Severe Asperger's

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I would imagine it as a Verbal Low-Functioning Autistic.

But then you'd have to define "low-functioing autistic", wouldn't you? You can't use the "nonverbal" or "low IQ" criteria because Asperger's eliminates both of them!

You can define "low functioning" by the amount of assistance the person needs, but only if you remember that somebody can need an awful lot of assistance and still be very capable in other areas... in which case, "low functioning" only defines the amount of people you have to hire, not the prognosis or the person's abilities or really anything else. Which makes it, like I said, nearly useless.

I would like to take a shot at this one, in terms of myself as a child:

I think it would present itself as ~classic autism with a "little professor" component and good verbal skills.

-Any minute alteration in my environment (such as hanging a picture in a different place on the wall) or routine led almost instantly to a severe melt-down

-Simultaneous spinning, flapping and vocal stims

-Basically regarded other people as loud, stinky objects.

-Painful (sometimes resulting in vomiting) sensativities, especially to smell and sound.

-Inability to sleep, due to sensativities to the texture of my sheets.

-Always drew the same picture, built the same thing out of blocks, etc.

-Could ONLY communicate through 'lecturing others'

-Used the third person/proper names exclusively when referring to my self and others (as a teen-ager)

-Could recite (verbatim) entire documentaries and adult-level books on special interrests by the time I was five.

-Speaking with a college-level vocabulary by the time I was five, albeit with a speech impediment that required therepy.

-Severe GI problems.

-Severely restricted diet, down to the way that my food was cut and placed on the plate.

-COMPLETELY detached from other individuals in virtually every way imaginable.

-Zero interrest in age-appropriate activities.

-Would not respond to hearing my name.

-Very pronounced echolochia

I second, third... whatever, that it's impossible to base severity on social function!

Or compare severity on a grand and objective scale at all.

You could be functioning okay to well socially but be so impaired in your non-verbal communication that you just can't learn to read even basic real facial expressions. Have a job, have a private social life... While at the same time one who can read some basic expressions of others totally fails at exactly this basic social interaction.

Who's more 'lf' or 'hf', who's more impaired. And who's more miserable? Who's to be the lower functioning aspie between these 2?

The one who could do lots of things but fails anyway for non-AS reasons or the one who can only do a few things due to his AS but manages to fare well anbd develop coping mechanisms despite the original limitations?

It's not only how impaired you are that determines how well you function and how much you can do. There's a huge potion of coping mechanism in that while helping you to appear very able and unimpaired don't change your actual impairment.