How Would You Define Severe or Mild Aspergers?

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I don't think it's either accurate or fair to consider how someone functions as part of defining mild to severe AS

IMO the obvious and simple answer to the original question is the best one - ie. mild would be someone who doesn't have any manifest serious disfunction and probably won't even recognise they have AS without it being pointed out - to outsiders and indeed even themselves AS traits would very likely be put down to being a bit eccentric / quirky - caused by environmental factors - ie. type of upbringing etc.

Severe would involve clear manifestation of disorder and disfunction - very obvious to casual observers and to the person themselves - ie. there's clearly more at play than how the person was brought up.

I find the whole ASD situation quite confusing and initially at least was interpreting AS as being a HFA disorder that wasn't severe enough to be clearly manifest - to the point of needing examination to clearly identify. What's being called SEVERE AS here I was thinking of as being actually beyond "just" being AS on the spectrum - ie. certainly including all the traits and characterisitcs of AS but being so only as part of a more serious overall condition.

I haven't actually read the papers by Asperger - I guess those make it more clear?

Oh, I wasn't suggesting AS was a result of upbringing - I was saying that people might fail to recognise the traits and MISTAKENLY take them as just quirky or eccentric personal behaviour - caused perhaps by type of upbringing / personal experiences. That's in the case of mild AS - more severe would be obvious enough that observers would maybe realise there's more to it than just personality.

Oh, sorry. I misunderstood, but totally get you now! I was written off as just quirky or eccentric until just last year at age 29. They looked into things when I was in second grade and went from head of the class to bored and unresponsive, but didn't know what to look for at the time. Things spiraled down till I found my special talent/interest and a few teachers and my parents embraced it. That's the only reason I made it to how I am today. I was labeled a lot of things. Stubborn, quirky, eccentric, arrogant, anti-social, weird, genius, shy, etc. Only recently did I find out why. I truly wish they would have known about this back then. I can only imagine what I would have been able to do if I started learning better coping skills back then. I've never been a person of great regrets, but the growing freedom I have enjoyed the last year by learning better coping skills and letting go of trying to be normal has made such an impact on my productivity and happiness.