Autism or Asperger's... it might depend on your doctor

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I don't know. I thought I was kind of agreeing with you that there isn't much of a difference. The biggest difference I can think of between aspergers and HFA or regular autism is that it seems like it is harder to diagnose.

If I'm not mistaken the difference is early or late onset.

late onset autism, never heard of that...I've heard typically people with LFA have language delays and typically people with HFA don't but I have a hard time seeing how that necessarily reflects the level of functioning they will go on to have.

It seems that's what it ends up coming down to...but yeah I thought you were being difficult for some reason, sorry....this topic just kind of confuses me I didn't mean to take that wrong.

AS is there from birth. I witnessed it firsthand with my nephew too.

The article is evidence for the rationale of the DSM-V. See:

I had early infantile autism. Some kids don't start showing problems or signs until they're around three. How late a child talks I think was one area of difference.

Last edited by eigerpere on 27 Feb 2012, 1:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

for anyone who has not read the article, here are some main points:

In this study, they looked at the records of 2,100 kids between ages four and 18, who were from all over the country, and who already had a specific diagnosis on the spectrum, of either Autism, Asperger's or PDD-NOS.

they found out that clinics vary... by what skills and behaviors they consider when evaluating kids with an autism spectrum disorder and deciding where on that spectrum the kid is.

even though the diagnostic test scores were similar at all the clinics -- the number of kids categorized as either Autism, Asperger's or PDD-NOS varied widely.

For example, two clinics gave LESS THAN HALF of their kids a diagnosis of autism, whereas one gave ALL its kids an autism diagnosis and never used the diagnosis of PDD-NOS or Asperger's,

People often will say, 'I know what Asperger's is.' And actually, each clinic did know what Asperger's is...but each clinic was different from each other," researcher Catherine Lord said.

CONCLUSION "The findings confirm what we've long believed based on our clinical experience, that trying to carve up a continuous spectrum into discrete categories is very difficult," said Dr. Bryan King, director of the Seattle Children's Autism Center.

AND basically, Parents should "not get too caught up in the difference between autism, PDD-NOS and Asperger's."

Last edited by fleurdelily on 28 Feb 2012, 12:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

"Early infantile autism" is an obsolete DSM-III category, the time before DSM-III-R came out.

Whether it's obsolete or not that's what I had and doesn't matter if it isn't in the DSM. It has been confirmed by an expert. It just says that the problems were notable basically from day one.

I was diagnosed with PDD-NOS too, a label that I hate by heart (I don't like a diagnosis of "junk drawer"). The psych even claimed that it's more definable than Asperger's.... Blah. If there's one thing sure about PDD-NOS, this is the vaguest of all in the literature. Besides, I'm not sure this is the 'correct' dx for me, just because my VCI index is well below my PRI, differentiating by which is BS imho.

So, I consider myself an outsider here, full of AS people, and I regard myself as 'super HFA', in terms of functionality level (never mind my utter lameness at relationships, especially romantic type).

If you want to read more on HFA/AS/autism, I suggest the following:

Clinical presentation of autism spectrum disorders in intellectually gifted students:
http://books.google.hu/books?id=eby-FW0 ... &q&f=false

Essentials of WISC-IV assessment, second edition:
http://books.google.hu/books?id=taaLZsy ... &q&f=false
Pages 240-250:
- Interesting facts about the WISC-IV profiles of selected clinical samples
- Findings for individuals with Autistic Disorder or Asperger’s Disorder (page 247: Mean WISC-IV scores for children with Autistic Disorder and Asperger’s Disorder)
- Clinical implications for testing these populations

I don't read a lot about it. It's hard enough living with it and not that interested in reading the clinical view. I wish I had it mild but not the case. The labels don't matter that much. It's what we have to live with that matters.

Oh, I didn't want to hurt your feelings. Of course it is a valid diagnosis (sorry for my bad usage of the word). In the new DSM there won't be Asperger's or PDD-NOS either, and they will be valid, too.

My feelings aren't hurt at all so no worries.

There really is no official definition. Like AS and autism, HFA/MFA/LFA are entirely up to the doctor's perspective, and every doctor sees it differently.

Better terms would probably be to talk about mild versus severe disability; that is a more practical way of talking that focuses on how much help you need; so, for example, I am autistic and need help at least every week, but not daily, which is classified as "limited support". Someone who needs help every day might need "extensive" or "pervasive" support; someone who only needs help sometimes (like looking for a job for example) would need "intermittent support". Those are much more concrete terms and I prefer them over functioning labels.

Late onset autism exists, but it's pretty rare. It's also known as "childhood disintegrative disorder", and it happens when a kid with relatively normal development starts losing skills. It's also known as Heller syndrome, and it usually results in severe disability in adulthood, with all the traits of autism. Rett syndrome, which has a known genetic cause, also causes this sort of loss-of-skills.

Usually though, what you get is either no loss of skills, or falling behind at some point (like, the kid keeps up until age two, and then falls behind their peers), or stress-related skill loss (like you get a kid who starts school and stops talking because it's just so much to process that the brain drops the speech)--stress-related is usually reversible when you get out of that situation and either re-learn or just regain access to the skill.

Yeah, the psychiatry that diagnosed me explained my diagnosis would have been F84.0 childhood autism if my IQ were below 70 but diagnosed me with F84.5 Asperger's because my IQ's higher than 70. That was their definition apparently.

I have no idea what they thought of F84.1 atypical autism (PDD-NOS-like), it was never once brought up.

Although most people who know me say I have Aspergers, I wouldn't be surprised if a doctor diagnosed me with Autism, albeit "High Functioning", (don't really like that phrase though) because I had a speech delay as a kid. I didn't start talking until I was 3 years old, then I suddenly just burst into fluent speech one day without notice.

It doesn't really matter though but I know that a lot of doctors like to Separate "High Functioning" Autism from AS for some reason, even though they are essentially just two different terms for the same condition.