Where goes the line between high and low functioning AS?

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Where goes the line between high and low functioning Asperger?
Come whit examples.

I didn't think Asperger's was divided into high-functioning and low functioning. I thought only "autism" was divided into high-functioning and low-functioning, and that Asperger's Syndrome was basically high-functioning autism without the language delay (although I'm not sure Lorna Wing made this distinction when she started to write about Asperger's work).

Perhaps this thread would be more suitable for the General Autism Discussion sub-forum?

the severity of autism and the level of intelligence are unrelated.

the average intelligence is 100 iq that is the standard of all people.
NT's and autistics alike.

but autism is a lack of apparatus that should be installed in me that is vital to monitor what people are thinking and why they care.

without that apparatus, i need to devote much mental calculation to assess what is happening in the NT world.

to correctly calculate it i need above average intelligence to compensate for my blindness in areas where i should see naturally.

i vacillate between being mildly and moderately autistic in my ability to make sense of what social events i see. by "social" i mean things that others find noteworthy that i can not seem to see.

my intelligence is high, but my level of autism is maybe severe, and that makes me higher functioning than i would be if i was struggling with 100 in my world.

a person with an IQ of 200 that is profoundly autistic may be the most interesting person i could ever witness . even with 200, it may not be possible to calculate every single thing that an NT cares about.

i do not know. i am not profoundly autistic and i do not have an iq in that range.

but low functioning aspergers are either affected by more severe autism with greater intellect, or less affected by autism with a lesser intellect.

i do not know why i answered. i am not smart enough to say what i was thinking in words.

This is what I so desperately want to know and will hopefully find out soon!

The only way to know is to have an Adaptive Level of Functioning test. Regardless of your normal IQ, you have an "IQ equivalent" that describes your functioning.

For example, BF has a level of functioning IQ 20 points lower than his actual IQ, since he has been tested. He's considered "low functioning AS."

I will be tested soon. I'm on SSDI and can't drive. I don't know how that will factor in.

To the original poster, while definitions and demarcations between AS, Kanner-type autism, high- and low functioning, etc. are evolving, and vary between parts of the world, the most prevalent definitions are, I understand, that in all types of autism "low functioning" means "IQ less than 70" and high-functioning means 70+. Also, most commonly, as skysaw mentioned, AS is autism without language delay. These distinctions are arguable - and are being discussed for DSM V (there are other threads for that).

b9, your description of "level of autism" vs. "level of intelligence" is insightful and not well-understood even within the autistic world, no less outside of it. This adopts the viewpoint (with which I agree) that "degree of autism" only reflects the degree of impairment in the three areas the Triad comprises. Cognitive intelligence and life experiences are the most commonly used means to "overcome" autistic behaviour for those who find the benefits of living in social arrangements worth the sacrifices necessary to fit in.

As I have been assessed to have "strong autistic characteristics" in all three pillars of the Triad, as well as myriad sensory integration issues, number-form synaesthesia, an unusual memory for systemic things and numbers in particular, on-sight "speed counting", as well as dyspraxia and major alexithymia, whilst I do not consider myself to be "profoundly autistic", I'm am definitely "well out there" in degree of autisticness. To develop b9's point, not to brag, I also have a quite high IQ. I am convinced that this has allowed me to amass and organise a store of information on human interaction, through which I have progressed from perpetual confusion and reclusive isolation as a child, up through clueless as a younger adult, to today where I'm just quirky and weird to most people.

I can now appear to be worthy of consideration for normalcy in many situations because I today have the life experience and mind processing abilities - long-term memory, quick recall and agile assimilation of information - to (excuse the IT analogy here but it's quite relevant) process many situations in "near real time". What people can't see is that rather than effortlessly (like them) taking everything in truly in real time, I am going through an extensive "database lookup and process results" step, which allows me to respond with just a small but perceptible delay. Even this minor delay is perceived as somehow "off" and sets off people's "different" radar. What people also can't see is that like with a real database system, new information needs to be assimilated, indexes built for quick recall, etc. This "maintenance" stuff requires solitude, with a healthy dose of repetitive motion. It is also exhausting to operate in this normal-emulation mode, so I cannot and have no desire to socialise to the extent most people do. It is difficult for non-autistic people to understand this, since it is invisible and it looks like I am choosing to ignore them rather than being truly too mind-exhausted to engage. Dealing with people is nearly always a challenge to some extent.

Even today, there are situations - lots of them - where my compensatory system totally crashes. Pretty much anything involving feelings and emotions, or the expression thereof, elicits selective mutism. It will take hours or days - sometimes even longer - to sort through them. Try explaining that to a typical person. Today, I find this alexithymia much more of an impediment than my other autistic characteristics.

Melissa, you make good points. You are correct that an IQ of 70 or below would be low functioning. My point is that a Level of Functioning test could show a person with an IQ of 120 to have an equivalent level of functioning IQ of 70, which would make them low functioning as well.

I have a verbal IQ of 131 and a performance IQ of 100. Thus, I have nonverbal learning disability. The way I function in life may be translated to an IQ much lower and I won't know until I get tested.

I cannot get DD services in Oregon unless I test 70 or below as an IQ equivalent in level of functioning.

whitetiger, what you are saying makes perfect sense to me. If we are to use an arbitrary threshold to segregate "high-functioning" and "low-functioning", the measure should be a realistic assessment of "functioning". "Performance IQ" would seem to be a far more sensible choice of a metric than traditional IQ. I also imagine that there are quite a few of us on the spectrum with immense differences between the two measures.

I would draw the line at something simple, like taking a crap... if you can take a crap without assistance or supervision of any sort, you are high-functioning... if not, you are low-functioning... at least as far as crap is concerned...

OK