The change in the spectrum

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So it came to my attention some months ago that aspergers was now eliminated persay and reclassified as "high functioning" autism. Makes me feel like what happened to pluto right ?

Anyways should it have been done or left alone ?

(I know its a term but still ?)

I honestly don't know I know very little about the condition myself. I have Aspergers and I don't really know how it differs from other forms of Autism.

In the DSM manual used in the USA and other locations "Aspergers Disorder" was subsumed into "Autism Spectrum Disorder" back in 2013. The other diagnostic manual is the ICD which is used widely in Europe and many other areas of the world. "Aspergers Syndrome" is still in the current ICD. In the next version of the ICD manual coming out in May "Aspergers Syndrome" is being subsumed into "Autism Spectrum Disorders".

"High Functioning Autism" is not and never has been in any diagnostic manual I know of yet the "High Functioning Autism" diagnosis seems to be widely given out by clinicians. "High Functioning Autism" describes not how well you fit in society but Autism with average to above average intelligence or roughly IQ of 70 or above. The old Aspergers diagnosis was a form of 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)."

The old diagnosis of Aspergers as a form of High Functioning Autism encompassed Average to Above average intelligence. Aspergers and "Aspie" continues to be a widely used term and seems to have changed to Autism with high to genius levels of intelligence.

Aspergers should have never been a separate diagnosis as the core traits/symptoms are the same. Speech differences before age 3 are irrelevant for most of the rest of one's life. The argument for separating the diagnosis is that the experiences of the "Aspie" end of the spectrum are vastly different from the profoundly or severe end of the autism spectrum. This is true as such but that is true for most conditions. A mild burn is quite a different experience from somebody throwing gasoline on you a lighting you on fire. Stage 0 cancer is quite a different experience from terminal stage 4 cancer. A burn is a burn, cancer is cancer, pain is pain despite vastly different severities. There is no logical reason why autism should be treated differently.

Instead of separate diagnosis more subcategories of autism should be created as is done with most other conditions(exp Stage 3 lymphoma)

This is a complex question.

As someone with Asperger-type, I don't identify with people with classic autism at all, really.
But then, there are a lot of other Aspies that I don't identify with strongly, either - we're all so very different.
I think it's because Aspergers/autism can affect so many areas of our brains to different degrees, and for each of those effects we may develop different coping mechanisms, it means the autism community covers an incredibly diverse spectrum of traits and behaviours.

I'm going to trust the experts on this, that it's too hard to draw the line between Aspergers and autism. We're all autistic, just in unique ways.

It was difficult to know which answer to tick, though, because there seems to be issues with the term "high-functioning", it's controversial. I suspect the way forward in defining what used to be Aspergers, is going to be to relate it to IQ or levels of support required. For instance, "Autism, Level 1, with no cognitive impairment". That approach seems logical and practical.

It may be a bit problematic for updating nomenclature in all the literature on Aspergers, and I wouldn't be surprised if the term remains in use as shorthand (e.g. "Asperger-type autism"). I see nothing wrong with that, as long as the author defines what they mean by Asperger-type according to the latest diagnostic criteria.

I think the humanity needs a lot more research before they are able to sort this out. ICD and DSM are very symptom-oriented but many different mechanisms may end with very similar superficial symptoms! So unless psychiatry goes into the mechanisms, the labels are of little meaning.

The way I understood it, Asperger's syndrome is high functioning autism without history of speech delay in childhood. I employ this definition for my personal use.