Is HFA and asperger's the same thing or different?

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I've read conflicting documentation on whether these two are the same thing, or whether they are different. I personally think they are different in some ways. Looking for feedback in what people's ideas are, and what the consensus is.

Someone could have AS and has learn to compensate and "fake" so their symptoms do not seem as severe as someone with AS and therefore be HFA.

Someone could have symptoms of autism but not severe enough to be diagnosed with AS but instead be HFA

In the first case then HFA and AS would be the same. In the second case they are different.

I don't think there is any consensus on if AS and HFA are the same or different

Just my opinion on the matter

My biggest issue with googling asperger's the first time it was suggested was it being placed on the autism spectrum. Some of the reading materials and videos displayed very severe autism and seemed really unlike me, so I went off it for a while. Then I read more into Hans Asperger's work and saw some other cases of high functioning individuals and the description fit me alot better, especially people who've naturally learnt a few work-arounds or cover ups.

One of the differences encountered in reading materials is that aspies generally don't have a problem with reading, learning or the use of written and verbal language (actually sometimes very good with it) whereas it usually is the case with autistic individuals.

It's different. People with AS do not show a lack of interest in the world around them, have no clinically significant language delays, and tend to be of average to high average intelligence.

People with HFA may show a lack of interest in the world around them as children, usually have some clinically significant language delay, and are permitted to have a low IQ (though that doesn't mean there aren't perfectly intelligent people with HFA)

AS is similar, if not identical to NVLD, and such individuals usually have high verbal IQ's and low performance IQ's.

People with HFA tend to have low verbal IQ's and high performance IQ's

Some people do not fit neatly into one category or the other. In that case, the term PDD-NOS might be used, which stands for "pervasive development disorder not otherwise specified"

I have high functioning autism. I was delayed in a lot of milestones.

I think that HFA are also of "average to high average intelligence" - this is the difference between HFA and LFA.

I think the fact that some people do not fit into the categories neatly (which just happens to be the majority of those autistic, PDD-NOS) is proof that such a dividing line between HFA and Asperger's is just a construct and a very poor one at that.

I seem to fit into elements of both categories although I will almost certainly be diagnosed with AS - and I didn't have a lot of developmental delays.

What I've read is that life outcomes for "HFA" and AS are virtually identical. I have also read that many people diagnosed with AS fit the criteria for autism as well, but do not (always) have speech delays or other particular delays that are considered typical in autism.

One specific criteria is that the DSM-IV describes "no significant delay in self-help skills" when in fact this is pretty common. The "No speech delay" criteria actually describes a someone mild speech delay.

I just look forward to everything being merged.

It is a construct much in the way a line on a fault map represents the San Andreas fault, the line on the map is a line on a map, and deviates possibly man feet in any given place from the actual fault line.

The issue in distinguishing one disorder from another arises from the methods we have to rely on to diagnose the disorders. Most fields of medicine use testing to diagnose a disorder. If one wanted to know if one had a cold, the flu, strep throat, or pertussis, it can be difficult to distinguish between the four by outward symptoms alone. Rather, if need be, the doctor can run tests to determine exactly what the person has, eliminating ambiguity.

The field of psychiatry lags severely in this sense. Despite advances in brain imaging techniques, and our understanding of how the brain works, diagnosing neuropsychiatric disorders is still largely holistic in nature, and the clinician relies entirely on the external presentation.

But the brain is a physical object with neurons that do very specific things. If you had two four year olds, and one was very good with words, and could be very verbally articulate, and the other couldn't speak yet, assuming he or she was not deaf and had no impediments orally/lingually, or with respect to their vocal system, then one would expect some very stark differences to exist between the brains of the two children, allowing the first child to be so verbally well endowed and inhibiting the second from speaking.

Their brains may also have similarities, but when differences are complete opposites, I'm not sure it's wise to assume sameness.

That is one difference, and perhaps not a matter of opposites, but representing the typical scatter in autistic deficits. One child does not speak, the other one does. The one who does may have deficits in other areas that the first does not, and yet the underlying causes may be similar.

Yeah.. But couldn't you just as easily take two four year olds with autistic traits, one who is gifted at math and can already do algebra and one who has severe difficulties with it and can't add one plus one, and there would be big differences between their brains aswell? Maybe they both had speech delays, maybe they both didn't... Should we divide up autistic people because of their mathematical abilities too? This can apply to just about any other ability. There are huge differences between peoples' brains within their same autistic diagnostic category, sometimes probably more prominent than the way someone from one category and someone from another process verbal information.

Plus, defining what qualifies as a communication delay is difficult(it doesn't require a SPEECH delay for classic autism necessarily.. another possibility is impaired conversational skills in starting or maintaining conversation... most aspies definitely have that...)

I recently saw this: http://www.autistics.org/library/aspieautie.html and think it's a pretty accurate description of how autistic people are divided up.