Types of 'High-Functioning'

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Kraftie I think you missed a word in your first sentence. Did you mean to say, "...Not Autistic at all." Sean Penn was absolutely brilliant in that movie as was Dakota Fanning. I believe that was her first role. It's one of my all time favorite movies.

I know people who are similar to Sam in real life. I was just using him as an example. Some of them actually have an autism diagnosis. They are all social, but obviously intellectually disabled. They just don't socialize normally. They always act very child-like and naive. Maybe they were misdiagnosed.

This is why IQ is a horrible indicator for functioning. First, people have to decide what high functioning means when you have autism. Is IQ supposed to measure if you will be academically high functioning, or socially high functioning? According to your own childhood, you probably didn't have a low IQ, yet you were low functioning in regards to development.

In my personal experience, I had a VERY high IQ, yet I failed not only academically, but socially and with tasks of daily living. I developed (in regards to speech and all of the developmental milestones) fine, if not a bit early, though.

My point to everyone is we are all over the place and even though IQ WAS used in research as an indicator of level of functioning, researchers are now rethinking that idea and if the data even made sense or was consistent. This happens when you learn more about a disorder. People also used to think that autism was either Autism, Asperger's Syndrome, or PDD. We now know it's ALL autism with varying levels of functioning. People often could be diagnosed with all three depending on which area of functioning you were looking at, in fact.

I don't see why ASD should be any different than, say, Schizophrenia or Alzheimer's Disease. People with both are also assessed for their functioning levels, and they are assessed in areas where the disease would affect them. Those areas are ocial, Intellectual, cognitive, and so on. You wouldn't tell a family member with Schizophrenia that they have a low functioning daughter and then expect them to think that means IQ. In fact, when a psychologist says "X has Schizophrenia and is low functioning", they are not referring to IQ at all. The only time IQ should be a measure of functioning is circumstances like an intellectual disability, brain trauma, etc. The reason I say this is because people were using IQ as the SOLE measure of functioning, which makes no sense.

The term 'high-functioning Aspergers' might come into use in the future! Relatives on both sides of my family probably had 'high-functioning' Aspergers.

I guess it used to be assumed (and still is, just not as often officially as there are now studies to contradict this assumption) that if your IQ was of a certain level, you would or would not be able to do certain things....why else would they split autistics into groups based on IQ alone? (Someone tell me if they know a different reason, please.)

IQ does have an affect on a person's functioning whether they are autistic or not, so it's not a totally useless thing to factor in -- but I am not sure it's useful as a way to categorize functioning in the context of autism across the whole autistic population....especially if intellectual disability is seen as a comorbid, and not a part of autism itself.....substitue ADHD or Depression or Schizophrenia or a specific learning disability for Intellectual Disability and group people in terms of "has comorbid" vs. "doesn't have comorbid" -- but call the "has comorbid" group "low functioning" and the "doesn't have comorbid" group "high functioning", and hopefully you will see what I am trying to say.

Wow, this describes a lot of my life experience.

I don't always do well at school, but school can be more cut and dried than a lot of nebulous work places.

And there's not much upside in trying to fit in, in a phoney way. I can accept being polite. But I want to be accepted and appreciated and worked with and asked to help and asked to help others for the person that I am.

PS I kind of like the political statement, We are all mid function. Especially since so many schools and social service agencies seem to "need" to define persons as either low or high functioning, their need, not ours.

IQ is a stupid indicator of function. You can be smarter than most people, and not be able to remember how to tie your own shoes. IQ itself is a poor test of intellect, so it is a second tier of invalid and irrelevant results...

I tend to think of the levels of functionality by the nature of the word function... and by the amount of external support needed to DO so... in terms of myself, I do "ok" entirely without external support... if I was any more functional, I probably would slip from diagnose-able to "eccentric"... as for my boy, he is more in the middle... he can handle almost anything as long as there is someone there to redirect or explain to him when "almost" comes a' calling... my niece, is almost completely unable to do anything without direction... low functioning, but not as low as I've seen...

Categorizing high-functioning autism based on whether someone was always considered high functioning is one way to classify, but it does not capture the neurodiversity we have. Also, I fear making these divisions is a form of false consciousness.

Under the guidelines for DSM 5, autistic people are not assessed for functioning level. They are given "severity levels" for each of the diagnostic criteria and an overall severity level based on the support they will need: level 1 is "requiring support", level 2 is "requiring substantial support" and level 3 is "requiring very substantial support" https://iacc.hhs.gov/subcommittees/basi ... tml#table2
The idea of "functioning" in the misleading technical sense is not there. Instead we get the common understanding used in the descriptions of the severity levels:
Level 3 social communication:

Level 2 restricted, repetitive behaviors

Level 1 restricted, repetitive behaviors


In all these instances, "function" is used in the common sense and the meaning is perfectly clear. It's also obvious to me that I have level 1 restricted and repetitive behaviors.

I think this is better and HFA LFA should not be used anymore. If people want to say that someone is non-verbal, they should say so. If there is a whole cluster of symptoms and traits such as described by KoR, then they should give that cluster a name as a type within ASD. This will help people understand where they fit in the spectrum.

They are assessed for range of severity for several areas of functioning. In other words, they rate your level of functioning in these key areas on a scale and that is used to determine what services you need. This is exactly what is done with mental illnesses, disorders that effect the brain cognitively, or even degenerative diseases.

If you are level 1 for restricted and repetitive behaviors, your level of functioning would be high in that area. This is my point. You are clearly assessed for level of functioning in key areas and IQ is not a criteria, although it can have influence.

High functioning autism (HFA) doesn't exist. It's just a term used casually. ICD (and DSM) manuals don't use HFA. HFA is classic autism, just like LFA. Sometimes those with classic autism that does not have MR/ID, defined by an IQ over 70, are called HFA. Thus what defines High function in this case, clinically, is just an IQ over 70.

High function only means no MR/ID. It is not about if someone is more or less "highly" functioning socially.

Asperger's is only diagnosed in those with IQ over 70. (Using the definition of high function in classic autism, IQ over 70, everyone with AS would be high functioning, but we don't tialk about high functioning Asperger's. It's a given.)

There are differences between AS and classical autism, quite clearly, in the brain. Different parts are "damaged", or wired differently from the NT brain. But if someone were to observe someone with AS and someone with HFA and someone with LFA, they could see that the aspie and the HFA present much more similar than the HFA compared to the LFA. Even if there are solid neurological differences between AS and HFA, they can seem more similar to each other than to the Individual with MR/ID, called LFA. So the differentiation among different individuals is useful.

Take two individuals with AS, Adam and Anne. Both are teachers in a school and have an IQ of 110. Adam manages quite fine, does his work, enjoying inspiring the children, going out with the other teachers for a beer, being nice and happy. Anne doesn't manage quite as good, the kids seem to be all over the place, chairs scraping on the floor and pencils ventilation and voices affects her senses, and in the breaks she just sits on some stairs collecting herself. Other teachers thinks she's rude and never sits in the teachers lounge at breaks. She always declined having a beer, because she's to exhausted, and now she's not invited anymore. In the end of the day all she can manage is collapsing in her sofa with microwave pizza watching Gilmore girls on DVD.

Casually speaking one can say that Adam is more "high functioning", doing better socially, sensory, etc. But that is a totally different kind of "high functioning" than "high functioning = IQ over 70". Really Adam and Anne are just as high functioning.

I was diagnosed with high-functioning autism when I was around 3-4, and idk what "type" I am, because I started out high functioning as a kid. I could understand what people said, I responded to my name, I could do basic everyday functions, and had a normal IQ. But I didn't start talking until I was 3. Now, I am high functioning, but I have problems with lots of social skills, or social understanding. I still can't tell the difference between AS and high functioning autism. I do have some AS traits, but I was diagnosed as autistic, because I had development issues as a young child, and I don't think people with AS have a lot of development issues in childhood.

Back to Sam of "I am Sam."

I don't believe he was autistic at all. I believe he had mild-moderate intellectual challenges.

Yes. The old use of high functioning vs low functioning was based on IQ the new use is about severity of impact of symptoms and is much less vaguely defined. I don't see people talking about level 1 as "high functioning in that area" There is a legacy of using the terms "high functioning" and "low functioning" in ways that are not very descriptive or useful.

I am one of the children who bloomed.
A 10+ year longitudinal study estimates prevalence of blooming at ~10% of autism spectrum.
In common amongst bloomers is lack of intellectual disability or IQ>70.
I relate more to children with moderate or severe autism than children with mild autism.
I relate more to HFA adults than LFA adults.

One needs to keep in mind what : "Correlations are highest for school achievement, where they account for about a quarter of the variance. They are somewhat lower for job performance.

A low IQ is predictive that, if this individual was put in a mainstream classroom with no support or accommodations, s/he would not perform well.

IQ does not reveal anything about how perceptive or intuitive this person is or how well they learn and remember. It is not a reliable measure of how one thinks and reasons abstractly and solve problems - only how well one can communicate this to the evaluator - an important aspect of succeeding in the typical classroom setting.

It does not adequately measure cognitive functioning nor claims to.

I was a high intelligence, non-functional child. I have learned a lot about how to function, but I am less intelligent now.