Autism & Aspergers

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Say you have Aspergers, do you have autism? Or is Aspergers just a part of autism but has their own island?
So, if you have Aspergers do you say it's on the autism spectrum disorders or do you say it's part of autism or it is autism?
If someone asks you do you have autism but you actually have Aspergers do you say yes or do you correct them and say no I have Aspergers?
Is autism & aspergers the same thing, just different severity of the characteristics?

What are your opinion, your say on these questions?

I ask because I have been told and read a lot of different things. So I came on here to ask everyone.

Thank you

Catherine

If anyone really needs to know, I just tell him/her that I am autistic... and then he/she is shocked and confused and I leave them that way until they get educated.

This is my understanding of your question.

Asperger's is a type of High Functioning Autism (HFA). It is part of the autism spectrum.

Culturally, Asperger's has developed a niche of it's own, with books and movies. Go to a librarian and ask for a book on Asperger's Syndrome and they will have an easy time finding one. Asking them for a book on HFA or PDD, they may not know what you are talking about.

Some people prefer "aspie" or "aspergian".

Asperger's is a type of autism without a speech delay. It may not be a particularly good category because there are many dimensions along which autistic people differ, and speech is only one of them. In adulthood, people with and without speech delays can't be told apart.

We only had Asperger's to begin with, versus Kanner's, because two people independently discovered the same thing, and Asperger's work was lost for a while, during which "autism" became synonymous with "speech delay"; so when Asperger's work got rediscovered and some of his subjects didn't have speech delays, they called the autism-without-speech-delay Asperger's.

Asperger's as a separate entity is pretty much an artifact of how we learned about autism and how to identify it. The stereotype of Asperger's is quite different from the stereotype of Autism; but the realities of both of them aren't very much different at all.

Yeah, pretty much. I think the only difference being that it would be harder to tell versus a lower functioning individual who makes his symptoms present to the naked eye. I like to think of it as wearing a mask of sorts, though when people get to see behind that mask it becomes obvious that I'm not mainstream.

We are all a variation of many differences and so I like to say I am simply neurological diverse in part, but no more different from any other human, just simply uniquely myself!

pippilngstkngpr posted (in part): Say you have Aspergers, do you have autism? Or is Aspergers just a part of autism but has their own island?...What are your opinion, your say on these questions?...I ask because I have been told and read a lot of different things. So I came on here to ask everyone. - Catherine - There are a wide variety of different ways to conceptualize the topic even including viewing Autism/Asperger's as an associated condition of invisible/almost invisble cerebral palsy. - http://www.associatedconditionsofcerebralpalsy.com/ - http://www.associatedconditionsofcerebr ... /adhd.html - If autism can be mild, moderate, or severe, then Asperger's has often been viewed as being a mild form of mild autism. That's my understanding. - pgd

If they ask, I tell them that I am autistic. The way I see it is something like different degrees of autism. You have people on one end, who have like severe autism, or LFA, and you have people on the other, who have like, HFA, or very mild autism, and you have others in the middle, some closer to the high end, others closer to the low end, etc.

Ah well, if I'm anything I'm an Aspie. I developed speech unusually early.

I'm HFA, because I did have a bit of a speech delay.