What do you consider to be "high-functioning?"

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I consider "High Functioning" to be a summary function of having effectively mitigated the following dilemmas with either personal protocol, system, method or other convention to the degree that one can either not struggle with most of the dilemmas or is more or less immune to serious struggle.

Sensory overload.
internal and external emotional diagnostics and processing.
Social navigation.
Arbitrary symbolic substitution.

I agree this is true, but I don't agree that things ARE how they are used. they simply are what they are and it is often not interesting when you break them down to it. I could go on to demonstrate how spoons are not tools of death in-spite of the fact that there are schools of martial art that actively teach how to use them as such but I think it is necessary because it's self evident that anything can be made to serve an unproductive function it was not meant to serve.

Still I don't disagree and I can't because I do still depend upon the empathy of others for many things. I can look just fine for quite a while...IF things are just right and don't deviate a whole lot from how I need them to be. but I think it's funny that NONE of the things I actually struggle with would be a problem if I were just surviving in the wild. They are all failures to match social convention....isn't THAT interesting?

To me the HFA label means nothing considering it's based on IQ and not based of how well someone on the AS/ASD spectrum function relatively to normal. To me, High Functioning would be someone who have the able to live independently,have the ability to have friends,relationships,able to hold a job,able to seem more normal, having less Autistic symptoms,etc.

That's exactly how my ASD is.

interesting thought! i often think i would do well in a stripped bare environment but I like comfort i don't like the idea of being completely in the wild but also the city / corporate / respond to email world isn't for me. livting in a small village in contact with nature seems a good balance ~

I don't agree with this. I know for a fact that I am not immune to any of these struggles except social navigation which is still a struggle for me. In fact, I am actually much more affected by the first two than any of the "low functioning" people that I personally know. I don't know what arbitrary symbolic substitution is though. I cannot mitigate sensory overload or emotional processing. And I am considered extremely high functioning to the point where some people refuse to believe that I am on the Spectrum at all.

to me, it is personified by brother bill gates and his ilk. somebody who seemingly effortlessly goes about his life, with very little drama, everything falling into place as it should, not only brilliant but also [passably] personable, able to roll with the punches, pass for NT for the required amounts of time without being exhausted, somebody of high station in life who got that way organically, somebody with no difficulties in attracting a mate or persuading other people to part with their time and effort and money.

I think that there needs to be categories of high functioning. For example, I am considered extremely high functioning. I am considered by most to be close to as high functioning as one can get. But I can't hold a job and I have trouble with keeping friends and relationships. I also cannot be financially independent and there are times when I need substantial support to do things like eating. But no one allows me to say that I am not as high functioning as people want to say that I am. I don't think it is fair to say that a high functioning person can do all of these things because many of us can't. And even if some can do them to a degree, many of us, myself included, can't do them with any consistency.

So basically someone who has no impairments. Just a diagnosis convenient for the diagnosis du jour fad.

mebbe somebody like Dan Ackroyd or Darryl Hannah [both dx'ed as being on the spectrum].

I know for a fact that Daryl Hannah struggles. I saw a documentary on JFK Jr where they talked about their relationship and I have read some articles about her Autism. I would agree with you on her and Dan Ackroyd as well. I don't like to judge people especially if I don't know anything about them but but if someone can effortlessly go about life with very little drama, have everything fall into place as it should, be passibly personable, roll with the punches, pass for NT for the required amounts of time without being exhausted, who has a high station in life and got that way organically and who has no difficulties attracting and keeping a mate or persuading people to part with their time, effort, and money, I would like to have a little more evidence of Autistic struggle.

I agree with you ski on dx du jour. As for Daryl and Dan....hard to take them seriously....in the end it doesn't matter.

I think your struggles are ignored.

Let me explain WHY I define it this way.

First, I think it unwise to define what seems to me to be an ideal ( and as such, as with all ideals an unreachable and imaginary perfect state) by what I personally can do. I did not mean for this to seem like a claim that I have mastered all these things, I most certainly have not. What i meant it to be was a sort of list encapsulating the the segments as a collection, of challenges which as far as I can see I would need to overcome (personally) to feel comfortable calling myself *PERFECTLY* High functioning. I think a person can be some fraction of high functioning and it may or MAY NOT be possible to BE perfectly High functioning.

How far from perfectly high functioning am I according to my own definition ?

I handle all sensory data extremely well by rapidly organizing it...but I have NO WAY to organize sensation oriented data.
Itches feel like somebody is putting a burning cigarette to my skin, if I am subjected to cold for too long I will be overcome with an overwhelming sense of loneliness, hopelessness, isolation .
Too hot? I can almost not think, it takes little to anger me. I won't list them all but it's REALLY bad.

Emotional processing? I have something like an old computer switchboard in my head where there are lights with labels displaying the names of feelings. these go on when I have a feeling but...that does not mean I experience the feeling...or that I have experienced it enough to understand what it means. Simple ones I am happy to have even if they are sad ones...I am still happy I had them. Sometimes many months after something has happened something finally clicks and I have an overwhelming feeling about ...whatever it relates to. I am still happy I have these even though i often cannot work out what they connect to.

Social navigation.....Doing OK at this point...although I am not sure it is due having fixed anything because to tell the truth there aren't many social consequences that can take place faster than i can think my way out of them. Somehow I do not think this counts as a solution and I am constantly invested in trying to develop myself in a way that much more directly addresses the issue.

Finally Arbitrary symbol substitution: In some places I am really good at it...in others I full-on flip out, if it were bad enough I could melt down. I just cannot SEE WHY this needs to be done...I can't. it seems stupid to me, i hate it, why do I need to learn and unlearn constantly for people who can't be bothered to make things once and well.... it's very hard. But...why do I struggle with it? that's the issue and it's a problem.

So that's me. I consider myself something short of perfectly high functioning but I don't consider myself not at all high functioning, I do rather well in more than a few areas...but if I could not do well in enough of them to in some way keep things in my life working in some way...I would not say i was high functioning at all.

That's what "HIGH *FUNCTIONING*" means as near as i can tell. It seems to me to be a measure of how well one functions in spite of the struggles they have. Perhaps they are doing VERY WELL...better perhaps than NT's who have no such struggles because they have turned the whole thing into an advantage, then they are very high functioning

I hope this clarifies my intention.

Thank you History Gal.

But with Daryl and Dan, I can totally understand it. When I was in college, I was an unofficial acting minor. I say unofficial because my school did not have an actual acting minor but I took a lot of classes in the drama department because I enjoyed it so much and I was really good at it. I think one of the things that made me a good actress is my Autism. I know that for Autistic women in particular, acting comes naturally and we can be very very good at it. And there are a lot of people who are professional actors who are Aspies because it is a profession that can work really well for an Aspie. And having read more about Daryl and things that she herself has written about her personal life, I know that she is Autistic. And even for someone like Bill Gates, it is not for me to judge whether he is Aspie or not but it would be nice to actually see some evidence as to what his struggles are. But it would not surprise me one bit if some of these high positioned people purchased a soup du jour dx. I am not here to judge but I would not be surprised. And if Bill really is Autistic, than I am fine with that as well. But I would really like to know what his struggles are.

Spectral Autist, thank you so much for explaining. I understand what you mean now. I really appreciate how you wrote this out. I do not know what arbitrary symbol substitution is. Can you explain this to me?

People like to say that I'm high functioning because I can talk and I got good grades in school. I don't think of myself as high functioning. I struggle socially and I will probably never get a man. I will probably never be able to fully support myself financially because I have failed my driver's license test four times already and I live in an area where having a car is necessary to get a full time job. I work part time in an after school care program and there is no chance in hell of me being full time there. I'm about to age out of my parents' health insurance plan and I can't afford my own plan. I don't get holiday pay when school is out for the holidays so my paychecks vary each month. I don't qualify for disability insurance because I'm not considered disabled enough. How anyone could say I'm high functioning is beyond me.