Autism = Asperger?!

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source: http://aut.sagepub.com/cgi/content/short/5/1/81

According to the DSM-IV, children with Asperger's disorder do not have significant cognitive or speech delays, whereas children with autistic disorder may or may not. In our study, children with normal intelligence who had clinical diagnoses of autism or Asperger syndrome were divided into two groups: those with and without a significant speech delay. The purpose was to determine if clinically meaningful differences existed between the two groups that would support absence of speech delay as a DSM-IV criterion for Asperger's disorder. No significant differences were found between the 23 children with a speech delay and the 24 children without a speech delay on any of the 71 variables analyzed, including autistic symptoms and expressive language. Results suggest that early speech delay may be irrelevant to later functioning in children who have normal intelligence and clinical diagnoses of autism or Asperger syndrome and that speech delay as a DSM-IV distinction between Asperger's disorder and autism may not be justified.

I've had speech problems since I was little. But I'm 99.9% I'm AS; and I'm dx'ed it. Besides; if people think Albert Einstein is an Aspie (I do, I've read his autobiography and letters; I've found AS thinking over and over again) ; he didn't speak until 5.

This is why Lorna Wing now regrets ever coining the term Asperger's Syndrome. She now recognises that the behavioural-based criteria for distinguishing the differences don't work very well. It never occurred to her at the time that Kanner Autism and Asperger's 'Autistic Psychopathy' might have been the same thing only observed from different perspectives; Kanner was a Psychiatrist and Psychiatrists deal with diseases of the mind, Asperger was a Psychologist and Psychologists study the mind.

It's only natural that Asperger would defend his Autistics whilst Kanner would pity his. Guess which ones turned out better off?

I'm not Autistic.

I have definitly got Asperger's though. Most of the Autistic people I know of are quite different to me.

How would you describe the differene between autistic and asperger as you experience it?

I just see myself as an everyday person that is a deep thinker, and eccentric. I'm similar enough to not be recognised as an Aspie, but different enough not to fit in easily.

I don't know much about Autism, but from the people I know with it it seems more servere, I dunno, i'm probably wrong.

It doesn't work like that; many with the Asperger's diagnosis have speech delays that would exclude them from the criteria, myself included.

Typically, it's thought that Aspies are more High-functioning, but you have to remember that these labels were defined under a value-laden downward social comparison towards disability.

It's a growing belief that while all Autistics are different people, we all have the same Autism; there is no spectrum.

In my understanding, it is all about an autistic spectrum. Yes, there is a spectrum. But the boundaries between different subgroups between the spectrum (early childhood autism, atypical autism, autism, asperger) break down. Not to mention that the boundary between autism and not autism is very much disputed. MD John Ratey for instance diagnoses sublinical autism.

I think its difficult for medics to define what is a 'disorder', because they don't have a good theory for what is 'normal'. In my viewpoint, the monotropism theory of autism provides the neccessary theory to explain the existence of the autism spectrum, and that to some degree, everyone on this planet is somewhat autistic. We are all in the montropism- spectrum, but people with diagnosis of autism are at the very extrem end of the monotropism scale. That also explains why people can have autistic traits, subclinical autism ect. The other extreme is polytropism.

The monotropism theory is from "Autism and Computing" (www.autismandcomputing.org.uk)

I am highly autistic, I've known this for more than twenty years! How do I know? Because in 1981 I took a temperament and aptitude test at a company I worked for, which was conducted by Chandler & Mcleod (sounds familiar?) who's test was based on the studies of Humm and Wadsworth, who's work in turn was based, again, on the work of one Aaron Rosanoff who devised a breakdown of human temperament of which one facet he called "autism"!

Was he the first to use this term? I've no idea, but I do know the term was widely used before either Kann or Asperger are supposed to have coincidently(?) adopted the term.

Oh gosh people please forgive me; I'm sure I had a point to make, but I'm on a bender and it quite escapes me, exept for that question of spectrum? We are complex organisms, and no two are alike, so there is always a spectrum, but we don't need to be on the same spectrum

Hahaha, just what I always thought... Also, almost nobody who gets diagnosed with Asperger's has a completely normal development in language and self-help skills...