Am I Autistic or Asperger's?

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My therapist has told me that I'm "on the spectrum" when it comes to autism. I heard that it's debatable whether high functioning autism/autism spectrum and Asperger's are the same disorder. Is there a difference?

Asperger's is considered by the vast majority of (if not all) sources to be on the Autism Spectrum.

It does not "exist" in the DSM V, though; it's been replaced, in the vast majority of cases, by "level 1 autism."

Basically, it's a type of autism, though usually "milder" than classic/Kanner autism.

I am asking the same question too. I have developed normally until I was 2 and then regressed. That is considered a speech delay. I was diagnosed as Aspergers at age 6. But today, I still have repetitive adaptive behavior issues like running around and listening to music that excites me to that point. So just because of that, I am not an Aspie. Aspies mainly use the repetitive energy for only one favorite subject, like Marine Biology. So with that being said, I am considered Autistic Disorder, right?
In other words,if I was not running around galloping and listening to music or doing other adaptive behavior concerns, I would be considerd an Aspie. The regression I had when I was 2, did not matter because many those who are identical to aspire later in life had a speech delay at a very young age. So speech delay (or for me regression) is not good enough to distinguish the so called "HFA" from Aspergers.

Running around listening to music doesn't distinguish Asperger's from HFA.
Lack of language delay in early childhood is usually used to distinguish.
In Asperger's, children are speaking more or less on time, using one or two words to communicate by age two, and phrases by age three.
In HFA, many children are non-verbal at an age when Asperger children are speaking in complete sentences fluently.

I say because of Elijah's cup.I say its the opposite. Running around and listening to music does indeed distinguish autism and Aspergers because aspies do not do that, they have normal adavptive behaviors but shows themselves in a weird ineffective way and are geeks in one subject. The National Library of Medicine the Center for BioTechnology in an expirement, compared kids with Aspergers without a speech delay and kids with autism with a normal cognition and with a speech delay. They found out there was no difference in adaptive behaviors. So speech delay ( or for me a regression), according to the study, is not good enough to distinguish autism with normal cognition later in life (the so called "HFA") from Aspergers.

Running around and listening to music doesn't indicate lack of adaptive behaviors.
It is just running around listening to music, not that abnormal in my opinion.

There used to be some differences between Asperger and HFA but right now everything is just "ASD". The main difference was no language delay in Asperger.

Both?

Many people consider aspies to be autistic because Aspeger's is a form of autism but to some people there is a difference and they think Asperger's is not autistic, it's on the spectrum. I also think autistic/autism is used as a catch word. They can mean PDD-NOS, Asperger's, classic autism or high functioning autism or have the tenancies or somewhere on the spectrum. To be precise, people can say autistic tenancies or autistic traits or Asperger's or PDD-NOS or say high functioning autism so people know what they are talking about. It's like colors, there are different names and we say a specific color name so everyone knows what color they are talking about, same with autism. If you talk about dogs, you mention a breed of dog if you are talking about a specific breed but it's still a dog. Asperger's is still autistic but not everyone feels that way.

When peolple use the simple common word, "autism", it can mean two different things behind that word. It can either refer to "Autistic Disorder"/ Kanner's Classic Autism or it can refer to any other Autism Spectrum Disorder. Note that in the UK, it PDD-NOS is cometimes called "Autism Spectrum Disorder". In 1944, Hans Asperger called his condition, "Autistic Psychopathy", which is what today we would call Asperger's Syndrome.

Since Aspergers is a popular term and is associated with smart people and wierd personalities, it has become a popular word. Aspergers term is just as popular as the term autism and they see it differently. As to refer the common words Aspergers and Autism to the labels of Classic Autism, PDD(NOS), and Aspergers, I call those diagnosed as 'Aspergers' to be commonly called as Aspergers and those with Classic Autism as of course autism.As for the term, PDD(NOS), in medical terms, it can refer to either non-specific ASD or Borderline Autism. I call PDD(NOS) people 'autistic' too because even tough the condtion label is actually quite common, people barley heard of PDD(NOS). For the PDD(NOS) people with borderline autistic symptons, I refer to that as "mild autism".
As for me, whether I call myself autistic or Aspergers depends. In official medical terms, I do not have Aspergers, for sure since I had a speech delay. In fact, I developed Nuerotypically until I was 2 1/2 and then had a violent, rapid regression similar to CDD, so my regression was not a typical autistic regression where a kid was already delayed before the regression and that regression is slower and milder. So in these terms, I am "autistic". I use "Aspergers" term when I tell people of my disability but don't want them to think I have a problem.

Many people perceive "aspergers" as a problem, maybe a different set of problems then "autism" but problems enough to not want to be with you or bully you or take advantage of you or think you are describing a fake syndrome. A lot of it is BS stereotypes, most likely they will eventually figure out something is "off" about you anyways.

GoldTails95, I think I'm in the same situation as you - sort of, at least. I hit all my developments on time. Now that I think of it I remember my nan, who brought me up, saying something interesting a few years ago. I used to like asking her about the past. She said around 2 or 3 I went very, very quiet. I think that could be a tiny bit of regression, but I don't know. I've never really thought about it before, so haven't researched if such a thing is even possible. I don't think it was much, but from then on I showed all signs of autism - just no speech delay. Just... nobody recognized it, or even thought about it, because I hit my milestones on time. Just brushed it off as being very shy and being very organized. Thought of it as a personality. It's weird, because autism runs in my family you'd think they'd know the symptoms. I'd ask her but in hospital and not well, nor is her memory at the moment. I'm only just undergoing the diagnosis - well getting there, when they decide to get round to it.

"Aspergers Syndrome" isn't really different from autism, because it IS autism, just a milder diagnosis that has been deemed redundant and thus dropped by the DSM V. Now, in the popular vernacular, people with "Aspergers Syndrome" tend to have higher than average IQs, as well as less "clasically autistic" symptoms like delayed speech, meltdowns, etc.

Of course, it's still perfectly possible for someone on the autism spectrum to have a higher than average IQ, but to also have suffered a speech delay in early childhood, and to also exhibit other symptoms typical of "classic autism". It's just that people with higher than average IQs on the spectrum tend to figure out ways to adapt their behaviour to appear more "normal".

Myself, I had a speech delay during my early childhood, and I appeared to be more "classically" autistic at first in many ways, but around the age of 6, I started to fit the "Aspergers" stereotype quite well, and had done so for many years, until I was 18-19 years old, at which point I noticed I had started undergoing some regressive behaviour, no doubt caused at least partially by the increased stress of adulthood.

Actually change that other quote I just said before. This was from my research. Autism or Aspergers is NOT a medical based label, not even by MRi unlike other disorders like Cystic Fibrosis or Lafora disease.That would make biological/medical based diagnosis of autism/Aspergers useless. So therefore, whether you have autism/Aspergers or not is based soley on the behavioral presentations of the person. So as in ALS (Stephen Hawking's disease) or Intellectual Disability, there are many different things that could cause autism,Aspergers, or CDD. Causes can range from individual to individual so the biology of the Nervous System in autism is uniquely individually different since there are many unrelated causes to autism like MMR vaccine posoning in me because I used to had a sensitive stomach from birth rather than born 100% healthy. So for me, lead posoning is pretty much the cause of my autism/Aspergers. In another person, autism can be caused by a biologically unrelated cause like Angelman's.One of my cousins has borderline autism on top of the severe/profound ID, which is caused by birth anoxia.
So in the end, autism is NOT (I repeat NOT) a medical based label but instead based soley and only on behavioral symptons. So in the end, I could be considered to have BOTH (Autism AND Aspergers) meaning my label would be autism/Aspergers.

The problem with believing in all of this 'spectrum' nonsense is that you can plonk virtually anyone who shows any of the signs of being on that spectrum alongside those who really do have autism or Asperger's Syndrome. I have come across people who have in all seriousness told me, "I tend to take things literally, and I often don't get a joke, so I must be on the spectrum".

No wonder so many are claiming that the incidence of both autism and A.S. are rising so dramatically; it has nothing to do with the actual incidence of these conditions going up, and everything to do with people misdiagnosing both themselves and others, because no one knows anymore what any of this even means. Terminology is used interchangeably, lack of precision is the order of the day, and we have people who apparently believe it to be 'trendy' to have A.S.

Even if the widespread claimed massive Aspie wannabie and overdiagnosis epidemics are true that would not be the only reason for skyrocketing ASD diagnosis. You have to to into account environmental which despite all the rhetoric is much more then gut bacteria or poisoning. Our world especially in the West is much more fast paced, multitasking, group oriented, and sensory stimulating then 30 years ago. Another words if hypothetically in 1985 somebody said how can we make the world as hard as it can be for people with Autism or some Autistic traits they would evolve the world about the way it has evolved. Many people whose "traits" would not be clinically impairing enough to get diagnosed then, even if they had today's much broader diagnostics criteria back then are clinically impaired enough now.

What would you propose? Get rid of the spectrum in the DSM 6, go back to something like Kanners criteria, set up an enforcement mechanism so that any psychologist who diagnoses or fails to undiagnose previously diagnosed people not meeting the DSM 6 criteria lose their license? That would significantly drop the diagnosed rates all though if you think the rates of self diagnosed is to high now they would really go up then(unless "real autistics" could sue those misrepresenting themselves for libel but that raises freedom of speech issues)

All I know is that if spectrum was not created it is questionable if I would be here to write this post.