Studies comparing HFA and AS

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I love that movie and cry about every time I watch it.

Z

This sounds familiar - when I am happy and relaxed (like now), I can function really well and even better than shy people in social situations. If I am stressed or tired (or especially depressed), I become completely unable to interact, to the extent of mutism. Its the same thing with face recognition - I am bad at it in terms of the special facial recognition thing that most people have, but because my general memory is good, I can often recognise enough features in a more abstract way (similar to remembering a place or some facts) to recognise people and therefore seem to be normal in that regard.

So - long story short - Autism is the Spectrum, Asperger's the wavelength....

Silverman's book was a revelation to me. When I'm stressed I can't count money, dial the telephone, remember names, and sometimes even read simple phrases, etc. When I'm not stressed I do so well that sometimes I forget what the stress can do.

Z

Your posts in this forum have made me feel much better about my own situation. I know it's not the same, but I had a lot of developmental delays myself, which is one of the reasons I wonder whether it is AS that I have, although most symptoms fit. Those with AS are supposedly not developmentally delayed & I was. I still am, although I don't know if the delays I have now would be considered developmental or social. I didn't know how to tie my shoes until I was between 14-16. I couldn't brush my hair until I was 12. I played with Barbies til I was 14-16, along with some other toys I should have outgrown years before. I was just overall much "younger" than others my age, & still am in some ways.

Uh uh, we (AS) win ! !

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I don't give a **** about studies; if you want truth, why not try some inventive googles, like: "gwynfryn autism as"

The normal milestones are supposed to be like first sound/word by 6mo, and talking 50% intelligible sentences by 2years. Children with AS are supposed to do it BY 3yo. My mother said I did better than that by about 10mo, instead of 2yo.

WHY couldn't you wash your hair, or setout your clothes? I'm not judging, I am sincerely curious.

Those are two things I hate about things like IQ tests!

1. They are sometimes timed, and that makes me NERVOUS, and possibly careless.
2. Sometimes I just don't care to go on, or workout a problem. Of course, if it is going to be public(known to others), I try to do well in the time frame required.

I never do well in IQ tests because I know that they are timed so that's all I think about, therefore I'm distracted so I don't concentrate properly.

Whatever you want to call classic/infantile high-functioing autism, I have that and not Asperger's. I had a major speech delay, spun wheels of cars and lined things up as a child, obsessed with numbers/letters since I was very little, and am still fine-motor impaired (I can not tie my shoes) However, when I was diagnosed my IQ was tested at above 154, so they said I'm high-functioning autistic.

Also, I've noticed that some people with Asperger's, especially here, their main struggle seems to be with social anxiety and feeling inferior, that isn't really the case with me. I don't make good eye contact and can't stand small talk but I don't ever think to myself, "I wish I was better at socializing" I'm probably closer to a Rain Man who you can have a somewhat normal conversation with then someone with AS who is depressed.

Well,I think I have AS, and feel I am like most here that have AS in that, while I HAVE been clinically depressed, many might not even know it. I certainly DON'T feel inferior, and don't really have social anxiety. AND, like I said, HFA has no ceiling on the IQ. BTW people CAN converse with me. I don't care if it is a young girl that is 5 years old, with a 100 IQ or a old man that is 95 years old with a 160 IQ. If they stay away from sports, some pop culture, and a few other things, I can probably do well.
Then again, I try to be polite, and even some stuff I HATE I can handle well.

Good question. I preferred taking baths, but I would take showers if I had too. However, I would not wash my hair for two reasons: 1. I bathed at night---no need to wash hair until next morning. 2. I could not coordinate myself to put water over my hair comfortably in either the shower or tub. I had tried it and it was so awkward that I just could not do it. I can remember not being able to get my head in the proper position to get it right. It was a motor skills thing. Mom had to. So in the mornings when there was school, Mom would have me stand over the bathroom sink and pour warm water over my head and shampoo me. My wife did it the same way for me except we used the kitchen sink. I also would not dry my hair, it was like it was too awkward trying to move the brush around my hair and move the dryer back and forth---I just got too frustrated trying to do it.

As for clothes, I just could not bring myself to try to get the clothes out of the closet. It was like it was too confusing for me to pick them out and see if they coordinated. I mean, I still don't understand all of this to this day why I was like that. Mom would get upset with me for not being able to get my clothes out. I could dress myself ok. In the summer when my parents were at work, I just stayed in my pajamas until Mom came home on break and got clothes for me. Has to be some kind of quirk in me I guess. But I outgrew that in college sometime.

Sorry, but this is the best answer I can give for this.

I am currently investigating my childhood. I know another issue I had was in walking. I would turn my feet inward in walking and thus got bow legged out of it. I had to go into corrective shoes until my legs straightened out. Mom tells me that I just walked around with my toes pointing inward when I first started walking. So I guess it was my choice to walk that way from the start.

I hope this helps. If I can remember anything else I will try to respond with additional comments. Thanks for your interest.

Run-of-the-mill AS and HFA probably don't look much different in childhood and adulthood, i.e., either could be more severe than the other depending on each individual case, as they probably don't cluster into two perfectly distinct groups that the DSM-IV-TR implies (socially and emotionally distant for HFA compared to socially and emotionally odd and eccentric for AS).

When there's speech as an adult (which is 78% of those with LFA and HFA, and 100% of those with AS), I doubt there'll be much difference; even LFA is just defined by an IQ of 75 or under (which will only really affect how well someone does in schooling), not whether there is any specific set of symptoms or not (other than the core needed).

I suppose a problem arises when things like "mild" Asperger's are included, which seems to be common nowadays. Asperger's and HFA themselves are supposed to be "mild" by design due to a lack of learning disabilities compared to LFA. This border where AS merges into "normal" and "unimpaired" is the difficult part to define (you can add Semantic-Pragmatic Disorder here too).

http://www.psych.org/MainMenu/Research/DSMIV/DSMV/DSMRevisionActivities/DSMVWorkGroupReports/NeurodevelopmentalDisordersWorkGroupReport.aspx

Last thread about this I also posted a link to a quote from Attwood indicating that he believes there are more similarities between individuals with AS and HFA than not.