Differences between mild Aspergers and severe Autism?

Post Reply New Topic

Of course not. Believe me, I know. But it's a fundamental attribution error: You do not do the things I expect of an intelligent human being, or perhaps simply a human being. Therefore, I will divine your mindset based on my magical brain powers wherein I imagine you don't actually have any intelligence or thoughts of your own. And yet this has been demonstrated to be wrong over and over again.



Citation needed. Talking about the majority group in general terms is not the same as thinking all NTs are the same. Also, isn't it seriously generalizing to say "most Aspies seem to think" anything at all?

I want to know if we're using different definitions of "think" on this thread. By my definition, "thought" is any mental process which does ANY of the following:
Uses symbols or abstraction
Considers the future
Has preferences (e.g., "I want to avoid pain")
Involves any type of mental representation of anything not currenly being directly sensed
Forms a belief
Disagrees with something
Involves awareness of awareness (right now I not only am aware-- of the computer, of my body, of my past and future-- but aware of being aware-- I know that I am aware of these things, I know that I am a thinking being, I am watching myself consider these things, and now I am watching myself watch myself...)
Asks a question
Feels an emotion (anger, fear, happiness)
Determines that a certain behavior should be engaged in because it will yield the desired result

One example of a thinking being would be most if not all individuals of the species Carassius auratus, commonly known as goldfish.

However, it seems like some people determine thought as "hearing words in your head" or "making abstractions" or "using symbols." By any of those definitions, it is possible to be a human being who does not think, even if by my definition I would consider you a thinking being. For instance, I'm quite sure that "hearing words in your head" would rule out goldfish (and deaf people and Temple Grandin).

There are many ways to think. I recognize all of them as thought. But the woman mentioned upthread who didn't understand how you could think but not speak, and wondered if her daughter could think, was surely using a different definition of thought (probably unconsciously conflated "hearing words in your head" with one or two other strict definitions of thought, most likely "use symbols or abstraction," and was surprised to realize that they weren't synonymous and wondered if her daughter was capable of complicated higher-order logic and webs of abstractions of abstractions of abstractions*). Had she defined it how I do she'd never have asked that question.

Incidentally, my definition means that if it's possible to "train" a creature it thinks. You can't train anything mindless; it has no preferences, hence no carrot or stick. But some people think you can train creatures that don't think. They must be using a different definition.

In conclusion, I think (and I do think, by even the strictest definitions) that it's better to recognize all of these kinds of thought, but if you feel that they are valid ways of using your mind but don't want to call them by the same name, it is quite valid to say that some autistic people do not think. You simply have to remember that that doesn't mean there isn't stuff going on in their heads and that you must treat them with respect (as you would any creature).

I do not deny that there are "higher' (more abstract) levels of thought. I do not deny that a goldfish cannot do calculus. (Surely you don't require calculus to be considered thinking, do you? I'm just barely sentient, then, on a good day if you're being generous.) I wonder if a goldfish could count. Even if not, goldfish have been proven trainable, and hence not only have preferences but are aware that they can behave in a certain way to get what they want. (Which is food. They may have thoughts, but they're not rocket scientists.)

*"Table" is an abstraction. "Furniture" is a higer level of abstraction. "Objects" is a higher level still. (Arguably, "this specific table" (thought of as the object and all its qualities, rather than simply with those words) could maybe be a very low-level abstraction, but I'm not sure about that. Definitely "this table" (the words used as a symbol) is.) Basically anywhere where you use symbols or mentally simplify or use labels for some things, then make up a label to encompass multiple labels. For most people (me included) this is as easy as breathing, but there's at least one way of thinking that doesn't make use of this.

I have mild asperges 6 months since i was diagnosed, i can take a part in society although i need to develop my social skills a whole lot better than they are.

[posted reply to wrong thread]

Like other people said, autism is a very wide spectrum, and Asperger's is part of that spectrum (although I think that Asperger's is a spectrum in and of itself). And I know that a lot of people have different definitions of "severe". From what I've found in my research, individuals with the most severe cases of autism:

-are nonverbal
-can't communicate in a different way (such as a computer)
-are completely unable to take care of themselves (ex. they are not toilet trained, and still in diapers)
-are unable to ever live independently
-also have severe mental retardation/they have the mind of a very young child in an adult's body (and I'm not talking about childlike in the creative, whimsical sense - I'm talking about cognitive abilities, self-help abilities, etc.)
-generally do not improve much, even with therapy and interventions


People with the most mild cases of Asperger's, on the other hand:
-have normal, sometimes even "superior" cognitive abilities
-can talk
-are able to either mask their quirks, or make them work to their advantage
-have friends, romantic relationships, and even kids and spouses
-are able to live independently and function in the outside world (ex. they have jobs, driver's licenses, etc.)
-have people questioning whether they really do have Asperger's because they seem so "normal" - sometimes, these individuals themselves even question whether there is something "wrong" with them

That's one person's definition. There is no single definition. Many people considered severely autistic do communicate, have friends, etc. And having the mind of a child is one of the most awful misinterpretations of the idea of mental retardation that has ever existed. Developmentally disabled self-advocates have been fighting that one for decades. It's an abstraction, it says nothing at all of the reality, which is of an adult, with adult experiences and many other adult things, who simply lacks certain skills. Lacking certain skills doesn't make you a child. It makes just as little sense as saying that a severe quadriplegic has "the body of a baby" just because they can't move or can barely move and need to be turned over and fed and have other people deal with their toileting issues.

There are serious problems with your definitions. They essentially rule out the idea of a person so labeled ever gaining certain abilities, when that's not something that can be at all predicted so simplistically. And when such a person gains communication abilities, or has friends, etc. they get booted out of the category instead of the category being re-envisioned as possibly too restrictive or nonsensical. It's one of those catch-22 situations -- if other people can claim you have the mind of a child and all that stuff, then you're severely autistic, but if you can finally learn enough communication to fight that claim, then you were never severely autistic in the first place. It's equal to similar claims about autistic people in general, where when we learn to communicate then we're supposedly cured and everything's fine and we can't speak about being autistic. Doesn't work that way.

Now mind you, I don't believe in the categories. But this particular reading of the categories is ridiculous. It's just a bunch of arbitrary traits being put together, many of which purport to know what is happening inside the mind of a person who has no means to communicate about what kind of mind they have. Then if they get to communicate what kind of mind they have somehow, then "oh you were never what we thought you were." But what about all the other people who are just like the ones who can communicate in words only they can't communicate in words enough to prove what they are aware of and capable of. What do you think about them? Does simply the act of being put in that category make them in that category until they can prove otherwise? This is where these categories start falling apart at the seams.

As I said before, nobody is able to live independently, the whole idea that nondisabled people are so much more independent than severely disabled people is a farce. It's a naked emperor sort of situation. Everyone says nondisabled people are independent so they must be, right? Mind you, I have known a guy to have his own house who was diagnosed with profound MR and was thrown out of a state institution because he kept destroying their bedsheets and they found him too expensive. He lived there with staff and lived the same way anyone else does. Where you live has nothing at all to do with what you can or cannot do, it has to do with what society will and will not support. We could decide that people who can't take care of their cars have to live in special homes and suddenly they would be the ones considered not independent even though they were just considered independent the other day.

Anyway, let me go down this list, because it's yet another (no surprise) where I totally break the categories.

- I am nonspeaking.
- I can communicate (in words, I assume you mean, since everyone communicates, no exceptions) in a different way, but only some of the time. The rest of the time, I'm not even able to know that words exist.
- I am what most people would call completely unable to take care of myself, diapers and all.
- I'm unable to ever live what most people in error call independently.
- I'm in one of those really weird positions that autistic people are prone to be in. I don't officially have a label of severe mental retardation and probably never will unless I lose so many skills that I almost entirely lose the ability to take those tests (possible since I have a progressive condition related to autism). But I am someone who is often colloquially described that way, including by professionals, if they don't know me well enough. Just a few years ago I was in the hospital for a stomach issue and heard a professional who worked there saying "She's 27, but she clearly has the cognitive abilities of an infant." I honestly think that the ability to be "mistaken" for that category matters more than whether you fit the category, because lots of people who don't fit the category are considered severely autistic by you because their minds can't be tested easily. (Not to mention I have large portions of my time where my cognitive abilities would have me testing that way.)
- I have not only "not improved" much by most people's standards, I am actively losing things all the time.

So I have two areas where I'm different from your definition... sometimes, in some ways. Not only that, but my doctor consistently diagnoses me as severely autistic. (Mind you, I don't like the mild/severe stuff and have been actively trying to break it down for a very long time. I don't agree with that diagnosis, not because I "don't think I'm severely autistic", but because I don't think severely autistic/mildly autistic/HF/LF is an accurate way to divide people up, but rather just a way people use to justify their own prejudices, just like you have your definitions neatly set up so that you're putting lots of people in that category who wouldn't technically fit it, but you're fine with that as long as they don't have a way to tell you that they don't fit it, whereas I'm often mistaken for fitting it as well but because I can tell you I don't fit it, I'm somehow different. Does this seem nonsensical to someone else?)

Meanwhile the other set of "criteria" you've come up with:

- I don't have 'normal' cognitive abilities or 'superior' ones. I do have different ones that can't be rated on a scale of more superior to inferior.
- I can't talk.
- I'm unable to mask my "quirks" at all, nor make them work to my advantage.
- I have friends. They're all autistic people. Some of them are labeled severely autistic. Oh, right, but since they're not supposed to have friends if they're severely autistic, I guess simply being my friend makes them mildly autistic. Weird how that works, and shows all the biases in these definitions.
- I don't "live independently" either by my standards or your standards, not even close. And I don't have a job or a driver's license. Did you know that many people labeled severely autistic have jobs, and in some cases are more employable than some "Asperger's" people? Messes up the categories again, right?
- I don't have people questioning who I am because I'm so normal. I generally have people questioning who I am because I seem so "severe" to them that they question whether my cognitive abilities and ability to communicate are genuine or just some kind of trick someone is playing. I have had people give me Turing tests in public because they thought my communication device was just a computer programmed to give seemingly acceptable answers when I typed on it, and that it was some big joke about how someone who looked like me could appear to communicate and freak people out that way. Things like this are relatively normal to me.

So I don't really exactly fit either of your categories, and I'm not surprised. But there are times when I'd fit your first category by some standards. (Unable to communicate in words, unable to understand words, unable to perform cognitive feats above a certain level.) But I'm guessing you don't allow for variations over time in one's abilities either.

Mind you I'm not trying to get called either severely autistic or mildly Asperger's. I'm trying to show how ridiculous the categories are. I guess my problem is that I see people, not ideas. I sense (am aware of in a sensory way rather than an idea way) the patterns of a whole lot of people I've met, and all of those are stored in my head. None of them fit definitions so neat as this. You just about have to think in abstract ideas, rather than be aware of lots of individual people, to think that these categories make any sort of sense. And I'm all about breaking down abstractions with real perceptions, it's part of what I do in life. And these abstractions not only make no sense but have a lot of subtle traps laid within them that are highly irritating if you know what people are actually like.

Awesome post, anbuend.

Also I'm noticing a bit of very black and white thinking here.

Even if I believed in the mild/severe HF/LF stuff, I would understand that there is massive variation even within each of those categories.

Like I know vaguely what the conventional categories mean. From a conventional point of view (not necessarily mine, but how most people would think of it): What some people are doing in this conversation is taking the word "severe" to mean "the most severe end of severe" and "mild" to mean "the most mild end of mild". The reality is that when people use words like severe and mild, each of those words is a range of abilities going on. And since mild and severe can't possibly indicate all abilities at once (because autistic people's abilities are uneven), then any person who conventionally qualifies for one of these categories may have some abilities that are better than others or worse than others. They're also confusing autism with MR and saying that severe autism means severe MR which makes no sense at all (if that were true then autism would be MR -- it's like saying that severe CP means severe MR and mild CP means mild MR, it's like saying that all developmental disabilities are interchangeable and if you have severe one then you have severe another). Also, in people without a good communication system you can assume nothing about their cognitive abilities at all. But people assume wrongly. It happens to me, it happens to others. Some short-term, others long-term. But it happens all the time. Many people labeled severe have jobs and friends while many people labeled mild don't. Some people labeled severe have communication systems in writing, sign, or even speech. Some people labeled mild can't communicate in words at all (but look like they can). These categories are not only the extreme ends of both. And these categories aren't even necessarily stable in how a single person is viewed throughout their life.

This blows my mind. A Turing Test? Did they at least ask your permission? F**krs. (sorry - I just can't fathom this - it makes me really angry)

The best example is one I've mentioned once or twice in this thread.

I was in a science museum with someone else who uses AAC to talk, and a staff person. This guy walked up to us as we were watching an exhibit. He asked what the thing on my lap was. I said that I type into it and it talks. He goes "Oh yeah? Can she tell us what we just saw then?" with this attitude that this was all ridiculous. My friend hid behind the staff person at that point, not wanting the guy to notice his keyboard. I was just sitting there too infuriated to say anything. And the staff person was too stunned to say anything either. He said "Yeah guess not then" and walked off chuckling. The staff person started yelling after him that I could, but he was just shaking his head and walking away. It was all a big WTF moment. I've had similar interactions but none so utterly weird. A lot of people respond to me, in the words of a lawyer with CP, as if someone just told them their Sheltie played solitaire.

Oddly I get a little more respect in a powerchair. Not because my appearance has changed at all. But you know how I've talked about people coming up with other explanations in their head for autistic behavior and then remembering the explanation rather than the behavior? What I've seen is when people see a powerchair they think severe physical impairment. When people see me without one they think severe cognitive impairment. But all those attributes that lead them to think severe cognitive impairment, they attribute to severe physical impairment.

In the autism book I'm reading it talks about how a slightly strange walk for a child is seen as stranger and stranger through adolescence and adulthood. I think that's how it worked for me. Because ever since adolescence if I walk around alone, people generally call the cops to report someone "wandering". Only a small number of times (a couple meltdowns and one act of trespassing) has it been anything obvious. The rest of the time it's Walking While Autistic. This even happens if they ask if I'm okay and I nod. It's irritating. At best. I don't go out alone much except in places where people know me.

Fairly recently though I visited someone in the hospital and some sort of chaplain in training came in to talk. When I said something, she started going "Is this some kind of trick?" and demanding to know how the "trick" worked. Then she managed to overload me until I couldn't move and couldn't process language or ideas but she couldn't tell the difference.

Generally people don't believe the sorts of comments I get until I go somewhere with them. A lot of times they're just annoyingly curious, but many other times they say or do unbelievable things.



























A

I was stating the two absolute extremes - not stating that all "low-functioners" fall at one end and all "high-functioners" fall at the other end. (In fact, the majority of autistics are somewhere in the middle of those extremes.) I know of severely autistic people who do have friends and normal intelligence, and can communicate through those computers (I was actually trying to make that distinction in my other post - I know that nonverbal doesn't mean noncommunicative.) And the idea that someone can't be autistic if they grow and change is a sore point for me - I actually had a neuropsychologist tell me that, because I have "grown" throughout my life, and wanted to keep growing, that I couldn't possibly be on the autistic spectrum. But the fact of the matter is, some (NOT all) autistic people, at all functioning levels, do NOT improve with their self-help, communication, etc. skills.

And yes, I can definitely understand that, if you have mixed cognitive abilities, your intelligence could be grossly underestimated if you are tested a certain way, or put into a certain situation. (And that doctor you saw for your stomach should not have said that in front of you, even if you did have the cognitive abilities of an infant. And those people experimenting with your computer device ... that's just mean.) From what you described about losing skills - do you have Childhood Disintegrative Disorder? And just out of curiosity - how are severely autistic people more employable than people with Asperger's?

I'm sorry if I offended you, anbuend. I was just answering the original question with my thoughts (and yes, you are right: I am "just one person"). And I think this quote is particularly true: "If you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism."

I just have regular autism plus an autism-connected movement disorder that results in losing a lot of skills and not just movement skills. Also learning on purpose doesn't "take" for me. At the most normal-seeming part of my life my cognitive skills were thought very highly of. But I lost a lot of those because they weren't built on solid foundations and some were just imitations of skills (I got very good at faking higher receptive language than I actually had, for instance). 

As far as the way most deliberately learned skills don't take, it's something I talk a lot about in other threads. Let me try to pull up some quotes...

Jim Sinclair explains this faster than I can:

"Simple, basic skills such as recognizing people and things presuppose even simpler, more basic skills such as knowing how to attach meaning to visual stimuli.  Understanding speech requires knowing how to process sounds--which first requires recognizing sounds as things that can be processed, and recognizing processing as a way to extract order from chaos.  Producing speech (or producing any other kind of motor behavior) requires keeping track of all the body parts involved, and coordinating all their movements.  Producing any behavior in response to any perception requires monitoring and coordinating all the inputs and outputs at once, and doing it fast enough to keep up with changing inputs that may call for changing outputs.  Do you have to remember to plug in your eyes in order to make sense of what you're seeing?  Do you have to find your legs before you can walk?  Autistic children may be born not knowing how to eat.  Are these normally skills that must be acquired through learning?"

So what Jim describes is far more truly basic than what most people think of as basic. Jim and I share in common both very extreme processing issues and a movement disorder. (It's through Jim that I learned enough to get diagnosed with it after a friend of xyrs saw me freezing in place at a conference.) The way I think of it is that nonautistic people think they are starting out at a skill level of one when from my perspective they start out at a skill level of at least six and possibly very much higher. 

So then there's all this stuff nondisabled people don't even think about. Understanding language. Understanding that language exists. Recognizing objects. Finding and moving body parts. Finding words. And of course all of these things are required for nondisabled people's idea of basic tasks. And all of these things come down to those super-basic skills Jim describes.  So those things are sort of intermediate-basic. 

In addition to what Jim described, there are lots of factors that make things situationally more difficult. For instance, most autistic people with that kind of processing issue find the world outside their home (or their room as the case may be) to create more chaos than before because familiarity allows a person to not have to juggle quite as much information. More chaos means more energy is required to extract enough order to be able to avoid being functionally deafblind. 

It also increases the likelihood of information overload shutdown, all of which make things even more difficult if not downright impossible. To be clear, since there are many different definitions on this site:  When I talk about overload here, I'm talking about an experience that is not necessarily emotional or painful. Those can exist, but I have experienced at times an extremely pure form of this overload. Where there is no anxiety, no pain, but simply things become increasingly difficult to do or understand, and eventually the whole world goes pixelated in every sense, and I can't find my body or move it, and I can't think, and I'm just aware (without any meaningful sensory input) except when even awareness fizzles out. Sure, it's usually stressful and painful, but I've learned that even without those things it's plenty possible and plenty bad. (Which is why I don't buy that all overload is just a form of anxiety, but that's a whole unrelated topic.)

So for someone like me, I've described this "basic" stuff as, like most people including some autistic people, learn "basic" skills like climbing a hill. When they get skilled at things, they walk up the hill. Their feet are always on firm ground. They don't have to climb the hill every time they want to do the skill. Whereas for me and some autistic people not only do I start at a lower elevation (super-basic), but I'm climbing a cliff up to those supposedly basic skills. This means I can't stay up there. Every time I want to do that kind of skill, I have to in some ways start at the beginning. No, I don't have to learn all over again exactly. But I do have to put together the skill from basic building blocks of perception and movement in order to carry out the skill. 

End quote. 

I should also add that some of the cliffs had rockslides from too much physical action on them and are no longer things I can scale even temporarily. But the reason I can't learn most useful skills is that I always start from that more basic than basic level. Every time. I don't climb a gentle slope and stand on firm ground to use them indefinitely. I climb a steep slope and have to go down to the bottom every single time. 

With skills that I learned without trying I can sometimes skip steps even if the skills I need for it aren't always available. I can get very good at those things. But I can't control which are which, so...

As for some people deemed severely autistic being more employable than some people deemed AS. It's just something I observed. The other way can also be true. The people considered severe that I saw working were often doing really basic work but work they were good at and could be consistent on. I think that ability to be consistent may be the key to nearly all employability. That trait is not specific to just AS or just severe autism. It can happen or not in any sort if autistic person. People like me (who are also throughout the conventional spectrum) have abilities that shift too unpredictably for most competitive employment. IRS hard to do a good job when your sensory and cognitive worlds switch to the mode where you're without language, symbol, idea thought, and any sense of the environment as anything other than a swirl of confusing sensations. Which regularly happens to me. 

Back to the learning thing I think it used to be a stereotype that autistic people are all like me in that regard. I read a mother from the seventies(?) writing about how they told her not to bother teaching him skills because he'd lose them eventually especially in adolescence. Which happens to me, but I doubt that it's the most common autistic pattern. But it seems to have happened with others or that wouldn't have been a stereotype back then. 

And a Jim Sinclair quote from the same article that talks about the kind of problems I have learning things and getting them to stick:

"I taught myself to read at three, and I had to learn it again at ten, and yet again at seventeen, and at twenty-one, and at twenty-six.  The words that it took me twelve years to find have been lost again, and regained, and lost, and still have not come all the way back to where I can be reasonably confident they'll be there when I need them.  It wasn't enough to figure out just once how to keep track of my eyes and ears and hands and feet all at the same time; I've lost track of them and had to find them over and over again."

One measure of autism "severity" gives higher scores if you have some abilities vastly higher than others.

But another thing might be passing and the explanations people use for your behavior. I have a friend whose diagnosis is autism, who will never pass as normal, but what she looks like is... I dunno. Shy, maybe ret*d, definitely off. My diagnosis is Asperger's and I can pass for normal. A lot of the body language I use is also used by NTs... when they want to say "I hate you and want to kill you." (And vice versa. This is why I hate charismatic people.) My speech sounds normal (my friend's trouble with speech is blatantly obvious after about half a sentence at most), so the blunt way I communicate (there are so many things I would never have DREAMED were rude until people blew up and me for them-- the only way to avoid having people turn against me for innocent mistakes is never to interact) gets people to think of me as a bad person, as someone who hates them, as someone who hates everyone, as someone mean and cruel and full of hatred, someone who poisons everything and leaves destruction and misery in her wake...

Oh, I'm probably quite capable of working. But no one gets a job by being qualified. They get a job by vapid and pointless small-talk and having the right connections with people you have to sweet-talk just right. How could I ever manage a job interview (which is a sham; all it tests is social skills) when it's all I can do to go to the store while adrenaline courses through my veins and I awkwardly manage simple transactions and get flustered if someone says more than "have a nice day" while I'm leaving?

deleted

Last edited by Joe90 on 16 Jan 2011, 4:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Why don't you speak for yourself and not guess at the lives of hundreds of other people you don't even know?

Most "aspies" on here have more difficulties than that list describes. Some of them a lot more. Some of them can't live on their own, have no jobs, no friends, and don't remotely pass as normal. Some of them wear diapers even (note: incontinence is not the ultimate symbol of all dependency some take it as -- I know successful computer programmers who are married and are incontinent and are diagnosed with autism not AS).

And yes there are many people here who meet the level of dependency described in the other list. Simply being dependent on others for nearly everything doesn't mean you can't read or write. Just about the only things I do for myself involve the Internet or computers. The rest of my day involves a whole lot of help from several different people. Not "a little help" as someone else on this thread implied. I don't agree with HF/LF divisions but I absolutely do need the amount of help described in her post. I have said this several times by now so I can only assume you're not reading it or ignoring it.

One reason I come to this board is to break up stereotypes about oeople who look like me, act like me, need the sort of assistance I need, etc. One of the biggest stereotypes is that we aren't on the net and could never be. There are actually a lot of us although many stay away from boards like this because we can't stand being made invisible again or listening to others say things about people just like us that are laden with ugly stereotypes.

But I won't let us be made invisible without saying something. So what I want to know is this:

Why, in the face of so much evidence to the contrary, do you still insist that all "aspies" here must fit the mildest of the mild stereotype just referenced? And why do you still insist that nobody here is that dependent within a small number of posts of someone pointing out that she is in fact that dependent? What is it with you trying to act like everyone here must be just as capable of those things as you are?

(And in case you haven't been reading: I'm considered to be in a residential program. I rent the apartment but other people help with everything: Food, water, bathroom (yes including cleaning me), bathing, mobility, all other aspects of self-care, all parts of running a household including bills and stuff, cooking, transportation, etc. The only thing I do by myself is online stuff or reading and I often can't do those because my brain only works that way a limited part of the day. Everything else ranges from people doing everything for me (most things) to people helping me start, continue, stop, etc. with other things. Exactly what part of "yes some people here are that dependent" doesn't make sense to you?

Oookaaay.

I'm not even human. I'm a kitten monkey hybrid.

(see - I can spew utter nonsense too ... )