What is the difference between Autism and Aspergers?

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I was diagnosed with Autism at 11 years old. After a lot of fighting, at 14 I got placed I into a private all autistic high school that had children who were low functioning, mid functioning and high functioning autistic and children with Aspergers. (If you're interested, the children with low functioning autism were placed in a different section of the school in a different building as most were nonverbal and had a different education. Their side was called Steps, mine was called Bridge) It was the first time I was surrounded by people with autism. I also heard about Aspergers for the first time.

I'm 18 years old now and I still don't fully know the differences between autism and Aspergers. The friends I had who had Aspergers seemed a lot more independent than me and could travel on buses and trains without difficulty but so did some of my autistic friends too.

In fact, most of the kids in Bridge seemed more independent and able than me but that was because I was on a 'thin line' between being high functioning autistic and low functioning.

I noted that my Aspergers friends looked more 'normal' because they didn't do any stimming behaviours like I or the other autistic kids did (like rocking, clapping hands, flapping hands, putting your hands over your face etc). They were more able to converse with people and had a better understanding with friendships and social rules. That not to say they didn't have problems though, my friends with Aspergers had the same difficulty with controlling emotions, dealing with change and handling stress as me and my autistic friends did.

All in all, they seemed like they were very higher functioning than high functioning autism... If that makes sense.

The only clear difference and is no delay in developing language in early childhood (before 3 year old) which gives aspies advantage at start. Everything else is just functioning level in the same scale as verbal auties. Most aspies are high functioning but moderate/mid functioning level can also happen in Asperger.

I don't think even the lack of delay counts as it's an issue of severity, parents and doctors are looking for severe delays like not saying mama at 7 years old. Mild delays will just get ignored because children aren't all identical and don't say mama at exactly the same year/month/week/day/hour/minute/second in their development.

The main difference in the ICD-10 is mostly about language and social delays before age 3. You can read the diagnostic criteria for each here:
Autism
Asperger's

The ICD-10 seems to think that autism cannot be diagnosed in adults and must be diagnosed in children only. The DSM-V makes no distinction between Asperger's and autism and lumps it all into the same spectrum.

I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder using the DSM-V even though I did have verbal delays as a kid. I don't have verbal difficulties now (except if I'm really flustered or frustrated) because words were an intense special interest of mine. I voraciously read books to study the verbiage and the 'shape' of dialogue. I read the dictionary for fun (I still think it's fun; I love discovering new words!). I studied pronunciation and grammar and anything word-related I could get my hands on. Get me started on words, and I can go on and on about them. Everyone thinks they're unnecessarily complicated, but I think they are so interesting! But that, among other things, kept me from being diagnosed as a child.

Well thats the thing, Autism and Asperger's are so undefined disorder wise that they are now taking out Asperger's and calling it all Autism Spectrum Disorder now. People with Autism would have traits from the other parts of the spectrum and people with Asperger's would as well. It comes down to the person with the "disorder" with what symptoms they have. I say disorder because thats the classification we are put in but people with Autism have an incredible ability to grow and do things normal people cannot.

This is a really good comparison, except I don't know what a lot of the items on the lists are referring to. Is this suggesting the item listed is present or absent in someone with autism? I can't get a clear idea from this because the lists are too general. The person who wrote it probably knows what they mean when they write 'peek-a-boo,' but it isn't clear enough for me to know it, too. Also, they spelled 'innuendo' wrong.

Both have and had diagnostic criteria. Under the DSM IV manual "Aspergers Disorder", was considered part of the Autism Spectrum but a separate diagnosis. The difference since May 2013 is that if you use the DSM 5 manual you can't diagnose anybody with "Aspergers Disorder" everyone who meets certain diagnostic criteria are supposed to be diagnosed "Autistic Spectrum Disorder". or if you do have verbal or non verbal communication issues but not inhibiting repetitive behaviors you are supposed be diagnosed with "Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorder" . "Aspergers Syndrome" is a diagnosis in the current ICD manual.

Those are factsheets from lectures you can find on youtube:


I have no idea how someone is supposed to understand them without seeing the videos.