Types of 'High-Functioning'

Post Reply New Topic

Higher functioning, when used by almost everyone but people who try to separate autistic people into groups via IQ, mean functioning in the areas that are symptoms of autism. This is why people, get in fights over this. For example, parents of lower functioning autistic children often say higher functioning autistic people aren't really autistic. Its similar to how you said AS is high functioning by default. Yet you are both wrong. Function refers to ability in the areas we have deficits and their severity.

First of all, AS IS autism. There is no AS vs Autism. It's all autism. also, claiming lower functioning people automatically have a low IQ is messed up. There are plenty of lower functioning autistic people who are non verbal with high IQs, and even decades ago they would have been diagnosed with autism despite their intelligence. Again, autism and intellectual disabilities are different. A low IQ is NOT autism, it is a comorbid conition. It is not in the criteria at all, and we are assessed to see how well we are able to function in the criteria used to diagnose autism to gauge our severity.

You are being so literal that you aren't using the word how it is used in the dang DSM. Functioning does not refer to IQ in the DSM either, and researchers are finding out they were wrong for ever using IQ in such a stupid way with autistic people. Plenty of people who would have been diagnosed with AS before are lower functioning in day to day activities yet the only reason they didn't have autism was because you had to have delayed speech back then. Drawing these kinds of Iines diagnostically makes no sense and is unhelpful.

Our levels of functioning are so varied that evidence has pointed to an observed spectrum of traits and behaviors with varying severities.

The word function is used within the medical field and it does not refer to IQ. I dont understand why our ASD is supposed to be the magic disability where it means IQ. It simply doesnt, and it never did. Studies used IQ as a predictor of functioning levels, which wasn't correct.

Also, the OP is going to be upset we got so off track. LOL... I think he just wanted to share two ways that people are known as hf, but I still don't agree with his conclusions. Most of us probably get lonely, especially the ones who were non verbal.

It's fairly obvious why the IQ for these Type 1 kids is going to be < 70 as a child needs to be fairly confident with written language and comprehension to complete a children's IQ test such as the WISC-IV or WPPSI-III.

Despite my daughter's inability to sit through an IQ test, her visual and spatial intelligence, her ability with numeracy, literacy and music is advanced beyond her NT peers. IQ is rather useless to gauge intelligence in non-verbal kids.

I think I may be a Type 1, as I had a language delay, and I was a little bit slow to develop before the age of six, but around the time that I turned six, I made tremendous leaps and ended up having an above-average IQ, as well as an extremely high vocabulary and reading level for someone my age. It's kind of scary actually, I went from being this kid who didn't talk much and took an abnormally long time to toilet train, to someone who shocked people with their intellect. Emotionally, I was still a few years behind, but overall I remember a lot of people being like "OMG you're a smart kid" when I was around that age. Needless to say, I consider age 6 to be one of the greatest years of my entire life.

the children shoud also be given functional assessments,not diagnosed with an ID and refered to as LFA based on IQ test alone,or even worse; called LFA purely because the child is non verbal.

mine was originaly set at severe intelectual disability until last year when was detained at greenways [an intelectual disability acute hospital] was reassessed and given both the WAIS IQ test and a functional assessment which seperated the functioning from the autism severity,unfortunately those of us with LFA in childhood are taken at face level and are judged on our behavior, which for those of us from the eighties and earlier meant our severe levels of autism was judged to be the ID,theyre only just coming around to the idea that people can be severely autistic and high inteligence now.


'functioning' does mean someones inteligence and how that has comes translates as impacting on the persons daily functioning,if its tested properly; especialy as adults the person will have had a functioning assessment alongside IQ, no one shoud be diagnosed alone on the fact they scored low on both VIQ and PIQ.

it pisses a lot of HFAs off because they think its denying their functional difficulties but it isnt,its just saying we have significant overall functioning difficulties whilst HFAs dont,they might struggle with parts of their functioning though but that is due to the severity of their autism traits clashing with their daily functioning.

just because we [LFAs] are non verbal/severely communication impaired doesnt mean we are lonely,the majority of us are asocial and see humans as objects, we dont have a social need to fulfill like HFAs.

100% agree, an FA is essential and is more holistic in developing a profile than an IQ test alone.

There's a common philosophy among the top experts in the fields of autism and aspergers, that if you know one person with autism or asperger all you can say is that you know one person with autism or asperger. In other words no two auties or two aspies are exactly alike so its a hell of a task to make generalisations unless your universe of subjects is pretty dang big.

I've been coaching and counselling auties and aspies like me for 20 years now, as I was successfully diagnosed and treated in secret back then by a consultant clinical psychiatrist commissioned by my local government employer at the time as I had a nervous breakdown in the office, and I was asked to coach and counsel like me in the offices of the same employer and then throughout the UK, then the World, as we were all cracking up due to the UN saying we all had a serious mental disease.

That's water under the bridge now, but the important point I want to make is this - I found in the course of that coaching and counselling that what I had thought was a family trait, was pretty much universal in my colleagues - we all had contemplated or attempted suicide when things got rough in our lives - so I went global in the sense of switching from our common professional intranet to the worldwide internet and began coaching and counselling auties and aspies regardless of their occupations - and so I found it was the same story with them too. But the spooky thing was that I began to realise that, if what we all had was genetic, life-long, and incurable, there should have been as many adults with these conditions as children with them - but there weren't - somewhere along the line, roughly two-thirds of them were disappearing off the face of the earth. I didn't want to make anyone panic, so I didn't say anything about this, but I 'lost' a lot of young clients this way, and they never answered my emails and later, when social networking in the form of linked-in, twitter, and facebook started, when I lost ones, their social networking accounts died too, so it was clear what was happening, they were either topping themselves or putting themselves in situations where annihilation of either their lives or their identities was inevitable. Well, I had wiped out my identity twice in my life but was still alive, so I assumed that was the most likely outcome, but recently, there's been a flurry of news items that are telling me I was wrong - those two thirds of kids with autism or aspergers are not losing their memories before attaining adulthood - they are losing their lives - the stats are adults with aspergers are 9 times as likely as the rest of society to contemplate or attempt suicide and children with aspergers are 25-30 times as likely - that's 3 times as likely as adults with aspergers - so my guesstimate was right - and what's happening to them - well the fed government in the usa has recently announced it will fund the provision of GPS tracking devices to fitted to aspie kids that are at risk of running away, wandering off, or just disappearing, and being found dead months later. KNOW THYSELVES GUYS - I'm 69 and have a had a brilliant career, have a lovely wife, daughter and grandkids, and am having a fabulous retirement - so if you want a piece of the same action - survive your suicide ideations - and if you cant, dont make such a mess of your bodies and brains in the doing, because the key-holder of the Pearly Gates will send you back if your name isnt on his clipboard and you'll have to get back into your body and brain down here and kick start them back into life until your next attempt, otherwise you will be trapped as an apparition in the purgatory between heaven and earth for what could be for eternity.

This:

In conclusion, Autism is a spectrum, and according to DSM V there is now simply ASD which covers the previous labels of Autism, Aspergers etc. This is a good thing and a bad thing, as a person with Asperegers may have very different needs to someone with an IQ of less than 70 and who may be non-verbal, however to address there is severity ratings of 1, 2 and 3.

Incidentally Asperegrs is still a diagnosis according to ICD-10 and I have recently been diagnosed! (despite language delay, but this may have been caused by aphaxiation at birth and not linked.)

Type 2???

I've juggled between HFA and Aspergers but no one could decide I guess.

Cognitive strengths and high intelligence had positive effects on my development in childhood and functioning in adulthood.

Have a high IQ also - how high depended on how much the IQ tester pissed me off, I had great fun as a kid messing with them! - I don't crave friendship but communication has always been important to me.