expected and the people writing the DSM manual felt it was being over diagnosed and the addition of the Aspergers diagnosis was to blame. In 2013 Aspergers and other Autism Spectrum diagnosis were subsumed into one mega Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis. The ASD diagnosis has three severity levels.



My opinion:
The DSM made two mistakes.

The first one was making Aspergers a separate diagnosis rather than a subcategory of Autism. We make subcategories of most things but with Autism this is wrong somehow. Aspie traits are autistic traits but milder. How we were prior to age 3 does not matter after age 7 or so.

The second mistake was instead of fixing the Aspergers diagnoses they got rid of it. They justified it by saying the Aspergers diagnosis was too broad. So they "fixed" it by making it all one big diagnoses. Makes no sense.

Making Aspergers a separate diagnosis seemed to have caused a small group of Aspies to think they were superior humans or superior aliens. Unfortunately for some reason, this had the effect of stigmatizing all aspies as "not really autistic" or identifying as Aspie so as not to be associated with severe autistics. "Aspie" was at one time a positive thing especially for older adults like me who went through decades of not knowing why things were they way we were. The identity if you will, provided an explanation that it was not character flaws that was causing us troubles, told us there others like us. This generally helping our self esteem. Somehow that was turned into a negative.

Much to iliketrees regret Aspergers has remained in common use. But now as a colloquial term, it has morphed in high intelligence to genius socially awkward person. I was diagnosed with Aspergers with moderate severity. I do not belong in the colloquial Aspergers of 2017.

While forgotten now when the DSM was proposed to be eliminated there was widespread opposition from the Aspergers community, online and offline petitions etc. The Aspie supremacists were for eliminating the Aspergers diagnosis because not being part of diagnostic manual meant they can define Aspergers as they wanted. The f*****s got exactly what they wanted while some of us lost or will never get something that could have been positive.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 06 Apr 2017, 7:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, they are the same.

I would have Asperger's according to the old DSM, but my spatial skills are higher than verbal. Even though I had on time speech, I definetly was not a "little professor".

Every time I researched "differences between AS and autism" I thought that autism described me more. Even my self-help skills and stuff were late, but I have a feeling it would not have been taken into account because I am an only child, and it probably would have blamed on my parents helping me too much.

New members don't really bother me. To me there's a huge difference.

New members don't know and they have genuine questions. They could use the search feature, though.

Then you get people who aren't new. They're up to date on the current medical view, they just don't care about it. They keep repeating a stereotype they fit, they give absolutely no f***s about it being outdated because of it not fitting others.


I thought they grouped it all together because at the moment they don't know what the subtypes of ASD would be. What on would a "fixed" Asperger's be?

Well....the point is that the autism spectrum is like the whole nation (the USA), and that high functioning autism is like one region (New England), and that Aspergers is essentially a region within that region (the state of Vermont). Thats the basic answer to the title question.

Asperger's and HFA were two different names for the same thing. You think they combined them just for the hell of it? You think the leading experts in the field are having a laugh by saying there's no clear evidence they're any different?

It can not be a fixed Aspergers at this time just a less flawed one. It would be what Aspergers was but the cognicion and language requirements would be for where you are when diagnosed. That would mean people can go from "Classic Autism" to Aspergers as a child matures or you find out the person really was not intelectually disabled. It would be renamed Aspergers-Autism.

No, Asperger's and HFA were not the same thing.

Asperger's was a FORM of HFA, but a person could be diganosed as having HFA, but NOT Asperger's. Temple Grandin would be an example of that. She needed therapy to speak. Aspies don't.

What separated Aspies from the rest of high functioning autistics was that Aspies never had the language development problems of people with "Classic Autism". They had all the other symptoms, tho'.

The doing away with the term Asperger's means nothing but the doctor's don't care to specify "this person never had language development problems". They're just lumping everyone in under the HFA banner.

Aspies always WERE high functioning autistics. A particular "flavor" of high functioning autistic, but dealing with HFA nonetheless.

The term "Asperger's" has been done away with, that's all.

My official diagnosis is from early 90's entitled Kanner Syndrome or Infantile Autism, and yet my family still labels me as having Aspergers/HFA, couldn't care less what they call me.

Try reading what I said again. I know they previously were thought of as not being the same thing. The point is that was the 90s, and now they know the seperation wasn't anything meaningful. So now (or soon worldwide) they're diagnosed as the same thing. As it should be.

While there are "stereotypical HFA" (big speech delay, verbal weakness) and "stereotypical AS" (early speech, huge verbal strength, "little professors"), it's not this either-or situation, there are many of us being in between the stereotypes and I'm very pissed off at people justifying it because, well, some people fit this, right? Some people were clearly one and not the other, so that's always the case, right? No.