Is aspergers autism too?

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Is aspergers a form of autism?

Yes. It is the mildest form of autism and people with it typically have milder versions of the kinds of impairments and abilities seen in people with classic autism. Some people also think ADHD should be rolled into the greater autism grouping and ADHD people typically have less social impairments than people with aspergers do.

Your signature kind of answers that. ASD = Autism Spectrum Disorder

It's up to the DSM V.

No, it's up to you.

Yes AS is just a milder manifestation of classic autism. At least that's how I feel. I actually feel more comfortable just simply saying I have autism rather than Asperger's syndrome. I kind of hope AS does just end up being rolled into autism in the DSM-V. I know not all feel the same way though.

yep

I think the assumption of "milder" is problematic. I don't think that people with milder impairments necessarily get diagnosed with AS, just perhaps what appears to be milder presentation. That is, if you had no apparent speech delays and can speak in a manner that appears fluent, you're more likely to get an AS diagnosis.

I do think AS is on the autistic spectrum.

I agree; I've met people with classic autism who can do many things I can't do, and AS is the diagnosis I've received more often than any other. I've also met people with AS who are less independent than I am. There's quite a lot of variability--both AS and classic autism go into the very mildest, most subtle range of traits, especially in adulthood. The only real difference is that if somebody can't talk at all, ever, or use any sort of language, they are probably going to be considered more severe than someone who has AS, simply because the person with AS can communicate at least simple ideas at least some of the time. But even that isn't much of a difference.

A better way to say it would probably be "AS is a form of autism without a speech delay." Even that isn't perfect, because many people without speech delays qualify for classic autism diagnosis, and because people with AS often have speech/language issues; but it's the best one we've got, other than "AS is autism, and the two different names are an artifact of how we found out that autism doesn't have to mean obvious and severe."

I think that is a HUGE difference

It's not just a milder type of autism. My daughter is on the autistic spectrum. She doesn't have a complete diagnosis yet, but she's unlikely to meet the criteria for Aspergers. She will more than likely get a diagnosis of high functioning autism. She has a couple of friends diagnosed with Aspergers and they are lower functioning than her. They attend autism units at school. She's mainstream, without support. No speech delay either, in fact she was way ahead of her peers in that respect.

In terms of impairment, never talking is a big difference socially, but if you read what autistic people all over the spectrum say, you can find a lot of similarities among various autistic people, whether verbal or non-verbal, considered high or low functioning.

However, sometimes having speech doesn't do much good when you can't communicate effectively. As I have recently learned, I can sit in an office for two hours having a conversation with one person and manage to communicate nothing relevant no matter how hard I try. Considering how much of my future was riding on that conversation it's actually kind of a sore point for me now.

But that's not like being unable to speak or speaking very little because there are situations in which I can verbally convey information. Unfortunately, even when I do there's often a drift in content received as compared to the content I intended to deliver.

What I think Callista is saying, and what I am trying to say, is that while there may be a huge gap between having typical speech and not being able to speak, having impaired verbal and nonverbal communication abilities is not nearly as wide a gap from completely nonverbal.

I thought HFA = Asperger's?

in my opinion that is true, but just depends who you ask

A lot of people think so (and a lot of people disagree).

I'm in the "I think that's the case" camp, although I am dubious about the way HFA and LFA are used. Not that they're completely irrelevant or anything, just that they can lead to incorrect assumptions about everyone labeled as HFA or LFA.

I think I was told the difference is speech delay. Hence why I'm diagnosed with HFA.

Wandering Stranger speaks aright. Although a speech delay is not a guarantee that one has HFA and not Asperger's, and vice versa. I have been diagnosed with 'autistic disorder', yet I experienced no speech delay, which is why I assumed for the longest time that I had Asperger's. But no, other factors come into play concerning how I socialise and relate to other people, and how I handle routines and special interests, that have led the experts to decide I'm HFA.

Now, I agree with Verdandi that calling Asperger's a 'mild' form of autism is misleading and can carry implications that anyone with Asperger's should consider themselves relatively lucky, when there are people with Asperger's out there who are walking nervous wrecks due to the nature of their AS.