What exactly defines HFA or Aspergers?

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Like what is the main issue in this disorder?

I suspect I have either primarily inattentive adhd or Aspergers. However; the issues with both overlap a whole lot and I'm so confused in finding the answer to this. I understand that adhd-pi is defined mostly by inattentiveness and lack of focus which can manifest itself in a variety of ways; like for example causing social issues due to lacking the attention span to follow along with a conversation, like zoning out because you find small talk boring (I do this a lot). But then when I look at the definition of autism it just highlights a bunch of symptoms and it doesn't really give me the "why", is autism basically if you aren't social and you miss social cues? Because people with ADHD do the same thing from what I hear, is autism's social issues based on the same structures of ADHD? Or is it because in Autism you cannot comprehend what people are saying as far as sarcastic undertones and basically miss cues such as if a girl is hitting on you because you interpret what they say literally? I miss on cues when girls are flirting with me quite often, usually I think it's because I'm not paying attention to what they're telling me and I just pick up pieces of what people tell me. However; I do pick up on sarcasm and on subtle cues when I actually listen and absorb what people are telling me; but actually committing all that focus to listening to someone just hurts my brain lol.

Sarcasm comes easy to me, subtle cues I can pick up on only if I'm aware. Also I tend to be very sarcastic mostly cause I think it's funny. I pick up on facial expressions as well but sometimes fail to absorb everything all at once like the facial expressions, the body language, and hidden cues in words; I pick up fragments and this kills me a lot in social situations cause I feel like you need all of that combined in order to succeed in those situations. If I broke them all up separately, I interpret all of it just fine; I just cant for the life of me focus on all of it.

So some things to note about me:
- I was a late talker, talked at 3yo
- Mom was concerned and had me evaluated, counselors and doc said I was fine but I was just lazy (I feel I am lazy still to this day); I apparently communicated well according to the evaluators and my mom; I did a lot of nonverbal communication to indicate what I wanted around that age.
- when I started school, I learned to read pretty quickly considering English was my 2nd language; I was capable of speaking 2 languages by the time I was six.
- My entire academic assessment scores from like kindergarten to high school consisted of great reading scores, great spelling, pretty good writing but horrendous grammar issues, mostly punctuations (I suppose because I was too lazy to go through the motion of using punctuation, I liked half-assing things mostly in my time through school). I loved history and was great at it. I sucked at science (Just super confusing to me), and Math was my worst subject by far, I absolutely hated math classes.
- Although I'm good at reading, I often very quickly lose focus on what I'm reading and then I have to re-read what I was reading all over again.
- I get easily distracted, for example; I'm at the library right now and there are people talking, it's really throwing my focus off.
- I've been fairly quiet most my life, I'm usually very bored by everything. Maintaining interest in things has been hard for me, it's not just socially but like in a lot of subjects.
- I'm very forgetful, ironically I'm a bank teller. And it's the hardest freaking job on the planet, I make a lot of simple errors almost everyday. Thankfully not big things like giving away an extra thousand dollars.
- I have a lot of depression and anxiety.
- I can converse with people, I just get bored. Sometimes when I meet people for the first time, I can be very charismatic and engaged but it's like after that first convo, I just feel bored by all other topics we may discuss. For example, I'm great at job interviews, I can certainly impress; I did so with my current boss. However, since being hired, I barely speak to her; like I cant find anything interesting to talk to her about..
- I've experimented with stimulants like vyvanse for ADHD, got it from friends. It helps me study, but what I've noticed as well is that when I'm on it, I'm incredibly talkative and charismatic. I pick up on everything, I know when a girl is hitting on me; I know exactly what to say back to her; I'm more focused and just simply far more interested in not just people but just in everything I'm doing. As a result people like me a lot more when I'm on it.

Sorry for the long post. I've just been really confused and bugged about the difference between autism and adhd. I have no idea if I have one or the other or both. Hopefully you guys can chime in. Thanks.

It is theorized that people with Asperger's have relative verbal strengths, and visual-spatial weaknesses.

It is theorized that people with HFA have relative visual-spatial strengths and relative verbal weaknesses

You have a similar profile to me. I spoke at age 5. I was a great reader from a very young age. My handwriting was (and still is) pretty bad.

That is really interesting....the first theory above would fit me. Never heard of this, really interesting.

OP, everything you listed above sounds ADD-ish and not ASD-ish to me, with one exception: the late talking. Three is very late. If you had just been a few months behind that would be one thing. I don't buy the "he's just lazy" thing. Communication is a PRIMARY concern for most NT children. ("Late" talking for an NT child might be no words before 16-18 months, for example, and even then there would be a concern; or it might be using fewer words than the average child, but still using words.) Usually, in NT children speaking has a strong drive behind it because it is biologically necessary to survival (or at least increases the odds of survival significantly, as being able to state exactly what's wrong can be very important in some cases). At first that's accomplished via screaming or smiling, making infancy a very precarious time, but later, the child's needs/wants get more detailed and that is a tremendous motivator.

Words for the average NT child are not an over-the-top, avoidance-worthy effort, though it can be frustrating and require fine-tuning (learning specific vocab words, learning pronunciation)....but I can't imagine an NT child who was "too lazy" to say anything at all before age three. It might happen, I'm not discounting it, but I have to think it's pretty rare. A child can literally lie there on his back holding a sippy cup and say a few words. With NT children, even the very very "lazy" and/or catered to kids will start using words well before three, generally...if only to shout out orders. I could see if you said you were 16 months old before you spoke or something, but what you describe is very very delayed. Did you say any words at all before that time?

But other than the late talking, it all just sounds ADD to me. I'm no diagnostician so who really knows.

I mean I wasn't mute till 3, I knew words. From what I understand when people said I was late talking, they meant I didn't speak as much as a 3 year old normally does. Other than that I knew words, I just didn't talk regularly. And I understood what people were saying to me. It's sort of like my baby nephew is what my mom says, cause he has the same issue, he's about to be 4 in november; he says words and communicates non-verbally, he's very intricate at it too; and he didn't start speaking in full sentences till like a couple months ago. Anyhow supposedly when I started talking, like it wasn't progressive like oh he's slowly picking his speech up; it just kinda came if that makes sense. I'm not memorizing this; I'm just speaking from what my parents have said about me haha.

If you were raised in a bi-lingual family, that could explain the language delay.

I'm a good example of a high-functioning person with Asperger's. I'm so high-functioning and ''normal'' in lots of ways that I often doubt my diagnosis...until a situation arises where it's clear that I find making friends a challenge, then I think ''OK it must be Asperger's.''

I mean, I never showed any peculiar signs as a baby. I was a sociable baby, made eye contact, met all milestones at average ages, etc etc.

As a kid I was very anxious, so anxious that it was noticeable to adults. But I still engaged in imaginary play with other children, played with toys like a typical child would, drew pictures of people and faces and things, even told white lies to get me out of trouble. And I never had any special interests as a child. I had casual interests, but those were things my peers were into as well. I didn't have much trouble fitting in at school.

I hit puberty at age 11, and that was when I did have a first special interest, which was of certain people. Through my teens I got more indulged in special interests with people, and got so fascinated that I appeared as a stalker and almost got into trouble with the police because of the intensity. Also I had a hard time fitting in at school. I even went a couple of years (aged 12-14) without having any friends at all at school. I didn't get bullied, although I got teased and humiliated a few times, which I suppose is a form of bullying, but I wasn't badly bullied.

As an adult I've become more independent and can be responsible for making my own decisions in life, but my emotions do get the better of me. I've always been able to express my feelings well, but I had to go on meds to control rage-outbursts I kept having. Also I find employment distressing, although I have a part-time job, but I still find it demanding. Employment is the biggest issue for me due to anxiety, but I am no longer entitled to disability benefits (I used to as a teenager), but the government decides I am too able. Which I am, but my anxiety always takes over. The employment world is just so scary for me.
Also I am in a healthy relationship with an NT man, and I feel very capable of keeping up a healthy relationship. I'm especially good with the emotional and intimate side of it. What I find most hard is learning new skills, like cooking and ironing, but I'm sure I will pick it up in time with plenty of practice, so I shouldn't just say I'm incapable of learning.

So, that's the general life of someone like me with mild Asperger's. Hope that interests some people here.

Autism and ADHD often occur together

Diognostic criteria Autism Spectrum Disorder

Diagnostic criteria ADHD

Autism and ADHD overlapping and discriminating symptoms

According to this article it is decreased social behavior and increased repetitive behavior.

"Abstract of Frontiers in Neuroinformatics paper

Along with the study of brain activity evoked by external stimuli, an increased interest in the research of background, “noisy” brain activity is fast developing in current neuroscience. It is becoming apparent that this “resting-state” activity is a major factor determining other, more particular, responses to stimuli and hence it can be argued that background activity carries important information used by the nervous systems for adaptive behaviors. In this context, we investigated the generation of information in ongoing brain activity recorded with magnetoencephalography (MEG) in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and non-autistic children. Using a stochastic dynamical model of brain dynamics, we were able to resolve not only the deterministic interactions between brain regions, i.e., the brain’s functional connectivity, but also the stochastic inputs to the brain in the resting state; an important component of large-scale neural dynamics that no other method can resolve to date. We then computed the Kullback-Leibler (KLD) divergence, also known as information gain or relative entropy, between the stochastic inputs and the brain activity at different locations (outputs) in children with ASD compared to controls. The divergence between the input noise and the brain’s ongoing activity extracted from our stochastic model was significantly higher in autistic relative to non-autistic children. This suggests that brains of subjects with autism create more information at rest. We propose that the excessive production of information in the absence of relevant sensory stimuli or attention to external cues underlies the cognitive differences between individuals with and without autism. We conclude that the information gain in the brain’s resting state provides quantitative evidence for perhaps the most typical characteristic in autism: withdrawal into one’s inner world."
Link to complete page

I think this nails it.

I'm ADHD and autistic. I suspect a lot of the inattentiveness is because of my constant sensory issues. It's hard to focus when one is constantly aware of all the sights, sounds, textures, and smells bombarding one. But the real autisticness is in how I relate to the world. You said you can read people when you pay attention. I can be paying attention with everything I've got, staring at someone's face and trying to decide if the eyebrows scrunching together and downward-pointing lips mean they are angry, sad, tired, or had a bad burrito for lunch. I really am not sure. Decreased social behavior can mean a complete disinterest in other people, or withdrawal because people are scary. My mom used to point out that kids were calling my name, and I never noticed (partly because I didn't recognize them--inability to recognize faces is common, but not universal). Autistic kids may ignore their parents and other kids and become completely enraptured by some interesting object instead. Repetitive actions are also a major symptom: repetitive body movements or a need for consistency in routine.