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

Page 4 of 7 [ 110 posts ] Go to page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Next

Previous topic | Next topic

cyberdad
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 21 Feb 2011
Age: 57
Gender: Male
Posts: 36,036

23 Aug 2020, 3:08 am

kraftiekortie wrote:

Puberty didn’t happen until 8 years later

29?

kraftiekortie
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 4 Feb 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 87,510
Location: Queens, NYC

23 Aug 2020, 3:16 am

I was 5 when I started speaking. 13 when puberty happened.

cyberdad
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 21 Feb 2011
Age: 57
Gender: Male
Posts: 36,036

23 Aug 2020, 3:16 am

kraftiekortie wrote:

I was 5 when I started speaking. 13 when puberty happened.

Oh ok..

ASPartOfMe
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 25 Aug 2013
Age: 67
Gender: Male
Posts: 36,257
Location: Long Island, New York

23 Aug 2020, 6:27 am

vvvvv wrote:

Also the original diagnostic criteria for aspergers was never really followed by clinicians because they all knew it was bullsh*t. That said they had a sort of unspoken criteria because they knew there was a difference they just couldn't define it well.

The original study that gave way to Aspergers becoming a thing was done on a group of children who were exclusively boys. This means the behaviors observed were a lot more similar and less diverse.

The official diagnostic criteria differentiating between the two was never applicable or relevant and I don't think anyone truly educated as a professional ever thought it as so.

The original study of Autism by Leo Kanner in the 1940s involved 8 boys and 3 girls. Hans Asperger for whom Asperger syndrome was named for believed Autism was a male only condition.

Otherwise you are basically correct. The diagnostic criteria differed based on the clinician. Generally a verbal smart person who had social problems and maybe repetitive behaviors was and still is on occasion diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome.

_________________
Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity

“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman

SharonB
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 14 Jul 2019
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,744

23 Aug 2020, 9:31 am

cyberdad wrote:

The most research suggest that orbitofrontal functionality is compromised in HFA but is better integrated in AS children. As these children get older the HFA children do begin to integrate this function but from a developmental perspective there is classic neurological developmental delay so how much the children can catch up with their Aspie counterparts depends on factors like nueroplasticity and individual differences.

That reminds me of this: I am in a job function ---- I am doing the same job as my peers ---- we are equals. Yet most came from one discipline within the company and I came from a different discipline within the company. Two decades ago we were very different, but now we are the same (in terms of job function).

kraftiekortie wrote:

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.

Something "clicked" for me at 15 according to my classmates. They report that I was quiet and invisible beforehand and then I "popped" - became highly extroverted. For me there were three family traumas at that time and I wonder that I "popped" as a survival mechanism. Although, my grandmother and two cousins had schizophrenia "develop" at that age, so perhaps something related to that also. I am not schizophrenic, but am told I have a highly unusual energy level.

I would be considered Aspie probably, but having been diagnosed last year "mild to moderate ASD", I relate also to HFA. (I talked on time, as did my AS-like daughter - just barely, but it's still so HARD.) I have had three non-verbal ASD acquaintances and relate easily to them.

naturalplastic
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 26 Aug 2010
Age: 69
Gender: Male
Posts: 35,189
Location: temperate zone

23 Aug 2020, 9:37 am

As understand it the old diagnosis of "aspergers" amounts to the same thing as "level one autism without speech delay". That is "you have high functioning autism, but learned to talk at about the same time that most children do.

Jiheisho
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 21 Jul 2020
Age: 60
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,507

23 Aug 2020, 1:41 pm

naturalplastic wrote:

That was my understanding too.

vvvvv
Tufted Titmouse

Joined: 23 Jun 2020
Age: 24
Gender: Female
Posts: 27

23 Aug 2020, 5:32 pm

cyberdad wrote:

I want to be perfectly clear: My objection to combining the terms to a spectrum has absolutely nothing to do with me thinking I'm different because I can function close to normal. That is not what this is about.

I am advocating for the idea that aspergers and high functioning autism (i.e. level 1 ASD) are two different experiences that while share some traits are ultimately not the same thing. You can base this off anecdotal evidence, or you can actually try to look for hard facts and data which means trying to identify biological differences.

Brain tissue itself does not have to be different for two disorders to be. Literally look at any of the different kinds of mood disorders.

Something that everyone often forgets is that none of the experts have agreed on how mirror neurons work in general let alone in this area (We know what mirror neurons do but not exactly how it works). No one knows how mirror neurons play role in ASD other than they do. Some people say there's a lack of them. More recently people have argued there's an excess. Eitherway they're clearly involved (probably anyway) and I'd be curious to see if things differed in this domain as well.

The reason I bring it up is because one big thing that I see alot between HFA and AS is that in group settings or social situations, people with HFA don't always know when there's a tone shift. People with AS do notice and feel it they just don't always understand why it happened (even if they can identify the actions that caused the tone shift and correctly attribute the new mood to them, the mood generally doesn't make sense as an appropriate response to those actions).

People with AS don't need people to tell them if they're mad. They need someone to tell them why.

Of course there's exceptions to every rule and this is just a general description. A complex enough situation will leave anyone with an appropriate degree of confusion, but this is also true of NT's.

carlos55
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 5 Mar 2018
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,970

23 Aug 2020, 5:54 pm

There’s a bit of a contradiction

It never specificities what is meant by “speech delay”? at age 2 or 3 for example:-

1.A normal conversation just like NTs (invisible disability)

2.Just saying a few words but filled with echolallia and other random useless speech that kids on the autism spectrum say

About 20% of ASD kids speak on time making them 2 as above does that make them aspies or are they autistic?

Aspergers was always an invisible disorder diagnosed later in life but these 20% aged 2-3 are not invisible they look autistic so are they aspies or autistic under the old diagnostic criteria ?

_________________
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends upon the unreasonable man."

- George Bernie Shaw

vvvvv
Tufted Titmouse

Joined: 23 Jun 2020
Age: 24
Gender: Female
Posts: 27

23 Aug 2020, 6:02 pm

carlos55 wrote:

Honestly the whole speech delay thing is kind of a dead horse. The criteria states an age that makes the difference obsolete because a child just speaking at that age would actually have a speech delay. This is talked about in Tony Attwood's book, I want to say the criteria said age 3? I cannot recall the exact number but either way, it means that kids being diagnosed by that criterion alone still had a speech delay in some cases.

At what age a child began speaking was never a major contributor to which diagnosis a kid received. It was only a considerable factor if there was truly a considerable delay of some sort.

I would say they fall under HFA. If you were to actually go back in time to find out, I think it would depend on the clinician.

Jiheisho
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 21 Jul 2020
Age: 60
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,507

23 Aug 2020, 6:06 pm

From my reading, there is no clear separation between AS and HFA populations. They overlap. What do you do with those that are in the overlapping portions of the populations?

Right now, ASD is a set of behavioral criteria, not causes. Trying to divided AS from HFA based solely on "experiences" sounds very messy. The diagnostic criteria are already hard to apply, I can't understand how adding experiences to it will help. This is further complicated by the fact that males and females present differently.

What problem does specifying AS and HFA as separate conditions solve? I am a little unclear.

eyelessshiver
Toucan
Toucan

Joined: 12 Jun 2020
Age: 37
Gender: Male
Posts: 297

23 Aug 2020, 6:33 pm

Asperger and Kanner both called what they were seeing "autism"...and later it was suggested they were observing different parts of the same spectrum...but in some ways that's a matter of perspective. Nevertheless, what came to be known as HFA was influenced by Kanner's classic autism studies...because Asperger's "autism" came to be known as Asperger's Syndrome, but I think they overlap (HFA and AS, hence merging them under ASD along with LFA in the latest DSM). In some ways it's just a matter of terminology and semantics. Asperger called what he was seeing autism and Kanner called what he was seeing autism, and they were independent of one another (and their samples were quite different as well). That was just the name they came up with to describe what they were seeing, autism itself as a general word just meaning basically self-involved...because this describes the way these individuals seemed very cut off from the world around them (root is "aut-" meaning "self-"...ism). You could definitely find "lower functioning" individuals in Asperger's initial group, but they did all tend to be verbal and have "little professor" traits. They were also older kids generally speaking, and Kanner looked for autism from a younger age. It can actually be hard or even impossible to parse out all of these distinctions...

AuroraBorealisGazer
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 12 May 2015
Gender: Female
Posts: 4,082
Location: Fluidic Space

23 Aug 2020, 6:56 pm

cyberdad wrote:

So there seems to be two sets of discussions here. "I don't want to be lumped with LFAs because I can function close to normal". Therefore if I am different then there must be a biological reason for why I am different to LFA's and HFAs.

On the biological side I have done fairly extensive literature reviews over the past decade and from what I understand the biological differences in brain structure between LFA, HFA and Aspergers was not consistently different enough to come to any firm conclusions. Secondly developmental changes mean't clinicians commonly observed children jump categories as they got older.
These two factors are the primary reason that the Asperger diagnosis was thrown out in 2013.

There is of course the obvious difference in language or verbal IQ between HFA and Aspergers. The current thinking is that infants in the HFA group have a much harder time inhibiting neural signals to the brain such as hypersensitivity to sensory input, which includes differences in processing visual and auditory information. In the autistic brain, the neurotransmitter, GABA, has difficulty filtering and regulating auditory and visual sensory signals. This interferes with their speech/language/comprehension. As a result there is a delay in language acquisition.

In contrast those in the Asperger category are better able to regulate incoming sensory input in early childhood so they are not delayed in language acquisition. The most research suggest that orbitofrontal functionality is compromised in HFA but is better integrated in AS children. As these children get older the HFA children do begin to integrate this function but from a developmental perspective there is classic neurological developmental delay so how much the children can catch up with their Aspie counterparts depends on factors like nueroplasticity and individual differences.

A couple of recent papers on biological markers for Aspergers

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5691167/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 113730.htm

These explanations do explain some aspects of my daughter's development as initially she showed very high abilities in talking, reading, writing, math and spelling but around 3-4 following an infection and 1 month dose of antibiotics she developed severe noise sensitivity (misophonia) and her verbal development stopped. In mainstream school her non-verbal abilities (music, math and sport) were above average but she was unable to demonstrate comprehension and have a conversation with her classmates. Once she began to control these sensitivities using various coping methods and medication her language acquisition immediately started improving. Despite the improvement we are playing catchup as her language and social skills are behind kids her age despite her non-verbal IQ being in the genius level.

Then you for summarizing what you've learned during your years of research. I hope to have more time to dive into the studies in the future.

vvvvv
Tufted Titmouse

Joined: 23 Jun 2020
Age: 24
Gender: Female
Posts: 27

23 Aug 2020, 7:02 pm

Jiheisho wrote:

Right now, ASD is a set of behavioral criteria, not causes.

This is part of it exactly. An internal experience is what we are trying to diagnose and we are doing it based solely on observable behaviors. This is generally a good direction to take in science but it's obviously not great either for this area because you can't observe an internal experience and we know little to nothing about the brain. It gets even more complicated in the ASD and AS realm because the whole thing is about how we don't express ourselves or behave in ways traditionally observed.

Jiheisho wrote:

What problem does specifying AS and HFA as separate conditions solve? I am a little unclear.

To me, that's almost equivalent to asking why get a diagnosis at all? It's about actually getting to exist and tell the world that we exist. It's also like saying why separate SAD and MDD? They're both mood disorders involving depression so why keep them separate? The meaning behind two different things is going to be different for different people but the fact is that if they are different then they should be recognized as so. We shouldn't keep going around saying yellow is the same thing as orange. Yes there is some overlap but they are two distinct colors.

It also has societal repercussions as well. People have been trying to develop 'cures' for autism for ages. Treatments and options for people with LFA is obviously a good thing and should be sought after, just as treatment options and such should be available to all on the spectrum for the negative aspects of this disorder. Except if we are treating two different things, then obviously its not going to work right or they'll target the wrong thing that may be fine in HFA but off in AS or vice versa. Again with the MDD and SAD metaphor, both may take and/or need antidepressants but people with SAD often benefit much more from a sun lamp than those with MDD.

It also plays a role in the public is educated and perceives these things. There's already SO much ignorance, stigma, and misunderstanding on what autism means. By lumping two different things together it distorts the truth even further. It means the struggles that are uniquely aspergers get glossed over because we don't exist anymore. It means when we try to communicate these struggles and connect them with autism then people think they're universal. By having a separate category it effectively makes us alone and that on its own sucks.

Also yes I see and recognize the irony in the fact that I just used a color metaphor and colors are a spectrum but what I mean hear is that all mental illness and brain types are different colors and the spectrum is humanity in general not just autism.

Jiheisho
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 21 Jul 2020
Age: 60
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,507

23 Aug 2020, 7:25 pm

vvvvv wrote:

Jiheisho wrote:

Right now, ASD is a set of behavioral criteria, not causes.

Jiheisho wrote:

What problem does specifying AS and HFA as separate conditions solve? I am a little unclear.

Thank you for your reply. I am not suggesting not giving an autism diagnosis. Today, we are diagnosed with ASD.

I am not sure your color analogy addresses my question. What is the current statistic that people diagnosed with AS and those with HFA would have the same conditions? Or in other words, does the diagnosis for AS and HFA become ambiguous with a certain number of people with autism where they are simply falling under a particular diagnosis because of the doctor's perception? Or, to put it into your color analogy, this group is red, but some people describe it as fire-engine red and others cherry red, but they are both the same red.

I agree perception is an issue. Asperger's does have a more positive image. But since this is a spectrum, those just outside that AS diagnosis are going to have the same problem with HFA, they are labelled autistic. But whether you are AS or HFA, you are still autistic.

This division in the autistic community with functional labels has not all been that positive from what I have read. Perhaps it is better to work on education around ASD and focus on the diversity than the functional labels? I am not sure I have an answer.

My diagnosis was not long ago. I am still trying to understand this new world I inhabit. So far, I have just used the terms ASD and autistic, but I am on the high-functioning/Asperger's side of things--I would probably be AS. But then again, I am not known for saying the right things... :wink:

DenisPol
Emu Egg
Emu Egg

Joined: 27 Jul 2020
Gender: Male
Posts: 5

23 Aug 2020, 7:43 pm

I think they are the same

Page 4 of 7 [ 110 posts ] Go to page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Next

Jump to:

Poll: Is Aspergers the same thing as ASD/HFA? Post Reply New Topic

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