Can language delay still be diagnosed with Asperger's

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I learnt to speak at the average age as a baby, but when I was looking through some old school reports a few weeks ago (to go towards my ADHD diagnosis that I'm being assessed for currently), I found that a teacher reported some language delays when I was 4. But my parents (and many other relatives) say I was always articulate and could string words together in a sentence when I was 2. I spoke my first word when I was about 12 months and was speaking new words since. I was a sociable baby with no concerning milestone delays (I made eye contact, and in most photos I was a very happy smiley baby).

But I was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, even though children with Asperger's don't typically have language delays. How come I was only diagnosed with Asperger's if I apparently had language delays? Shouldn't I have been diagnosed with autism instead?

It didn't specify on the report how language delays affected me. Maybe I just had trouble following instructions or something? Or could it have been related to attention difficulties? (Somehow nobody picked up on ADHD even though I showed a lot of typical ADHD symptoms such as hyperactivity and impulsive behaviours).

ADHD is like red. And the autism spectrum is blue. Because its a spectrum its different shades of blue, but still blue.

I am glad that you're getting tested for ADHD because if you were diagnosed as blue, and are really red it makes a difference.

But here you're worried about which of two very similar shades of blue you should have been labeled ( aspergers vs level one autistic). The answer is probably "it doesnt matter because either way its pretty much the same thing".

You either had no speech delay (going by your parents and dismissing the teacher), or you had only a slight speech delay (so slight that not everyone noticed it). So that subtle delay wouldnt change anything. And even if you had had a full blown speech delay that everyone had noticed and agreed you had it would just move from one notch on the same autism spectrum to another adjacent notch on the autism spectrum. So it wouldnt be much of change anyway.

Always confuses me.

What is speech delay only saying 10 words by 3 with echolalia , or not talking at all?

Is the first Aspergers and the last autism?

There’s a common assumption that aspie kids talk very well when young, that’s where the whole little professor label came from or maybe that’s just an aspie subtype?

Maybe that’s why the whole Aspergers thing was scrapped

It was the 1990s when I was diagnosed, and that was when children with ASDs with no language delays were diagnosed with Asperger's, while ASD children with language delays were usually diagnosed with autism and not Asperger's.

My parents had friends with children the same age as me and I wasn't noticeably behind them in speech.

You can either talk, or you cant talk.

Creating unprompted sentences, and "expressing wants" is what they mean by "being able to talk".

If you point to the dog and say "daddy", or even if you correctly say "doggie", that by itself isnt yet "acquiring speech".

But if you say "gimmie cookie" when you see the family breaking open packages of Oreos then you have crossed the threshold into speaking.

So that answers your question.

Aspergers is "autism without speech delay". And apparently thats what they correctly pegged you as having.

But I apparently had language delay, and I heard that children with language delays don't get diagnosed with Asperger's.

In the above post you reiterated the fact that your parents said that you did NOT have a speech delay. So thats the statement I responded to.

You sound like an obsessed hypochondriac ... on this.

A) what is your basis for thinking that you're parents were wrong, and that you DID have a speech delay?

B) Why did you think that even if you did have a speech delay that it was enough of a delay to make a diagnostic difference?

C) Why do you care anyway? What real difference does it make now?

The answer to A is that one person, "a teacher", thought that you not up to your age level in speech at age four. So...who WAS this teacher? How much contact did this person have with you? And why do you take their word over that of your parents? Maybe this teacher interacted with you one time, and you were shy and didnt talk much around him/her. And she wasnt a qualified therapist, and made a boneheaded comment about you thats still on your record.

And B... if you did have a speech delay it couldnt have been serious because it would have been so subtle that your parents and their neighbors (adults and kids) didnt even notice it. So it would not have been important for diagnosing which kind of autism you had. And even if it did make a difference...its like the difference between bluish green, and greenish blue (aspie-like autism, and autism-like aspergers). Not much of a difference.

And C even if you had still been totally mute in Kindergarten at age five and should have been labeled "autistic" and "Not aspie" how does it matter now?

I wonder what Hans Asperger was referring to with the children he saw?

I always assumed they were these “little professor types” who were intelligent and spoke beyond their age group but were socially awkward?

Then again if they were that high functioning he wouldn’t have seen them at all in the course of his job

He was not talking about toddlers at 30 months just learning to both walk and talk. He was talking older...about gradeschool kids.

I learned to talk at the normal time infants do. But at eight years old I was exactly what Aspergers was talking about. A "little professor" who could tell you all about the planets of the solar system ( their sizes and characteristics), and about the different rigs of old time sailing ships. But I could barely tie my shoe, and barely keep up with school lessons, and lacked friends, and like that. It was the early Sixties, and it was the USA. Had I lived in Austria in 1939, or in the USA in 2001 I wouldve been diagnosed with aspergers because I was the textbook specimen. I WAS so diagnosed as having aspergers a few years ago as a middle aged adult. Today (since they dropped the term) they would probably call me "level one autistic- needing some support, but without having had a speech delay").

"Level One" is the jargon way of saying "high functioning".

"High fuctioning" just means that they dont have to warehouse you in an institution. You blend into society, but you may not quite fit in.

I wasn't a "little professor" as a child. I was an awkward, nervous, hyperactive, overemotional wimp that didn't like certain things.

When I say articulate I mean able to communicate at the normal rate of a child my age.

I think the teacher was just nitpicking at everything I did, like putting everything down to a behaviour dysfunction rather than a normal 4-year-old.

I've always had trouble using big words, even now as an adult. I'm always checking the Google dictionary to make sense of what big words mean that people here use a lot in their posts.

I had some learning difficulties as a child; I was later than average in reading (not much later but was in the bottom reading set along with a few other children with learning difficulties). I caught up with reading in time.

I think I got my stupid AS diagnosis because of being afraid of loud noises and not liking certain change.

I don't see why it really matters. The past is the past and it's not liek being diagnosed with pdd-nos or kanners is going to change anything. It's affectively the same thing regardless. Even if you hsould've been diagnosed with something else it's all autism and it makes no real difference.

I don't know if there is a difference between speech delay and language delay, but if there is then I had no speech delay but must have had language delay, or language difficulties, that I grew out of by age 5.

But I read (in autism books and on WP) that in the 1990s and 2000s ASD children were only diagnosed with Asperger's if they had no speech or language delays.

It matters to me. I'm just curious, as I just want to know why I wasn't diagnosed with autism in the first place.

of course language delay can be diagnosed as aspergers/autism Struggles with communication are one of the hallmarks used as diagnostic criteria for autism. Look up "Autism Diagnosis Triad". Struggles with communication, struggles with social things/relationships, and rigid inflexible thinking/behaviors are 3 categories which must be included in behaviors of an individual before they are diagnosed as autistic.

Good answer. And can one have speech delays and/or language delays but not have an ASD? My cousin had speech and language delays that were worse than me and she required speech therapy when she was 5, but she doesn't seem to be autistic, as an adult she seems an expert at making
friends ( ).

This is from the DSM-IV, in reference to Asperger's Syndrome:


D. There is no clinically significant general delay in language (e.g., single words used by age 2 years, communicative phrases used by age 3 years).

E. There is no clinically significant delay in cognitive development or in the development of age-appropriate self-help skills, adaptive behavior (other than social interaction), and curiosity about the environment in childhood.


In other words, there could be "delays" in some aspects of language----especially when it comes to subtle aspects of language---within the DSM-IV's conception of Asperger's Syndrome. But no "clinically-significant" delay in the acquisition of language, in general.

I am not Aspergian because I was delayed in language IN GENERAL.