The Difference : Asperger's and High Functioning Autism

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Yeah, that's why researchers tend to use other criteria if they're going to distinguish AS and autism -- because in the DSM there's very few people who'd be diagnosed with AS and not autism as well.

It's not just language delay though -- they also use specific things like echolalia, pronoun reversal, and some other very specific linguistic weirdness, in determining where people fall in that stuff.

Yeah, that would be part C in the language section - "stereotyped and repetitive use of language or idiosyncratic language", wouldn't it? In the study I saw, they found that almost all verbal aspies (dx'd AS) had either that one or they had B - "in individuals with adequate speech, marked impairment in the ability to initiate or sustain a conversation with others". That's the one I have, definitely with social communication and even with other communication at times. Everyone had something from the language section, and the dsm for AS says that autism has to be ruled out first before AS can be considered. I wish I could find that study but I can't. Back when I read it I started a thread on one of these forums asking how many people have at least one of the language criteria (regardless of a delay) and judging from the many responses it appears that the study was right.

(Personally I do think there are other differences that seem to divide people on the spectrum into at least two groups, but the dsm doesn't even begin to address that stuff. It would all have to be rewritten. And maybe it's just a coincidence based on the people I've met and doesn't reflect the broader population?)

No the DSM is new and was written by people who had only the most vague of ideas of what AS is so as usual with most new diagnosis the criteria needs to be adjusted as they get more information (and we point out whats wrong with their "guesses").