Confused about AS/Autism distinction

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I know this will have been asked before. I tried looking for a straight answer but only found more confusing.

Is it correct to say that anybody on the autistic spectrum is an autistic individual, no matter which diagnosis?

Is an aspie also an autistic person?

I thought it was straight-forward and would prefer to identify as an autist rather than aspie because I don't like the word, but I don't want to be doing anything wrong (received confirmation of my diagnosis a few days ago).

Yes, anyone on the autistic spectrum is an autistic person. In the DSM-IV, autism and Asperger's had the same diagnostic criteria, except that autism had a separate "communication deficits" requirement which Asperger's did not have. Now, in the DSM-5, Asperger's no longer exists as a diagnosis: all ASD individuals are diagnosed with autism. So they are basically the same disorder, with the same symptoms.

I think they are still separate diagnoses according to the ICD, but I'm too lazy to look it up. Not all of the relevant professionals or even all diagnosed people agree that Asperger's Syndrome and Autism are the same thing, or that the former is a sub-type of the latter, so there's no simple answer to your question.

It's a matter of opinion. Even the DSM definitions - past and present - are only opinions (and they change). Are things like the DSM definitions more valid than the opinions of people on the spectrum? That is another matter of opinion..

My view is that we as a whole group tend give some of our potential power away all the time to expert opinion, which are for some reason unknown to me routinely accepted as fact. Someone may possibly be tempted to respond sarcastically "oh maybe that's because they are experts, not us". I contend the opposite: we are the experts on the lived experience of autism. We need to be more self-defining, not less.

Personally I think that the Aspergers comes under the umbrella of autism. The spectrum seems real to me as a metaphor, though we do not all occupy the same part of it, but we do occupy the same spectrum - if that makes
sense.

ICD-10 has Asperger's still. I thought that's what I would be diagnosed by but she actually used the DSM-IV. I was a little confused by that considering where I am situated.

If there really is no simple answer then I'm going with "I am an autistic individual". Personally I'm not even sure on whether the Asperger's label itself fits but certainly being in the spectrum does. For me, that is.

I was asking this so that I didn't accidentally upset or offend others on the spectrum. What I need to realise is that everybody is going to get bent out of shape somehow. I can't please everybody. The best I can do is attempt to be kind and open to listening.

Thanks for the responses.

As I see it, because Asperger's Syndrome is an autism spectrum disorder, all people who have Asperger's are autistic. Is there any material difference between high functioning autism and Asperger's Syndrome after early childhood? Also, Asperger's has been glamorized and undermined by the media over the last decade or so. The list of people that the media has speculated have Asperger's is as ridiculous as the list of things that global warming has been blamed for. For these reasons, I think that the DSM-V did the right thing by consolidating Asperger's and PDD under the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder.

If your doc officially dubs you a "high functing autistic", AND you had no speech delays when you were a tottler (you learned to speak at the normal age) then you are in the subset of folks on the autism spectrum who would have been lumped under the rubric of "aspergers" up until a few years ago. And you can call yourself an "aspie" if you please, or you can call yourself "autistic" if that pleases you. It doesn't really matter. Though if you do the latter I would hasten to tell folks that your autism is "mild", or something like that (so that both nts and autistic know that you don't think of yourself as severely autistic). That's basically what aspergers was before they got rid of the category- the HFA's that had no speech delays ( hey, I am a poet!)..

In contrast if you were dx'd as a "low functioning autistic" than you would never (then or now) have been labeled as someone with "aspergers". So you cant use the label "aspie" on yourself.

BUT whatever the case may be...don't call yourself "an autist". LOL!

The term makes me cringe. A person who has autism is an "autistic".

An "autist" would be a professional who purposely 'does' autism as a polished craft on command for money before a live audience (like a performing "artist", or an "illusionist"). There aint so such people! "Autistic" sound like what it means: "a person afflicted with autism".

Here is an interesting fact I learned from Temple Grandin from her book the Autistic Brain (I think it's called). When Asperger's first appeared in the DSM, it was not considered as autism but then not too long after the release, it was considered as being on the autistic spectrum and she also wrote that how Asperger's and autism were two different things on the spectrum and then soon aspies were considered to have autism.

I think at the time I was diagnosed, they were two different things but by the year 2000, aspies were calling themselves autistic because I would see it online and it always confused me because you cannot have both.

Now Asperger's is autism and aspies are autistic. They had just broaden the term.

Your reasoning makes no sense to me. The people in charge of this DSM V work probably didn't make their decisions based on media representations of Asperger's. You may like the decision they made because of your concern with media representations of Asperger's (and it makes me wonder whether or not you think media representation of autism is any better), but that's not a legitimate basis upon which to judge professional psychiatric opinions.

Well, today when you normally refer to somebody as Autistic most people think of this as reference to a serious mental or behavioral disability, and because asperger's is a relatively high functioning person, to call somebody with asperger's Autistic is quite exaggerating, even if it is included in that spectrum. Its because, although that is not true, many people tend to think Autistic equals to a very disabled person, one who barely talks well, behaves well, etc. And many asperger people actually are doing well and living a normal life most of the time, so the conclusion people arrive isnt true, in that sense. So thats why I dont think its okay to call somebody with asperger's autistic, even if technically they are.

I didn't imply that the DSM people based their decision on media portrayal. The other reason I gave about high functioning autism and Asperger's being materially the same after young childhood is the stronger reason. That alone would be enough for me to support the DSM-V ASD consolidation.

Whether that is legitimate or not is very subjective, you know. You cant truly say whether it is, or not(without any decisive proof to what you're saying). I'd say, the current representation of the syndrome is very varied, and sometimes can be deceiving, but if you think outside of the box, you know that sometimes they're just delivering it the wrong way. Also, even those that call themselves professional may not be at all. I think many are biased, or contradict themselves in the way they describe things, which is way more important to realize than what is legitimate.

To perhaps ease anybody's mind about whether the psychiatrist was simply throwing the diagnosis around by not using the DSM-5: Every single one of the required issues for the DSM-IV were covered in some way for me and I have obviously enough in three categories for the diagnosis as well as a big chunk in a couple of them. Also, almost all of the most common accompanying issues are a problem for me, I would say I'm alexithymic, going to be checked for probable dyscalculia and minute chance of dyspraxia, annnnd... well, I did my talking to those diagnosed on a few areas of the spectrum. I am horrifically bad socially, am more or less housebound due to that, and have not known what has been happening for my entire life.

I'm not sure I would say that many celebrities having Asperger's glamourised it. If you will pardon me for what I feel is a somewhat insulting and odd connection, that feels a lot like how anti-vaxxers are seeing the "autism epidemic". There IS no epidemic, there are simply more diagnoses happening. One might say that is because clinicians are throwing around labels but I actually believe autism itself is more prevalent than we've realised.

As well as this, I actually feel the spectrum is not wide enough. What I would like to see is clear divisions and understanding of levels of coping but the spectrum also be open to those in the Broader Autism Phenotype. In that sense, it would in part become an interesting model, containing both disabling forms and also "fringe" types who have "quirks" and yet would still have help to work around that a teensy bit, even if it is simply throwing a self-help book and a course of useful CBT at them.

While autism is definitely a disability given the negative symptoms associated and the fact the world was simply not made for us, I also see it a lot as a neurological difference. In that sense, I hope we can one day come to the point of having a more encompassing model to portray that. At the moment that would cause some difficulties. In future, when stigma hopefully fades and the autistic community is not babied or looked at as inherently "broken", maybe there can be a movement towards opening up avenues as well as effectively treating the negative while balancing the positive (pulling obsessive detail picking to a healthy attention to detail, for example, both of which I have).

For me, I'm not certain I would want to be dismissive of celebrities diagnosed and I actually don't agree with what the DSM-5 did, at least not as of this moment in time. Having different categories, to me, makes a lot of sense.

Edit: Sorry, for clarification - I was diagnosed using the Cambridge tests and the DSM-IV.

I don't think that the public's view of a disorder should change how it is termed and, in fact, I must admit that is rather insulting. Although "high functioning", you can see many diagnosed with Asperger's completely reliant on their parents even at 30+. Perhaps there was a misdiagnosis for these people, perhaps not. However, to me, that's rather a slap in their face.

To me, it is the media and public's responsibility to change their view, with autistic activists and advocates leading the way to understanding. It should definitely not be down to anybody who would technically be described as one thing to have to conform to something else simply to adhere to the average Joe's ignorance.

Your comment is very unclear. I think you either misunderstood my comment or are mixing up criticism of my comment with commentary on the previous poster's comment. There's nothing subjective about what I said; it's senseless to base criticism of decisions on factors that have nothing to do with the decisions. If you disagree with that, then I offer you this:

I think your decision to post on this thread was a good idea because I had potatoes for dinner last night.

High-functioning when used in high-functioning autism just means lack of intellectual disabilty as measured by one of the widely used IQ tests like WAIS-IV.
It doesn't say something more specific about a person's independent living or what they are capable or incapable of doing.