LFA as child to HFA as adult

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Anyone have this experience?

You could try sending a message to age1600

She has that written in her subtext.

Thanks for suggestion

Not really but I think I was a low functioning aspie when I was little. I was so clueless and very innocent and naive, very gullible except I didn't beleive stupid things like my face being shaped like a CD, was not a walking encyclopedia, I was easy to take advantage of, didn't know right from wrong, understood zero sarcasm, said lot of rude things because I didn't know what I was supposed to keep to myself, very trusting and didn't understand people. Of course I did apologies on my own thinking it get me out of trouble but my mother always said "it's too late." Sometimes they did get me out of troubles because my mother would stop yelling at me and leave me alone.

Then I learned as I got older. I am still gullible and very literal. I'm still seen as innocent and naive by some people. I'm less trusting thanks too all the kids taking advantage of me in elementary school.

It's apparently more common than not. I don't remember where I read this, but about 80% of autistic children with speech delays have communicative speech by age 9. That doesn't necessarily mean they will be independent, but speech is an important adaptive skill and a big barrier; without it, you either learn an alternative way to communicate (which may not be flexible enough unless it uses words), or you'll be unable to tell people what you want.

Often times, people will blame whatever treatment or therapy for their child's "improvement", when it is really natural development that would happen in any supportive environment. Realistically, "treatment" doesn't need to be any more than an environment that encourages learning--good teachers, sensible rules, unconditional love... That's not warm-and-fuzzy "ooh, just love them and everything will be fine", but common-sense education.

So... um, basically, you'll probably see lots of people labeled LFA who grow up to be independent adults. More and more, now that we're no longer sticking them in institutions.

I seemed to be more lower functioning when I was younger but I wasn't so bad.

When I was young, I was much lower functioning. I had very little language until 7, no eye contact, I would literally throw myself on the floor screaming if someone got too close, if something was in a normal place and it was moved I would scream or if anything changed I would scream. No real friends because I didn't want any. I had no expression on my face. But now, I am high functioning and hardly anyone notices my autism. In fact I have several autism conferences that I am planning to speak at next year. That is the total opposite of autism, speaking in front of 500 people. Now I talk to everyone I meet and talk 24 hours a day. I no longer scream. I am still a perfectionist, though. When I was young 20 years ago (when I was first diagnosed) a panel of doctors told my parents that I would never go to school, never make friends, never get a job, never make anything of myself and when I became an adult I would have to be put in an institution somewhere. I proved them all wrong. I graduated college with honors, have flown real planes, and I own my own business! Take that doctors!

That autistic people never learn is such an ugly stereotype...

At four my IQ was in the mentally defective range then it moved up to low average when seven years old then it moved up to average range in sixth grade. does that normally occur in autism? just wondering?

IQ tests are far from accurate. If your communication skills were poor at 4, then it is no wonder you scored low. But as you aged and as your communication skills improved, then that alone would explain your higher score later on.

Yeah.

Apart from my ability to write, type, and speak to a rare few people, I'm just as "bad" now, however.

I scored in the mentally ret*d range when I was little. My dad said it was because I couldn't talk well. But I still scored low when I was 7 and I was talking. My mother told me I said things like "I hungry" for "I'm hungry." Bad grammar I used so that could be why.

I have been trying to find soe research about this and have not been able to and I find that very interesting .

Thinking logicaly ..... why is there not a lot of research being done with individuals who have been Dxed with HFA/AS as adults ? Why are they not researched to find out what their function level was at various ages and what, if any types interventions were done that might effect their function level in either positive or negative ways . WHy not ask about their environments to see if that had an effect. Why not ?

I will tell you why not, from my paranoid/conspiracy ridden perspective I think it is ONLY because they might then have some obligations to offer help for these individuals, that "they"..the psychiatric and medical communities might be embarassed about the past missDX's and wrong medication and insitutionilizing of these individuals and lastly and probably most importantly...it might show that many f the "hard sell" treatments are useless or even harmful for autistics .

The idea that there is a control group of adults who have not had treatment...why wouldn't scientist want to see how they developed prior to current intervention methods ? This just seems like really bad science to "pretend" that autism was just created in the past decade and only effects children when they know that that is not correct .

thank you for remembering me. I was more on the low functioning side as a child, now as an adult more on the high functioning side guess you could say. nice to meet ya kittenmeow.

krex,

There's quite a bit of research done in outcome, treatments, and also how they relate to each other; you just have to scour PubMed [or whatever] for the papers. Adults and/or children, it's all there.

Well, I assume you've done quit a bit of scouring, so what is your conclusion. Do you believe that the current treatments are actually helpful for autistics or would they achieve the same level of achievement without that intervention and just allowed to develop on their own.

As to Pubmed....They have interesting paragraphs but I can't afford the subscription fee for the full articles...also, reading research papers on my computer makes my brain hurt. Also, I apparently am googling the wrong questions because I am not finding research about this topic any where . I also can't find any numbers on the percentage (1 in 150 people are on the spectrum), of those are HFA/LFA/other ?( Personally, I don't like these labels as I am sometimes high functioning, other days less so and HF in some areas and LF in others .) Have you found a breakdown in levels of function in autistic population and a "whole" ?