Differences between autism and mental retardation?

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I'm just wondering if people with limited mental development or severe learning disabilities have a form of autism, because their condition still affects their social skills in some way. Or can a person have affected or limited social skills but not have autism? That's what I'm trying to ask.

My aunt's ex-boyfriend had a grown-up son who was ret*d from birth but was not diagnosed with autism. He was diagnosed with mental retardation or severe learning disability. He lives in a home and could not function on his own. He is not bothered by bright lights or loud noises and doesn't even think about routine, but he still lacks social awareness. He talks really loud and swears too, but forgets that he's being inappropriate. He throws his food about in restaurants, and yells out offensive things like "wow look at that fat person!" without realising how it might offend, and when his dad tells him off he'd just laugh and flap his hands about. He goes up to people randomly and talks about himself, but doesn't notice if they are creeped out. He'd even sit on people on the bus, and his carer has to apologize to people. And if he gets upset or fed up, he'd repeatedly say "I wanna go home, I wanna go home, I wanna go home" over and over. He even gets angry sometimes, and tips over furniture.

Yet I'm on the autism spectrum and I have more social skills than this guy.
So what is the difference between ret*d people and autistic people?

Mentally ret*d means your IQ is below 70. This is why they lack social skills.

Autism is more than the lack of social skills. You need to fufill a certain criteria in order to be diagnosed with it. Since it seems like your aunt's ex-boyfriend's son does not display any other autistic symptoms, it can be safe to say that he is not autistic; his lack of social skills are a result of his MR.

People with MR have poor social skills and don't know how to act because of their low intelligence while autistic people have that problem because of lack of theory of mind but they are still smart in other things. Plus they might have routine because they know what to expect and they know what is happening in the day when things go a certain way while autistic people have a routine because they like things to be predictable, not because they don't know what is going on and they don't know their days. A girl with Down's syndrome didn't understand why she couldn't go to her 20 minute class when I was in high school because they had changed the schedule due to the assembly that day and she couldn't understand the change so they just let her be in that class for 20 minutes than fighting with her about it. An autistic person would be aware of the change and understand it but yet might still be upset about it and have a hard time with it because they didn't get to mentally prepare for that change because it happened so soon. This girl had like intelligence of a four year old I'm guessing because she couldn't read or write. I think it would be difficult to diagnose someone with severe MR with autism because it would be hard to tell if they have autistic tenancies and what part is the MR and what part is the autism. They also do repetitive behaviors too but that is more with the severe kind. They also have their routines too and get upset with change but only because they don't understand. Their IQ is too low for them to understand.

If a person with intellectual challenges goes up to people and talks inappropriately, he/she is probably not autistic.

Autistic people with intellectual disabilities tend to have "classic" autism. People with "classic [Kanner] autism," especially those who are "low-functioning" tend to rarely, or never, engage people socially. They tend to isolate themselves, and to not enjoy social overtures.

This is why I get confused when people on WP state that all non-autistics are neurotypicals. How can the man I described in my post be neurotypical?

Then why are only Aspies/autistics not neurotypical? Trust me to be in that group.

There are two definitions of NT.

#1 if you're not autistic, you're NT. This was the original usage of NT to distinguish between autistics and non-autistics. For the lack of a better word, this usage is still used today in certain situations.

Some use allistic to describe non autistic people, but NT is the more common usage.

#2 If you're abnormal in any way, whether it is autism, ADHD, mental illness, cerebral palsy, mental retardation, etc., you're NOT NT. This is a more recent and more inclusive definition.

Sometimes you have to use context clues to decide which definition of NT is being used.

So you can say that the man in your post is not autistic, but is not NT either. He has MR.