Is HFA and AS the same thing?

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My mom thinks so.

WOW! This has got to be like the 3rd time they spoke of this in 40 days! AS is like HFA except their is no clinically significant delay, and the IQ is in the normal range or higher in areas besides social. Historically, AS people have also excelled with vocabulary. Autism, and AS, are now SO broad, that I guess AS could be considered to be a small section of HFA. But HFA isn't necessarily AS. In fact some HFA seems to require a delay which would exclude AS.

Steve

but this is a good thing stevek!

means lots of new ppl on the forums!

/waves @ OP

I don't know what you mean by "the same".

HFA people had(or still have)trouble speaking as kids and have more stim and autitstic-like behaviours.


-SpaceCase

WOW, I DID try to answer your last topic here, but it was locked. 8-( Glad to see you're still here!

Yeah, as I said, some people seem to ignore those things, and the two start to kind of blend together. The autistic like behaviours, including stims, are a possible symptom of either though.

Steve

i dont think they are the same thing

Neither do I.

As SteveK said, the difference generally boils down to what age a kid started speaking at. There are those in the research community who think that the distinction is worthless and meaningless, and I happen to agree. Once the people concerned are above are 6 or 7, you are unlikely to be able to tell any difference between the two, and, to make things even more confusing, some of the older criteria for AS specified that they MUST have had delayed speech. In practice, the two terms are often used interchangably.

So, while SteveK has given what the majority position of the moment is, I wouldn't say that your mom's wrong, either.

I would consider it more like this: AS is a kind of HFA.

In other words, HFA refers to a very broad subject, whereas AS is a certain specific element within that subject. So HFA is not AS, but AS is a kind of HFA.

In reality, though, I don't know. I really only know anything about AS, and only because I've done a good amount of thinking on the matter. HFA I have no experience in.

For purposes of conversation, it's like has been said-AS is considered "without speech delay".

The problem with labels like "high functioning", "low functioning" and referring to stereotypies as "more autistic" is that the Autism Spectrum doesn't follow some linear course. There are Aspies here that "function" much lower than my "high functioning autistic" son. Skills vary widely and it's dangerous to label certain skills, traits and behaviors as belonging to one group or other. We have a hard enough time with the stereotypes of just plain autism that NTs hold.

Some people seem to apply motives to their choice of words. There are people who had speech delay, went undiagnosed, found coping mechanisms and then later were dx'ed Asperger's. Some people just call themselves that because it sounds better, or they figure they are able to "do more" (work, marry, breed).

I debate that Asperger's doesn't come with speech/language delay. If you can't read nonverbal cues, sarcasm, and other alliterative styles of speaking, aren't those indicative of speech/language delay? It's confusing because these milestones can come so much later for a child. I remember being an older child and being scolded/punished for not "reacting appropriately" to sarcasm and jokes. Later, I understood them but couldn't create my own that were well understood.

When my son was officially diagnosed at 5, he was considered "borderline". That wasn't borderline between autistic and Aspie but borderline autistic and not autistic. But he is clearly autistic, despite gaining speech and not stimming as much.

Well she may be right, practically. Example; Professor Baron-Cohen has admitted that Newton and Einstein may be what he calls AS, though I contest his definitions; while I accord S B-C as an unusually insightfull guy, I submit that I might know "autism" a little better than he does. Clinically, if you acquire speech later than "normally", you are defined HFA, as Einstein should have been!

Well, my mom said I started speaking when I was around 3.

I started speaking when I was 3,too.


-SpaceCase

EDIT:
Although,I THINK I was almost four.

It all depends on how you come across to your psychiatrist.

If you strike him as Rain Man, then he calls you HFA.
If you remind him of Bill Gates, then he thinks you've got AS.

The OLD AS guidelines would say you AREN'T AS. The NEW AS guidelines say you COULD be if you were speaking sentences. FRANKLY, ***I*** don't consider it speech unless it is sentences! When did they determine speech to be uttering words, and reading to be sounding out(as opposed to understanding) anyway?

BTW Einstein apparantly had selective mutism.

Steve

It depends on how well you spoke at 3. Most kids start speaking earlier than that, and are using complete sentences, with reasonable grammar, by 4. So it depends on which your mom meant -- first words, or complex phrases?

In the end, it's probably irrelevant. My kid went back and forth between the two, because when he was 3 or 4, and lagging on speech, that was consistent with an AS diagnosis. Now it precludes an AS diagnosis, since they've changed the definition. But any aspie who meets him immediately identifies him as an aspie.

As someone pointed out about Einstein, he was (using the late speech standard) HFA, so obviously HFAs can be extremely intelligent and function perfectly well in society.

It's not something I'd worry about one way or the other.

---
From Gillman's diagnostic criteria for AS, 1991:

"C. Speech and language problems, as manifested by at least three of the
following five:

1. Delayed development of language."

From DSM IV, 1994-2000:

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

So the definition depends not only on who you ask, but when you ask it.