Poll: Is Aspergers the same thing as ASD/HFA?

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C'mon guys, turn that frown upside down....

Aspergers was always known as a mild form of autism, which is diagnosed later in childhood or adulthood because the symptoms are Usually invisible to others.

Many of those with Aspergers can
lead relatively normal lives like live on their own, get a job maybe form romantic relationships.

Those with autism nearly always cannot.

There are many “autism’s” but there’s only so many ways the brain can respond so that’s why there’s similarities.

In the future we may find that biologically they are completely different.

Aspergers is HFA without speech delay.


The stereotype aspie is more inclined to VIQ>PIQ; higher odds of NVLD and general verbosity...

The stereotype HFA is more or less PIQ>VIQ, may or may not be LFA at younger age, higher odds of aphasia or some language comprehension disorder more inherent to their autism.


... I'm more of an 'HFA' who passes for an aspie. And identified as an aspie.
Or hell, maybe both in some way or another because observation says I'm a hybrid of sorts for all I know and care.


Do I or do I not have issues with merging labels? I don't know. Maybe I don't care.

10 years ago, I'd vehemently disagree with the change over the idea of what autism is.

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The old diagnostic criteria separating autism from Aspergers based on early childhood speech delay is pretty meaningless when you are not a young child.

Aspergers is form or subtype of Autism. Lorna Wing successfully advocated for separating the diagnosis not because she thought they were two separate conditions but because she believed Autism was underdiagnosed, that the existing diagnostic criteria were too strict causing mild or high functioning autistics not to be diagnosed. She correctly believed that because of the stigmas associated with autism that if the diagnoses were separated parents would be less reluctant to seek an autism diagnosis if it was called Aspergers.



The knocks against Aspergers were overdiagnosis and inconsistent diagnoses. If Aspergers was defined too broadly why did they think merging into a broader category would be helpful?

Moving forward I hope we have many more diagnostic subcatagories of Autism and that they be based on the dominant traits in the individual being diagnosed.

A spectrum is made up of colors.

HFA is one color. Asperger’s is another color.

Both are autistic—but both are also separate entities with different presentations.

All I know is that if either the social communication or social interaction score falls in the Asperger's range then you're dxed with Asperger's. My ADOS was social communication 3(classical autism) and social interaction 5(Asperger's).

Tony Attwood states the HFA and Asperger's is the same, except for the spelling. However, he defends the use of Asperger's because it is a better public facing diagnosis that carries less stigma for not only the person with HFA but also for those around him/her/them. DSM-V simply recognized no difference between HFA and Asperger's and removed Asperger's.

I know autism pretty well.

Asperger’s is a form of HFA—but many people with HFA are not Aspergian.

Even though I had a severe speech delay, I am mostly Aspergian in presentation, rather than classic autism in presentation.

I was a severe classic autistic person until something “clicked,” and I acquired speech and became sort of a “little professor.” There are many instances of this in the literature.

Aspergians tend to be relatively proficient verbally, and not so proficient in physical coordination.

Non-Aspergian folks tend to do relatively better in tasks that require coordination, and do not do so well verbally.

I have heard it suggested that proprioception is an issue among those with Asperger's and ASD. This is basically the sensation in your body that tells you where your body is located in space. A good example of a test for this was to see if you can balance on one foot with your eyes closed. I am absolutely horrible at this. Apparently someone my age should be able to average like 22 seconds...whereas I can only get a few seconds at a time. I just have no concept of how to keep myself balanced without my eyes open.

On the other hand, I have really good motor skills in other activities. I was always a very fast typist. I was the fastest in the class as a kid and as an adult moved up into the 120, 130+wpm range. I also excel at two instruments which require a great deal of motor skill. I'm also a good skier...and have had decent success with sports like tennis, racquetball, and squash. So my overall coordination is apparently quite good. I'm also verbally proficient. Personally I'm not the best example of AS or HFA in those ways, but...in less superficial ways, I do fit.

Although AS is no longer used by everyone, especially in new diagnoses...just going by how things used to be, it did relate basically to functioning/severity of the disability...and the spectrum went: AS, HFA, Autism...with AS and HFA being pretty close together, but HFA had the "speech delay" which ruled out a lot of people who would otherwise qualify (and were thus sorted over into AS).