Severe Asperger's.

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I might add that communicating using flashcards, PECs or similar is a pretty severe disability. Most of the time that simply won't suffice. I think it is safe to say that anyone who is non-verbal but can still communicate is "severely" affected by whatever disability they have.

Of course, there are people who know how to talk but just don't want to... I'm guessing that those people would be diagnosed with "severe AS" rather than autism.

To be honest, all "functioning" autistics I know are diagnosed with AS. One of the people diagnosed with autism I know has an older brother diagnosed with AS, who as I understand is struggling but got through mainstream education. I haven't met him in years, but I'd guess he's the archetypal "severe AS".

You end up in prison for attacking or killing someone?

A person who can't use language for communication through speaking or typing and has to use picture cards or grunting noises instead has more severe communication impairments than a person who has been able to use language for communication from an early age as is required for AS diagnosis. These communication problems are not at a comparable level in real life, regardless of how they are both labeled on paper as "language deficits" or "communication impairments". There is a big spectrum of severity for communication problems. I've got hfa, and I was severe and non-verbal as a child, but my communication problems as a speaking verbal adult are not like the much more severe ones of the non-verbal non-speaking kids and teens who come to my autism organization to get an education, starting with learning to use language for communication. Some are nearly adults, and most are not going to learn to type by themselves, so we are teaching them to do that. None of them have AS, because people with AS don't need to learn what these people do, one word at a time.

ths guy seems severe..
go to 2:05
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZmMcgI3Yx8

Language delay might not matter for some, but it does for me. My speaking skills aren't up to aspie or nt levels. Also, lacking language during first eight years of life is probably not good for social cognition development. I really don't get social things. Gaining language skills affected the way that I thought inside my mind too, regardless of communication. Before, my thinking had been very perceptually oriented and concrete, so I was super rigid in an it is what it is nothing can ever change way. After, I got much bester at abstraction and adapting to changes and knowing that I could play with blocks in general even if the blocks were not my blocks that I played with at home.

But in severe autism at adolescent or adult ages, we're not talking just a delay, but more like language isn't going to arise without intensive teaching of it. Anyway, I'm bothered by the trend of high-functioning autistic adults relating their communication problems as similar to those of people with much more severe impairments.

Language delay is important, and reflects not just the impairment but how people treat the person with the impairment. Amanda Baggs writes on her blog about how people react to the fact that she doesn't speak and what people express about her, even while in her presence, because of her lack of speech.

Attitudes expressed on this forum frequently show fairly negative assumptions about nonverbal autistic people. Assertions that they are complete incapable of self-awareness, cognition, or communication are fairly common, especially in the "Autism Politics, Activism, and Media Representation" forum, where such notional autistic people are frequently invoked as a presumably silent (as in never able to speak for themselves in any way, verbal or otherwise) demographic of autistic people. That is to say, they're frequently tokenized.

I don't mean to negate or ignore what it is like to be non-verbal, but never having been unable to speak for longer than a week, and never having been around people who assumed dehumanizing things about me because I wasn't speaking, I can't really make any statements on what it is like. However, I see no reason to not take btbnnyr at her word, since her statements are both logical and sourced from her own experiences.

Language delay is important, as is being nonverbal. It seems like a lot of people would gain a lot from reading work of people who are nonverbal as adults, and seeing where they can relate and where they can't. I've learned a lot about myself that way.

However, what else is important is that communication impairments aren't the only impairments of autism, and autism isn't such that people's traits are all "severe" or all "mild".

I understand that, within the psychological community, there is a lack of agreement regarding how autism and Asperger's relate to each other. Some psychologists believe that Asperger's is simply a milder form of autism; hence we should eliminate the Asperger's diagnosis and replace it with a diagnosis of high-functioning autism. According to that viewpoint, there would be no such thing as a "severe" case of Asperger's, as a severe case would simply constitute classic, low-functioning autism. However, other psychologists believe that the traits of Asperger's are entirely different than the traits of high-functioning autism (or any other type of autism); thus we should continue differentiating between the two syndromes.

To see effect of language on autistic traits, I'll list some of my traits before and after I got language in 8-10 age range.

Before:
little communication, verbal or non-verbal, cuz no clue what this was
little social interaction, including with parents, cuz no clue what this was
little reading comprehension
little generalization/abstraction ability
no topic-based special interest due to two above
super duper rigid due to it is what it is the first time that I became aware it cognitive style of autism

This is a typical classically autistic child, low-functioning in social and communication areas, really rigid.

After:
communication, verbal first, then non-verbal a few years later
social interaction, starting with parents, then teachers, then peers
reading good
abstraction good
special interest developed due to two above, world of knowledge now open to self
more flexible and adaptive in thoughts and actions due to change in cognition from it is what it is to I can change some variables in system to understand how system functions oh yay i love science i be science nerd now

Autistic traits moderating with language development, so this is starting to look like AS child, higher functioning in social and communication, not locked into super duper rigidities. The sensory issues and stimming and echolalia and many other autistic traits remained same as before.

So based on my own eggsperience, I could never say that a classically autistic non-verbal child is just like an AS child with no language, or that an AS child is just like a classically autistic non-verbal child with language. Language has huge effects on autistic traits beyond having or not having just it. My language and abstraction problems were maybe only moderate on the whole spectrum, so there are many autistic kids who have more severe language problems (terrible receptive, no object labeling, no reading) and less abstraction ability and also severe apraxia which I never had in any degree and don't understand at all.