Aspergers and Mild autism the same thing?

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Hey, i was wondering, because im confused. I use to believe that aspergers and mild autism are two diferent things, now i think theyre the same.

i don't have aspergers but i have a big brother who has it and he's also bipolar and has ADHD.

so, are they the same thing???

It is hard to put autism into categories--but normal people like to have categories so they can understand things better.

So, it becomes very convenient to be able to say that I'm just like that Sheldon Guy on Big Bang Theory, except that I can't handle math or science but I do get jokes and sarcasm. And why won't anyone give me a job like Sheldon's with a personal parking space?

Sometimes it is. Autism is a huge spectrum it's hard to know where they are at on it and what their difficulties are when anyone says they have autism or mild autism. That tells me nothing.

I am borderline autistic. I am so different than aspies. Some aspie people can be so far out there away from normal. Some cant even talk.

I can not say borderline pdd or high functioning people act anything like people with aspergers, especially extreme aspergers.

There is no official diagnostic label called "mild autism".

But there used to be a category "high functioning autism", and there also used to be an official diagnosis called "aspergers". The main difference between those two labels (aspergers and HFA) are that if you had speech delays your HFA, and if you learned to speak at the normal time most toddlers learn to talk then you're aspergers. Other than that both are effectively "mild forms of autism". So yes- for practical purposes "high functioning autism" and "aspergers" can both be termed colloquially as "mild autism". In fact I dont know what else the phrase "mild autism" would even refer to if not to those two categories.

A few years ago they dispensed with aspergers as a seperate category and lumped it with HFA. Then more recently (some folks on WP claim) they even stopped saying "HFA" and "LFA" and just officially talk about "autism level one, and autism level 2" and autism level 3, and so on, or something like that.

You can have a person with Asperger's (now not a diagnosis within the DSM V) who has relatively severe symptoms.

You can have a person with Classic Autism whose symptoms are relatively mild.

I would not have been diagnosed with Asperger's under the DSM IV; I would have been diagnosed with Classic Autism because of my speech delay and (mostly past) autistic symptoms.

Usually, on average, the person with Asperger's has less severe symptoms than the person with Classic Autism.

But Asperger's and HFA were/are not always the same thing. These days, under the DSM V, in fact, most people previously diagnosed with Asperger's and mild Classic Autism now would carry the diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder, Level One.

Although commonly used by professionals there has never been a diagnoses in the DSM of high functioning or low functioning autism.

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Back in DSM IV Asperger's and autism were (sort of) separate things, the main difference being that language delay is present only in autism and not Asperger's. Asperger's has always been considered an autism disorder though, so someone with Asperger's could say that they they were technically autistic. Now with DSM V Asperger's is no longer a diagnosis, you just have ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) levels 1, 2, and 3. Most everybody (if not everyone) who previously got a diagnosis of Asperger's and autistic people who would be considered mild or high functioning are now grouped together as ASD level 1. So yeah, they are (now at least) considered the same thing.

Aspergers was always described as "a form of autism".
That seemed like kind of a cop-out to me.
Like Aspergers was just a vanilla version of autism.
Either you have autism or you don't.

There is no such thing as mild autism.

Autism manifests differently in everyone, some people have high IQs others don't, some people never speak others never shut up. And everything in between. But it still disables EVERYONE with it. That being said there are still strengths but that also varies.

I know I have mild ASD. I am like an eccentric and quirky NT, and literally have none of the Autism stereotypes. I am not at all like Spock, but more like Homer Simpson, although he's not Aspie, but that explains how complex my ASD is.

I know I have general and social anxiety. I want to be diagnosed with those two.

It depends on the version of the DSM and the definition of "mild".

In practice, i'd say "close enough", at least looking from the outside in; 3rd parties don't have to be aware of the differences (if any) as they are small or not relevant. (like; don't you go to the canteen becouse you dont like the crowd or the noise, you just don't like it there).

My understanding has been:

[current term]=[current slang]=[old term]=[ancient term]

high spectrum=aspie=Asperger's; high functioning autism (HFA)=[not described worldwide]

mid spectrum=autie=autism=infantile schizophrenia

non verbal=[not sure there is a slang]=low functioning autism (LFA)=infantile schizophrenia

There is also a term, "autist," that covers all people on the autism spectrum, but hasn't caught on like it should have.

There is a subset of the sociology of autism (what I study) that is about the history of how autism has been represented and there have been a few books about it.

I've read of some people with Asperger's whose symptoms aren't really "mild." They seem more like "Level 2" than "Level 1" in symptoms.

I've read of some people with Classic Autism whose symptoms are "Level 1"-type symptoms.

Some people with Asperger's seemed to be more "classically" autistic when they were quite young.

This is definitely true with the subject of the biography of "Elijah's cup." It's possibly true in the case of Temple Grandin.

Well, since may of 2013 when they published DSM-5 they recast the whole ball of wax into this: level one, level two, and level three. One meaning needing least support, two needing lotsa support, and three needing boatloads of support.

So in effect:"mild", "moderate", and "severe" autism. So in effect you could call "level one" folks "mildly autistic", and essentially be officially diagnostically correct.

Are you crazy?

"Autist" is all TOO popular.

The term should be stamped out.

Its what illiterate folks say when they mean to use the word "autistic" as a noun . "Autistic" can be a noun as well as an adjective.

An "autistic" is someone with autism( and is autistic). Can be someone anywhere on the "autism spectrum".
Nothing wrong with the term.

When you speak of an autistic person its fine to call them "an autistic".

But when illiterate folks refer to "an autistic person" they will often say "an autist".

The trouble with the term "autist" is this:an "autist" would be to autism what an "artist" is to art, or what a "scientist" is to science. It would mean a person who purposely "does" autism as craft and as a profession for money.

The only reason a person would purposely DO autism for that reason would be if they were a NT who was scamming the taxpayer for benifits, and SSI, and the like by perfecting the craft of faking autism.

So unless you're accusing someone of pulling a medical scam I would NEVER call them an "autist"! Lol!

And also using the term "autist" just makes you sound like a knuckledragger. Or atleast it does to me.