aspergers and HFA

Post Reply New Topic

I view it as 'autistic community' not 'Asperger's community' 'classic autism community', and 'PDD-NOS' community. I'd rather be involved with a community that includes the other diagnoses than one that limits itself to only Asperger's diagnoses. I don't feel I'm a part of a community focusing around Asperger's, I feel I'm a part of the autistic community.



I view it as Asperger's being a particular subset of high functioning autism, that isn't necessarily "higher functioning" (whatever that means at any given point in time), but still is a subset not a different label for the same thing.

However, its quite confusing, because when people try to say "aspies do foo while auties do bar" I don't always fall in the aspie category. In fact, I find more often I fall in the 'auties' category.

How I made sense of this was reading Kanner's paper, Asperger's paper, and a few others of the early papers. I view Asperger's Syndrome as the subset of high functioning autism that matches what Asperger's described, whether or not the person matches the diagnosis criteria for classic autism. This means that I identify as an aspie, despite being pretty sure that I meet the diagnostic criteria for classic autism (it's hard to tell what they qualify for "Delays or abnormal functioning in at least one of the following areas" seeing as that is partially what they were describing in the first part, and I'm sure I meet at least 6 of the criteria of the first part even if they consider me as being too close to normal in some of them).

So to me, saying that I'm an aspie means "I am autistic, I have a form of autism that was described by Hans Asperger, rather than a more generic form of autism that might be a similar "functioning level" or a "lower functioning level", and has nothing to do with saying that I can do things that people with a different label can't.

I guess you are right. I don't know if it's my aspie (autistic) nature that keeps me bugged at my PDD-NOS dx or it's the NT part of me that senses a loss in group-identity. I think its more the former. My strong sense of justice also drives me, I'm totally freaked out by the inconsistencies of diagnosing practices and by some of the proposed changes in the DSM, along with aspie-elitism, whatever it would mean. I'm stunned, though, how can be so few people here with PDD-NOS when it supposed to be the majority.

One tendency I noticed after I've spent months here is that I also relate better to some more classically autistic people (MFA, HFA, whatever) than stereotypical "aspies" (in the narrower sense), although my symptoms are usually less pronounced. Personally, I do believe I fulfill the criteria of Autism, and not just barely. However, as everyone says, much depends on who does the diagnosing.

(Took a little time though, to grasp on the meaning of "aspies do foo while auties do bar". )

I can't wait until ASD is a single diagnosis.

Yeah, one of the things that really bothers me about the focus on aspies and all that is people talking about how Asperger's is clearly not a disability just a difference. I think that's part of what makes me relate more to the people with the classic autism diagnosis, though the people I relate to most are those who have Asperger's diagnoses but who go around talking about how it is a disability for them and how they are offended by the split in how people talk about aspies vs spectrumites.

Yeah, a lot depends on who does diagnosing, as well as what the person expects and what the person's abilities are particularly when they're being evaluated. I think the fact that my family mentioned Asperger's when I was brought there might have influenced the diagnosis to some degree (though truthfully, I went in expecting PDD-NOS)

Though really, that just makes me more supportive of combining everything into one diagnosis of ASD and letting the people who don't meet that new criteria get labeled with Social Communication Disorder or some combination of that SPD, ADHD, and such instead.

I identify with bits and pieces of a lot of people's experiences here, whether they are diagnosed with whatever kind of autism or not autism at all but ADHD. Far more than I do with NTs in real life.

Me too. I just go by autistic, whether I be diagnosed with Asperger's/PDD/ HFA, it's still a part of the whole spectrum. And soon it will just be one single diagnosis: autistic disorder.

To be clear, it will be "autism spectrum disorder." It's a whole new diagnosis.