Why is Aspergers on the spectrum?

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Ok this might sound like a really dumb question....

But seems like it is a seperate disorder....and seeing as how they are supposedly removing it from the DSM...psychologists would have us believe otherwise and that it is in fact even closer to low functioning autism then previous thought.

What characteristics do they share?

What do they not share?

Are there any similarities between brain scans done on Aspergers and brain scans done on low functioning autistic individuals?

Is low functioning autism the same social impairments, without the logicality found in aspergers?

Because aspergers is the same thing as autism without a significant speech delay or cognitive impairments. It doesn't make since to have separate diagnoses for AS and HFA, when it just comes down to whether or not the person has good verbal abillities. Some NTs have better verbal abilities than others too. People with AS supposedly usually have a higher verbal IQ and with AD better performance IQ, but that's obviously going to happen if you're mostly classifying people in the first place by whether or not they had a speech delay.

It would be like if they classified us differently based on whether we are right or left handed, and then coming to the conclusion that people in one category write better with their right hand and the other with their left. Duuuuh.

It is not that Asperger's is close to low-functioning autism that places it on the spectrum, it is that it is close to high-funtioning autism. The only difference between HFA and AS, as they are defined, is the HFA requires speech delays.

Asperger's is an autism spectrum disorder because it is a deficit in social functioning -- the ability to communicate effectively, understand verbal and non-verbal cues, and in forming relationships.

This.

I used to think of "Autism" as being equivalent to "Low Functioning." Most people still do. There is a range of functioning in both Asperger's and what used to be called "Autism." If you seek out the DSM definitions of both you will see.

You will find (by using the custom search for this site) threads that discuss this subject, as well as the proposed change in the DSM.

What they said.

And I thought they were removing it from the DSM-V because they couldn't agree on whether it really is a different thing from autism.

The answer is in your question. It's a SPECTRUM, meaning that there is low-functioning autism (no speech, constant stimming, severe sensory problems, and usually low IQ), moderately-affected people (usually can speak [repeat things] but unable to hold a conversation, lower IQ, can't go to college, etc.), then... high-functioning people (including those with Asperger's Syndrome). They still have the problems with communication, socialization, and the repetitive behaviors/interests and (typically) sensory problems... it's just the severity that differs. And as a few people have said above, people with Asperger's don't have a speech delay.

Everything but the speech delay, and some classic autistics aren't even speech delayed. Also, Aspies can almost always do their own basic self-care skills, like eating meals, washing, and dressing yourself (but so can most classic autistics, even those people call "LFA").

The speech delay (again, some classic autistics are not speech delayed).

The real difference is in how they are perceived by doctors--the people called "LFA" are perceived to be severely disabled; the people who are called "HFA" or "AS" are not. The differences between them don't seem to fall along diagnostic lines; almost all of the possible autistic traits and neurological tendencies show up in all three groups (speech delay being the exception since it's artificially excluded from AS). If you wanted to group them by neurological tendency or anything else you'd get completely different groups than what the doctors seem to be getting now... You can't predict what a person's skills are going to be from whether they're "HFA", "LFA", or "Aspie", only what the doctor thought of them.

Yes, they're highly similar. In most of the studies I've read, the classic autistics and Aspies can't really be told apart by their brain differences, though those with the stronger traits have brains that show those differences more strongly. Like, if you use an autism rating scale and one person gets a 75/100, he'll have less obvious differences on the scan than the guy who scored a 90/100. But don't get the idea that it's some obvious progression from less impaired to more impaired--it's more like a general trend, with a rather messy (but present) correlation between trait strength and brain differences.

No; those labeled low functioning can have fewer social impairments, more, different ones, or the exact same ones as AS. They may be more or less logical than AS. There's not really that much difference except that "low functioning autism" implies that you need help with ADLs and "Asperger's" implies a lack of developmental delay and ability to do basic self-care. In general, "LFA" implies someone who is more disabled by the standard of our cultural stereotype of disability.

It's too bad there aren't more "LFA" (or "LFA labelled" to maybe say it better) people here, for their take/perspective/thoughts/whatever on life, autism, and so on. There seems to be a lot of theorizing in a vacuum here. I've always been more surprised at the similarities than put off by the differences, across labels and functioning levels. There are things written by people tagged as "LFA" that I've found personally useful, even though no one would look at me and think "low functioning" (except John Micheal Carley, but that's another story).

Yeah, that's the thing--how disabled you are doesn't seem to have much to do with what... hmm... "style" of autism you have. I can't really call it a subtype because as far as I can tell there are no distinct subtypes.

Anyway, how would you know whether anybody on here had been labeled "LFA" unless they told you? Even if they were really horrible at writing, they could just be... really horrible at writing.

Well yeah, LFW (low functioning writer) may or may not correllate with HFA/LFA.

I'm just thinking of people who've made mention of being tagged "HF" or "LF" outrightly; but yeah, you/I don't really know for the many who haven't said anything about it. And it is interesting how hard/impossible is to tell the realities of someone's life via the 'net, unless they flat-out describe it. I remember a thread once of people comparing GAF's and people were surprised at how many low numbers there were.

Because AS and AD are far closer to one another in outward behavior than either are to other mental disorders or a lack of the same.

Hence, ASD.

Another point is that the LFA-HFA-AS thing is not supposed to be only a uni-dimensional difference in severity.

HFA is supposed to have the same severity of autistic symptoms that LFA, but without mental retardation, while AS is supposed to be a mild type of autism. However, in practice don't work that way, because:

- in common language it is the habit of using "high-functioning autist" in the sense of "mild autist", instead of "intelligent autist"

- it is very difficult to split the "severity of autism" effect from the "intelligence" effect (an intelligent autist can appear less severe simply because he has more easiness in learning coping strategies)

- It is also difficult to measure he intelligence of autists, what make the LFA-HFA distinction very dubious

- many (probably most) people diagnosed with AS were misdiagnosed and they are HFA instead (even in this thread there are reference to "speech delay" being the difference between AS and HFA; it's not, but many doctors diagnoses this way - according to DSM, "absence of speech delay" is a necessary condition for a diagnosis of AS, but "presence of speech delay" is not a necessary condition for a diagnosis of HFA; if we follow strictly the DSM, "speech delay" will be more a difference between AS and some types of PDD/NOS than a difference between AS and HFA).

From all of my years of researching both supposed mental health problems and many personality theories, I have been asking the same question. Even my sister (sensitive to lights, noises, and sounds, introversion, some logicality) and my uncle (logicality, awkwardness with other people, introversion), both NT's, have traits of Asperger's, so I'm starting to wonder if (MBTI lovers can agree or argue about this) they just seem more like extreme INTP's, INTJ's, and occasionally, INFP's. Maybe Asperger's is way overdiagnosed. If it wasn't for fifth grade, I wouldn't have been labled (then again, I had a lifelong interest in medical things).

I know this will sound controversial, but only LFA, Childhood Disintegrative Disorder, and Rett's Syndrome (although the symptoms seem metabolic in nature because of the regression, cerebral palsy-esque movements and seizures, and slowly progressing respiratory problems along with limited lifespan) seem to belong on the spectrum, because Asperger's and HFA don't sound that serious or limiting. Think of all the good things that come with Asperger's!

Aspergers isn't serious or limiting? What? Just because I can communicate and do things on my own doesn't mean I'm not limited. Heck, today when my Mom went with me to my psych appointment she was comparing my overreactions to things to scenes in rainman. I think that's serious. And I'm not even an especially severe AS case. You seem to be saying that the autism spectrum should only include people who also have cognitive impairments/ MR ? That does make any sense. Pretty much defining something by the presence of a comorbid condition?

Silly me. "Suck it up and get over yourself" really IS a great strategy.