Aspie vs. Autie: a new idea on classification

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From the producer of hyperemotionalism vs. hypoemotionalism:

How to tell between an Aspie and an Autie!


Asperger's is a personality, rather extreme as personalities go, characterized by such things as special interests and lack of the ability to "automatically" absorb social information (more will be added from feedback). It is not itself a disorder. It occurs on a continuum between the NT and the extreme Aspie.

Autism is a set of perceptual and communicative difficulties that may be strong enough to encourage and/or impose the Aspergers personality. This may include processing issues such as processing deficits, individual sensory *processing* disorders, and poor working memory. This also occurs on a continuum according to the magnitude of such difficulties.

Both Asperger's and Autism can occur in the same person, and the fact that neither occurs alone in substantial numbers means that autism is the overwhelming contributor to the frequency of Asperger's personality development. However, traits of Asperger's personalities may occur in otherwise typical individuals.


Or am I just spouting nonsense again?

You're not spouting nonsense you made quite a good point

Interesting view.

What do you mean by 'personality'? Is it in your opinion something you choose for, or which may be influenced by social factors?
If this is what you mean, I tend to disagree.

Or is personality something you're born with?
If this is what you mean, I still don't understand why one would make a distinction between Asperger and Autism.

I do not find this a credible theory.

Animals are typically born with innate learning pre-dispositions that are typical to their species and which are not influenced by personality.

In humans, learning the culturally specific non-verbal communication "language" that predominates in their environment is a learning pre-disposition and it begins in infancy, well before the formation of personality. It is not possible for personality to prevent this learning. If you do not learn these things, then there is something going awry that cannot be explained by personality.

Think Temple Grandin even points to this aspect a little bit... Especially when she talks about the cognitive abilities of lower functioning autistics... meaning that their main issue is sensory related.

That's what Hans Asperger said. He called it an extreme personality, albeit probably of the male type (he was ahead of his time).

It has some merit, as sensory disorder is rarely seen in prototypical cases of Asperger's (the prototypical social dysfunction was the biggest part in Hans' observations), whereas Autistic Disorder has marked sensory disorder in nearly all cases (said sensory disorder is just as marked as the social difficulties).

Aha, and Kanner type autism was long accepted as being caused by cold and uncaring/insensitive mothers. Historical errors are errors none the less.


I am not aware of any research that indicates sensory issues are absent in most cases of AS. If by prototypical you refer to the handful of cases Hans Asperger refers to, well I would have to wonder how you or Hans would expect to know whether or not the individuals concerned had sensory processing difficulties or issues. Did Hans actually assess for sensory issues, and if so, how did he go about doing this?

Of course research has been conducted since Hans reported on the children he was familiar with. I am far from familiar with all the research done in this area, but all the research I have incidentally encountered indicates that AS is strongly correlated with sensory anomalies, and I have yet to encounter any reliable research that indicates otherwise. Admittedly this may be a function of (my) unfamiliarity with available data.

That "cold mother" thingy was actually someone misinterpreting Leo Kanner's work, and it went on from there. If you go back and read it, you'll see the error they made.

Sensory disorder isn't primarily seen in Asperger's Disorder, see this from Lorna Wing's first paper on Asperger's (which is how the current definition of such is defined); this quote is differentiating Autism from Asperger's Disorder, and the DSM-IV-TR has the same written in its expanded text:

Whilst some people, like Attwood say that it's possible for sensory disorder to be in Asperger's, it's unknown if these people would actually be better with an Autism label, especially if they manifest the aloof or passive social behaviour.

From what I've seen, it isn't so much that there is a large co-relation between AS and sensory integration/processing disorder but just that those who do have sensory issues are more likely to be officially diagnosed than those who don't.

This is mainly because many people with SPD/SID explain how frustrating and upsetting loud noises and bright lights are, which can lead to greater expressions of autistic behaviour in day to day life (because of the daily prevalence of loud noises and bright lights). If someone can't withstand a fire alarm without curling up on the ground and screaming, then chances are, they're much more likely to have been in therapy and much more likely to have people comment on their abnormality than a person who believes that a fire alarm is a mere annoyance.

So, a person with AS, who still has social and some executive functioning difficulties, could still go through life being "ignored" by people who are in the position to diagnose them. Many people who fit that description only display autistic behaviours in extraordinary circumstances (not including childhood, mind you).

It has been a couple of years since I perused Wing's paper.



Sure, but of course quite what the distinction between AS and autism is or means is less than clear anyway.

It's not implausible that some people with AS (or even most) do not have sensory issues, and I'll re-read Wing's paper, but for the moment, I do not know of any study that has robustly excluded sensory issues in people with AS, but know of at least three that consistently found such issues present in all the AS subjects.

And evidently, the children in Hans Asperger's group were described as being effected by sensory issues.

If there's so much overlap between "AS personality" and "autistic traits", then how would you find out if that were any different from a continuum of the strength of autistic traits?

There's already a name for your "AS personality, but no impairment"; "broader autism phenotype"--people who can't be diagnosed, aren't impaired, and have some ASD traits. But their weaknesses--in the range of normal, but lower than average--are the exact same weaknesses that someone with obvious autism has...

I'm still thinking continuum.

And I'm also thinking this is some sort of effort to divorce Asperger's from disability... again...

So, because I am aspie and have sensory issues I am actually autistic???

This seems like a useless thread full of useless rambling...

Meh, you're autistic anyway. All Aspies are by definition on the spectrum. If you're not diagnosable as anything on the spectrum, you're technically not autistic but can be awfully close to it, sharing some of the same neurology.

Doesn't sound plausible to me.

I'm AS and my AS is a set of perceptual and communicative differences and deficits. Not a personality thing.

And it's a disorder and disability for me.

I would be able to call it a personality if it were just the social deficits, and I actually wanted to have the social deficits. Reality is I have a lot more than social deificits... I stim almost constantly, have sensory issues, have very narrow interests, had some intense meltdowns as a kid (my house is littered with remnants of them), and a slew of other things... I would not call this a personality, it is just too pervasive of what I would prefer my everyday living to be to call it a personality. It is quite crippling at times, something a personality really isn't...

If Aspergers is a personality trait or type, then it has nothing to do with autism, since as far as I can see autism has nothing to do with personality (or very little). How is the definition of Aspergers=personality different from the concept schizoid/schizotypal?

BAP refers to subclinical levels of impairments found in autistic spectrum disorders. It's not personality either.

The more the stereotype of the Aspergers personality develops, the less it has anything to do with me.