Aspie vs. HFA

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Can someone tell me the difference? I was supposedly HFA according to the elementary school counsellor, but I think I have more aspie traits.

I am not sure on this one myself.

Tim

Theyre pretty much interchangable but I think the general consensus is that a HFA person has more severe sensory and/or developmental problems, had a linguistic delay and lack the aspie obsessive fixation on specific topics.

Last edited by Fraya on 30 Nov 2006, 7:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

From what I've been reading, there are two camps... the most common view seems to be that Aspie is the same as HFA. But there are others that think Aspie is something different... I think I read a post saying that HFA people would be startled by loud noises but Aspies wouldn't. I don't have any unusual startle reflexes but have most all the other Aspie traits.

I think "Asperger's" is autistic without the speech delay. That said, autistic traits are really all over the place. To say one is higher functioning than the other is placing value on pet traits and/or abilities. My son has speech delay but can inflect his voice and sound emotional. He can express emotion and imagination easily. After being taught coping skills with sensory issues, he can deal with loud noises and other sensory issues.
Most of his "disabilities" have to do with communication. He needs things translated, sometimes with visual aides (words, lists and cartoons).

I think people get attached to the idea that there is a gradation of skill level, IQ. So, when people learn language, they say they're Aspie. From what I've read here, it seems there is no marker that separates labelled-Aspies from other autistics as far as tantrums, meltdowns and obsessions go.

I always thought of it as HFA was just a term to mean High Functioning Autistic, as in, including all autistics who are high functioning (able to maintain oneself in society as well as or better than average people), which could include many people who have Asperger's Syndrome.

But it seems it's defined as a seperate syndrome / entity, which contradicts my idea...

You're right! The AS deinition talks of ONE language being hyperlexic BEFORE 3! You don't see that every day! But a person with a low IQ may speak several languages, and a person with a high IQ may only speak one. There is NO real correlation.

Steve

Steve

Well, my mom says that I learned my first word at 6 mos and the alphabet at 9 mos. So I have that trait bigtime.

well i had language skills at the normal age, and then i severly regressed.

what does this mean?

I just posted two articles from Newsweek in the News forum, and one of the articles talks about regression around 15-18 months. Here it is:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15792806/site/newsweek/


My mom never said anything about whether or not I regressed. But the take-home message that I got from this and the other article is that no one really has a good grasp of what the difference is. The article in the magazine itself (I saw it at the grocery store and then came home and posted about it) had a linear diagram of the currently recognized forms of autism. Asperger's were on the far end of "high functioning". Next highest was PDD-NOS. Autism was in the dead center, and then there were two syndromes that I'd never heard about (I don't remember the names - I was really interested in what they had to say about AS). Anyway, that article and the other one about adults with autism - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15792805/site/newsweek/ - seemed to throw around the term HFA for people that I would have thought were aspies. As far as I could tell, they were using the terms interchangeably.

Anyway, HFA was suggested to my parents in the mid-80's (by a school counsellor, no less, mmmmmkay). Maybe she didn't have a good clue as to the difference between autism, Asperger's, PDD-NOS, etc. At the time, I was happy that I could get help with making friends and fitting in. But my mom freaked out because of the stigma. She thought it meant that I was schizophrenic.

I saw that in the magazine and in my opinion it is NOT accurate. Really the only difference is in the criteria about language and those with atypical development (like those who develop language just fine and regress like my son) are sometimes put into PDD-NOS label instead of autism. There are plenty of people with PDD-NOS who are severely effected - it is NOT autism "lite" as some have been given the impression. There are also people with Asperger's who have more difficulties than some with autism because each label really has a spectrum all it's own. Also - there is alot of conjecture about the terms HFA and AS being used interchangeably. I really don't know how much of a difference there truly is - although my son does have more significant difficulties with language but that doesn't reflect on IQ or other abilities. The other conditions are Rhett's and Childhood Distintigrative Disorder and are considered more rare and and are included under the autism umbrella but can have differences from autism, AS and PDD-NOS.

Your counsellor didn't stand a chance of having better info in the mid 1980's.



As far as the HFA/AS differentiation, here's the Wikipedia viewpoint:

NOPE, DOESN'T QUALIFY! By 6 months, babys are saying what MIGHT sound like words. By 7 months, they are saying words but may not know what they mean. And the alphabet certainly doesn't count. You could have done that at 6 or 7 months!

The aspie "symptom" is an advanced VOCABULARY before 3 years of age. If you spoke even several hundred words it wouldn't qualify.

Steve

I actually was tested on the vocabulary. Part of the reason behind the testing was that I was having problems with physical milestones, but playing the piano and speaking really well. The other reason was that I actually was speaking English and Czech by this point and my mom wasn't sure if I was speaking Enlish well enough to be meeting the milestones. I definitely did not have an advanced vocabulary in English by the time I was 3, but I did have an advanced vocabulary in Czech (I think it was something like an appropriate 3rd grade vocabulary and I was right around 3 years old at that time).

Anyway, I was denied therapy because I was deemed to have a very high IQ despite my clumsiness and lack of social skills, so the testing was pointless. The question of autism was not raised again (that I know of) until I was like 9 years old. All it got me then was "Adaptive Physical Education" (what a crock). I didn't get therapy for my social problems until much later - and that was what I really needed all along.

Well, autism.org says that AS is a form of HFA. That makes sense, and it pretty much answers my question. Source:

http://www.autism.org/asperger.html

There's lots of different opinions on the matter (as evidenced by this post), but that's what I believe. I just explain Asperger's as a "form of high-functioning autism." Still, HFA to me is something separate, and I, too, differentiate between the two by the language delay in HFA.
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