Hypothesis: Asperger's VS HFA

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I think progress is quicker when we don't require proof before discussing an idea.

Recently I have been denied participating in a surwey designed specifically for those with either an AS or HFA dx. My dx is the always-left-out PDD-NOS, and I could have written the same as Rocket123 almost word by word. On the WAIS I had similar pattern to those dx'd with autistic disorder but obviously I'm higher functioning and have less severe traits than a typical HFA person would have.

I guess here the most obvious misunderstanding is that physical clumsiness goes away with better visual thinking (or perceptual reasoning). Not true. All autistic spectrum disorders share the same fundamental impairing features, you can always make distinctions like putting people in different categories based on skin color. Not only it wouldn't be correct but you'd miss the point they are esentially the same and require the same treatment. Of course there are individual differences, the degree of clumsiness is one of them.

clumsiness and motor issues are not a way of seperating aspergers from classic autism,
those of us with classic autism struggle greatly with proprioception;being aware of other peoples bodies in relation to where our own stops and begins,this makes us clumsy.
had personaly ripped half the nail and layers of nail bed off big toe when was inpatient for four months in an ID hospital,by walking into a table and didnt realise had done it as am not able to feel outer pain-am always bashing feet and stubbing toes so dont take any notice of the bang,only noticed when sock was starting to feel feel very wet so looked down and it was soaked with blood.

many of us struggle greatly with motor skills issues;have probably known more classic autistic people than anyone on WP and have never known any to not have significant motor difficulties ranging from oral-to fine-to gross etc, unfortunately its an area that isnt well researched as people focus on our functioning,communication and language defecits more than anything.

am changing to the belief that aspergers and classic autism is the same beast,and its purely an autistic spectrum that gradualy blends from one end to another,will find to many people with classic autism and aspergers who simply contradict the stereotypes that people think are specific to the conditions.

Could it be that autism affects different parts of the brain depending upon the individual?

[quote="kraftiekortie"
There have been studies which state that people thought to be HFA (or Autistic in general) score better on the Performance Scale; and people with Aspergers score better on the Verbal Scale.[/quote]

This was definitely true for me. I took the WAIS-IV recently so I don't have my results back yet, but I know just from the experience that my verbal skills are far better than my performance skills: I only got two of the block-patterns right (I know because I only did four of them, and their "discontinue" cutoff occurs after two mistakes), but I went for ages on the similarities and vocabulary part. I'm interested to see what the numbers wind up being.

We're doing really good! We're almost at the top in Thread priority!

Keep it coming, especially the personal accounts (for they prove any hypothesis, at times, better than any double-blind, peer-reviewed study).

Originally, I had a pretty strong belief in the truth of the hypothesis; however, through reading the personal accounts, I have come to believe that: while there is at least some basis to the hypothesis, that there are many exceptions to it, owing to the fact that Autism is a vast, Efflorescent Spectrum rather than merely one condition.

Thanks, all, for educating me.

I sense that I am more Aspergers than HFA. I am pretty clumsy and think verbally. However, I had no speech until age 5 and, according to my mother, did lots of "autistic" things as a very young child. Institutionalization was a possibility. I still have problems expressing myself properly, and I stutter a bit. My computer skills are barely average. I might hit myself slightly when I m stressed, even bang my head slightly. Perhaps my "autism" was sublimated under duress?

The commonly believed difference between AS and HFA has been the speech/reading delays. I was diagnosed HFA when I was in high school, and did have some delays in learning to read and talking (though I think I was talking normally in kindergarten and school) and and extra assistance outside of school helped me to catch up in reading, but there might be some substance behind the idea

Problems with verbally-derived learning - I could say I've had (and still have to some extent) that. I learn better by doing something than hearing it, though when I hear or read something, I do immediately render images in my head.
Not clumsy - Maybe. I was pretty lousy at sports, but that may be more related to vision trouble. I do have a tendency to misplace items though
Ability in physical realm - I do have a good sense of space, direction, etc. I loved to play with Lego and building blocks growing up and impressed my kindergarten teacher with what I could do.
Mechanically adept - Absolutely. I like to take stuff apart, put stuff together, repair things, work with tools, etc.

Other things-
-Good long term memory. Short term memory a little flaky, especially faces/names
-Strong with mathematics, not so much in literature classes
-Able to live independently, hold a job, drive a car (and fly a plane). No girlfriend, but am working on it
-Very logic oriented
-Attention to detail rather than the big picture

Anecdotal evidence, I have found, frequently contains more "truth" than data obtained from research studies. Of course, the Scientific Method is paramount--however, we have to take into account subjective input in order to obtain an objective solution. Qualitative vs quantitative, in essence.