difference between Asperger's and high functioning autism

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trekster
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28 Jul 2009, 2:06 pm

shudarsana wrote:
Asperger's and high functioning autism are both pervasive developmental disorders, and while they have much in common, the two are distinct entities.

1. A diagnosis of autism requires the presence of a speech delay- Aspies do not and usually speak early. I have yet to meet an Aspie with any motor delays.


You have now i didnt walk until age 18 months. i didnt crawl at all but one day stood up and walked.
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2. Autistic children seek out social interaction only when it suits them- Aspies, though they may play alone, will always seek to share enjoyment.


Selectively silent type aspies (which i know a few of) dont seek to share enjoyment. As for autistic children using social interaction to communicate wants and needs i agree with you.
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3. Sensory issues in autism are much more severe than in Asperger's.


That comment has severely offended me :cry: , ive had severe sensory issues since i was a child and im an aspie. There is no way to know for sure that this applies to all aspies/auties.
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4. People with HFA require more repetition to learn social information and need more in vivo concrete examples to learn.


Not true of me either, i have to have concrete examples and dont recognise examples that arent black and white.
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5. HFA is a more concrete and literal thought process than Asperger's.


Except when under stress then i become more like a MFA (medium functioning autistic) than an aspie.
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5. HFA can encompass varying levels of intelligence- I have never met an Aspie who does not have above average intelligence.


You have now as i have been pc literate since age 3. My last IQ score was 130.
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6. Aspies have a wider range of affect.


Please clarify this point for me.
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7. An Aspie understands personal space while someone with HFA may not.


i still have problems with this and it didnt stop until i was given the "stand approximately a metre away from the person" rule.
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Basically, Asperger's is a lower level of impairment with a greater ability to adapt. Because of this, Aspies may go undetected while autism may be diagnosed. I just finished reading Pretending to be Normal and what Liane Holliday Willey describes is autism, not Asperger's. Her level of impairment goes far beyond AS- an Aspie would not directly mirror another person's mannerism or have such severe sensory integration issues.


i am just like her and my diagnosis is Asperger syndrome. i have found auties to be less likely to want to fit in. i know 2 auties that dont wish to have friends and no aspies who wish to remain without friends. i rarely see this in aspies.
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Some myths about Asperger's:

1. Need for routine.
Many Aspies have this, others do not. What Aspies do all seem to have is an appreciation for some sort of order or efficiency.


They all have this, its a requirement for a diagnosis. The criterion is "non functional routines" which applies to repetitive interests or the way they do their daily living tasks.
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2. Repetitive focus of interests
Once again, some do, some do not. I have met Aspies who are interested in many different topics.


That's not what the term means and i also have many different topics of interest. Watching star trek 3 times a day or quiz shows 3 times a day even when on "holiday", that is my repetitive focus of interests or my need for routines.
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3. Motor clumsiness/ poor fine motor skills
Probably more Aspies than not are on the clumsy side, but it is not always the case.


This is not a necessary criteria for diagnosis just an additional problem we can have.
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4. Inability to understand metaphorical language
While the concrete thought process is there, ability to interpret metaphors and abstract language varies.


It doesn't say that in DSM-IV, just that we have problems with metaphors and abstract language.
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5. Good at math
Aspies are extremely logical and have an engineer-type brain- this, however, does not directly correspond to being good at science or math. Numerous writer and artists have been thought to have Asperger's.


Who told you this? i dont remember that being in the diagnostic criterion either.
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6. Lack of interest in fiction/ anything not factual.
True for some but not all.


Something else not in diagnostic criterion.
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7. Aspies can only attend to details.
Some Aspies do become bogged down by details and are unable to see the big picture, but many are not. In fact Aspies can be very adept at thinking on a systemic level.


i would like to meet these aspies that arent distracted by details or have problems with the bigger picture.
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8. Inability to shift focus from tasks, including attending to several discussions at once.
Once again, some, not all.


Also it mentions difficulty with not inability to which are different things.
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9. Inability to recognize faces.
Some, not all.


Wondering where that idea came from? Faceblindness is a different condition to autism/aspergers but is more common in the autistics/aspie population.
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I'm sure there are more- if anyone has any others, please add to my post.


That we don't have empathy with others, i do.

That we dont make allowances for others i can do that as well.

Alexis

PS wondering where you got your myths about aspergers from, i havent seen them in the autism literature.



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28 Jul 2009, 2:09 pm

orwell wrote

I had a slight speech delay, and spent years in speech therapy overcoming assorted speech impediments, and I am diagnosed with Asperger's.

treksters reply

Same here, i had 6 months of intensive speech therapy age 3 and read in my medical notes "she has over formal use of language", but my autism/AS was missed until 13 years later!

Alexis



28 Jul 2009, 2:10 pm

That sure placed me between AS and HFA as my psychiatrist put it when I was 12.

I had a speech delay due to my hearing loss and I had to improve my motor skills so my mom had do pottery and I didn't understand personal space growing up. I loved hugging people and wouldn't understand why they didn't like it. I loved licking and kissing people I liked and I always stood close to someone in line. So some people on the spectrum are affectionate because they invade your personal space by grabbing your and getting on you and licking you or kissing you because they like you.


I have also read Pretending to Be Normal and I believe most of her problems were due to sensory issues so it made it look like her AS was bad. I am sure it was mild but the sensory issues seemed to put her in the moderate range. I can relate to copying people and I was told at Autism Speaks many typical kids develope by copying other kids. Okay so I guess us copying people isn't faking then and we are doing it the normal way but I think the difference is kids know what to copy and what not to copy and they know what is appropriate and what isn't appropriate but some can still choose to do that behavior even if they know better while aspies don't know any better because they don't understand. I was copying kids of all ages, even toddlers and I get confused when I get punished for my behavior because I didn't understand the difference in ages and what behavior is acceptable for what age level. My mom always had to explain to me about the behavior so I learned "oh that's three year old behavior." I never knew how to act my age as a kid growing up so I got sometimes "grow up" "you're acting like a (insert younger age here)" "Oh stop crying like a two year old" "Oh stop screaming like a two year old" and I remember how hard it was to have young emotions, it made my mom mad at me more often when I get upset. Back then I didn't even know what was going on and I thought I had to try harder to not get upset and not cry but I couldn't help it. Then I learned eventually to hold it all in.


I was also very literal and I did not understand jokes. People could play games with me and say "I'm joking" and I'd still be upset because I wouldn't grasp the concept they were joking and they weren't really going to do it. People could tell me a joke and I wouldn't laugh or find it funny.


What you said about the difference between AS and HFA is a bit inaccurate because it's a spectrum. Someone can have autism and prefer to be alone and someone can have AS and try and seek friends. An aspie can also be very literal and concrete like I am. I can still understand idioms and learn them. It's just memorization and the definition never changes and it means the same thing always when an idiom is used.



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28 Jul 2009, 2:51 pm

Having AS does not always mean you want and seek friends. In fact, the DSM-IV criteria states that lack of social reciprocity and failure to make friends your own age are used to diagnose AS.
It's inaccurate to make statements like "Auties don't seek friends but Aspies do". The DSM doesn't say that.



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28 Jul 2009, 3:25 pm

ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote:
Having AS does not always mean you want and seek friends. In fact, the DSM-IV criteria states that lack of social reciprocity and failure to make friends your own age are used to diagnose AS.
It's inaccurate to make statements like "Auties don't seek friends but Aspies do". The DSM doesn't say that.

There was a period in my childhood (probably most of it) where I absolutely had no desire for friends, much to the worry of my mother. She would tell me every school year, "Now, I want to you try and make one new friend this year." I didn't see the point whatsoever. I remember having other priorities in life. I wonder if I subconsciously knew I didn't have the skills to acquire friends.

It wasn't until high school, when people approached me to be my friend (not the other way around), that I learned about friendships. And I don't know if it was correlation or causation, but around that point my autistic tendencies started significantly diminishing.


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28 Jul 2009, 4:35 pm

fiddlerpianist wrote:
There was a period in my childhood (probably most of it) where I absolutely had no desire for friends, much to the worry of my mother. She would tell me every school year, "Now, I want to you try and make one new friend this year." I didn't see the point whatsoever. I remember having other priorities in life. I wonder if I subconsciously knew I didn't have the skills to acquire friends.

I often think I would have been better off without the desire for friendship. When I was in school I wanted friends but didn't have any and it seemed like everyone I knew was against me having them, too. When I tried to make one my peers would say to whomever was being friendly to me, "Why would you want to be friends with her?" or something similar, only they weren't so nice in their phrasing. This was one thing that stood in the way of me having them. People had negative opinions about me, generally, which didn't help me finding any.

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It wasn't until high school, when people approached me to be my friend (not the other way around), that I learned about friendships. And I don't know if it was correlation or causation, but around that point my autistic tendencies started significantly diminishing.

By the time I got to high school I was so tired of it all, the same people and the same problems finishing all the work, I felt everything was a lost cause. By then I had lost all hope. At that point my anxiety was high, I wasn't talking to many people. I wrote letters to people who lived in different states instead. It was easier and I could disguise my flaws that way so it soon became my favorite mode of communication. I stopped trying to fit in and make friends with people around me who I thought hated me anyway. I sat at my desk and wrote letters instead of doodling and it was usually about how lame I thought my surroundings were, kind of like now, heh. Old habits die hard.



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28 Jul 2009, 4:59 pm

The DSM-IV-TR also says

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Younger individuals may have little or no interest in establishing friendships. Older individuals may have an interest in friendship but lack of understanding the conventions of social interaction.

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Interest in forming social relationships may increase in adolescence as the individuals learn some ways of responding more adaptively to their difficulties - for example, the individual may learn to apply explicit verbal rules or routines in certain stressful situations. Older individuals may have an interest in friendship but lack understanding of the conventions of social interaction and may more likely make relationships with individuals much older or younger than themselves.

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In Autistic Disorder, typical social interaction patterns are marked by self-isolation or markedly rigid social approaches, whereas in Asperger's Disorder there may appear to be motivation for approaching others even though this is then done in a highly eccentric, one-sided, verbose, and insensitive manner.


Note the use of may. It's supposed to mean it's typical, but not present in every case of AS.


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28 Jul 2009, 9:04 pm

It's SO easy to be somewhere in the fuzzy territory between AS and classic autism. All you need is a little delay there, some odd speech there, a little mutism or speech difficulty or (for that matter) just a tendency to appear delayed even if you actually aren't... There's no clear cutoff and they are simply not two distinct groups. They blend into each other pretty much seamlessly. I'm diagnosed AS and in the fuzzy space thanks to using scripted and echolalic speech as a youngster (but learning to read so early that I made up for it and became overly pedantic instead), plus some self-help skill difficulty, an obvious VIQ>PIQ gap, a stereotypically Aspie love of categorizing and collecting facts, sensory processing disorder, and good academic ability--a mixed bag with bits from each idealized type. There are a lot of us in the fuzzy space between the two categories, and as much as the concrete thinkers among us would love to see two distinct boxes, it just isn't going to happen--autism is simply too variable.

You might be able to pick a couple of non-delayed verbal teens-or-older and say, "This person is definitely Kanner's" and "This person is definitely Asperger's", but that's the exception, not the rule. In general, the differences vanish by six years old, almost always by the teens.


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28 Jul 2009, 9:19 pm

Callista wrote:
It's SO easy to be somewhere in the fuzzy territory between AS and classic autism. All you need is a little delay there, some odd speech there, a little mutism or speech difficulty or (for that matter) just a tendency to appear delayed even if you actually aren't...

And for someone who is 32 when they hadn't even defined AS back then, all of those details are forgotten memories to my parents. If my mother had taken up the offer to have me tested back in 1985, I can't even imagine what they would have come up with!


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29 Jul 2009, 12:22 pm

fiddlerpianist wrote:
Callista wrote:
It's SO easy to be somewhere in the fuzzy territory between AS and classic autism. All you need is a little delay there, some odd speech there, a little mutism or speech difficulty or (for that matter) just a tendency to appear delayed even if you actually aren't...

And for someone who is 32 when they hadn't even defined AS back then, all of those details are forgotten memories to my parents. If my mother had taken up the offer to have me tested back in 1985, I can't even imagine what they would have come up with!

And even remembering these clearly can turn out not to help you in the slightest. It doesn't help me though I have succeeded in collecting a lot of information and gained a lot of insight into my early childhood development.


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29 Jul 2009, 3:13 pm

Quote:
1. A diagnosis of autism requires the presence of a speech delay- Aspies do not and usually speak early. I have yet to meet an Aspie with any motor delays.

Not true for me. I walked at 16 months which is the later end of average. I had a speech delay, even though my first word was spoken at 9 months I didn't speak in full sentences until the age of 5/6. Before then it was only 2-3 word sentences and echolalia. So according to the DSM I should be HFA, but AS still suits my personality better I think.

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2. Autistic children seek out social interaction only when it suits them- Aspies, though they may play alone, will always seek to share enjoyment.

Hmm, not sure about this. I started off just socialising when it suits me but now I seek enjoyement all the time even if I do spend alot of time alone.

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3. Sensory issues in autism are much more severe than in Asperger's.

True for me, my sensory issues are very mild and usually only apply to touch. But I know that aspies can have severe sensory issues, this site proves it.

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4. People with HFA require more repetition to learn social information and need more in vivo concrete examples to learn.

True for me, I prefer learning to be more spontanious.

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5. HFA is a more concrete and literal thought process than Asperger's.

I started off being really literal now I'm only a little bit literal.

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5. HFA can encompass varying levels of intelligence- I have never met an Aspie who does not have above average intelligence.

No I do find aspies are just as varied ad HFAs and NTs, I've known aspies that were in the bottom set at school.

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6. Aspies have a wider range of affect.

I don't know what that means, if it means severity then I disagree. Because I think HFAs and aspies both have a wide range, you can have an aspies who's more severe than a HFautie, and vice versa.

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7. An Aspie understands personal space while someone with HFA may not.

No, not true I don't think. I'm still a bit unsure about personal space myself, I can follow someone around too much or be too distant.


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29 Jul 2009, 3:18 pm

I haven't bothered to read the entire thread, so maybe someone else pointed this out already, but diagnostically the only differences between autistic disorder and Asperger's are:
1. Asperger's people cannot by definition have an IQ below 70; autistics may or may not have an IQ below 70.
2. Aspies cannot have had an early language delay, ie. they must have used words by age 2 and spoken in sentences by age 3; autistics must have had significant communication impairments (category B in DSM criteria), and this generally means a speech delay. By late childhood or adulthood, the DSM doesn't say anything about there needing to be a difference, so Aspie adults can have language problems (usually not nonverbal because this is very unlikely to occur in later childhood) and auties may speak normally.

3. Aspies cannot have had significant impairmetns in self-help skills, adaptive behavior except for that needed for social interaction, or curiosity about the environment, in early childhood. Note again, DSM doesn't say anything about older children or adults.
4. Autistic disorder must have been apparent before age 3; there is no specific age requirement for Asperger's except that it's said to happen "throughout life".

IMO, if an adult or adolescent speaks and has an IQ above 70, there is no way to tell whether they are AS or autistic by their current presentation.



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29 Jul 2009, 6:10 pm

Michjo wrote:
Danielismyname wrote:
Rain Man = HFA (or AS if you don't like noting the small differences)
Mr Bean to Sherlock Holmes = AS

Simple as that. :lol:

Just a random comment, but the real rainman (kim peek) has been diagnosed with FG syndrome, so i think he should have his own FG syndrome grouping :wink:


Whats FG syndrome?



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30 Jul 2009, 5:04 am

trekster wrote:

Whats FG syndrome?


http://www.healthline.com/galecontent/fg-syndrome



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31 Jul 2009, 6:40 pm

The division between AS and HFA isn't artificial because they are exactly the same. It's artificial because there aren't two distinct categories. There are probably dozens of categories. We are all very unique.

My personal analogy for the autism spectrum is a sound equalizer. People not on the spectrum tend to have a level profile in their skills and intellectual abilities while people on the autism spectrum often very vastly from one area to another. In other words NT's tend to have the "jack of all trades" neurology while our brains are more wired for specialized thinking styles.

The defecits that seem to be intrinsic to autism are the ones that require a very wide range of mental processes all working together at once. There isn't a specific "social center" of the brain that's defective with people on the autism spectrum. The reason we have difficulty with socializing is related to the entire brain being wired towards specialized thinking. Social interaction is hard because it requires a wide variety of mental processes to operate simultaneously. The entire brain is utilized during social interaction because humans evolved as social creatures.



Last edited by marshall on 01 Aug 2009, 12:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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01 Aug 2009, 3:08 am

Marshall, what an excellent analysis.


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