"Is HFA the same as AS?"

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I was surprised when I followed a link with this question and read this answer:


It is uncertain.

Some people who diagnose or work with people with Asperger's Syndrome describe Asperger's Syndrome (AS) as high-functioning autism (HFA), while others of them think there is a difference. The following is a list of suggested differences between Asperger's Syndrome and high-functioning autism.

1.) - Children with AS might seem normal in family situations and have extreme stress when family is not present. Children with HFA have difficulty in all situations, including those with family.
2.) - Children with AS are more likely to form attachments to family but not to strangers, while children with HFA tend to withdraw from everyone.
3.) - People with AS want friendships, whereas people with HFA do not care.
4.) - Children with AS might have precocious language development while children with HFA do not and might even have delayed language development.
5.) - People with AS usually do not have repetitive, stereotyped patterns of behavior except for the all-absorbing preoccupation with a special topic about which an extensive number of facts might be memorized, whereas people with HFA are more likely to engage in repetitive behaviors that draw attention such as head-banging, hand-flapping, and chewing.
6.) - People with AS are more likely to exhibit motor clumsiness. People with HFA are more likely to have average or above average motor skills.
7.) - People with AS are more likely to be diagnosed as teenagers or adults while people with HFA are more likely to be diagnosed as children because of the slight differences in symptoms.
8.) - People with AS might be more imaginative than people with HFA.


Only two of these do not apply to me...

1.] - I didn't "seem normal" in family situations".
2.] - I withdrew from everyone.
3.] - But I did care for friendships, though I didn't manage to make any. Yet I'm not sure my idea of friendships were the same as non-autistic kids'.
4.] - My language development was delayed. - But now I'm somewhat skilled, though non-autists do notice something different about the way I use it.
5.] - I do have repetitive, stereotyped patterns other than my "special interests" (as others like to term it). I also have some "hand-flapping"-like issues.
6.] - I never thought of myself as being clumsy and I believe I am in fact the opposite, though a certain tendency to be pre-occupied with "stuff" has me banging into things now and then.
7] - I was diagnosed with Autism (not Asperger's Syndrome) as an infant and was only diagnosed with AS a few years ago as a result of my own insisting that I got some diagnosis (the initial Autism diagnosis just sort of "fell away" as I grew up and began to talk. Where I live AS is more often seen as a form of psychopathy, and that was the label I received when they stopped using the Autism diagnosis about me).
8.] - I can't say whether I'm more or less imaginative than others. I like to think I'm highly imaginative, and I certainly believe I'm more imaginative than most folk generally speaking (but then, don't we all think this of ourselves?).

*******

So now I'm not sure what to believe.

To be quite frank, I have wondered about a few inconsistencies in my diagnosis, such as the early Autism diagnosis and my belated language development. I noticed my psychiatrist hesitating when he learned this. Eventually it was not as much a definite school book decision that I have AS as it was the conclusion that seemed to be the most likely to be the truth.


If there're any HFA people here at WrongPlanet, I would really like to correspond a little, simply to understand myself and others better.

*******

Thank you all for reading!... '^L^,


Puzelle.


Ps. Comments are welcome!...

I've never seen that list before and most of it seems inaccurate, I wouldn't take it to heart.

I am diagnosied high functioing autism.

1.) - Children with AS might seem normal in family situations and have extreme stress when family is not present. Children with HFA have difficulty in all situations, including those with family. the HFA one
2.) - Children with AS are more likely to form attachments to family but not to strangers, while children with HFA tend to withdraw from everyone. the HFA one but not as much now I am a adult. When I was yougn I wanted to sit alone all of the tiem and screamed and had tantrums if a person got to close.
3.) - People with AS want friendships, whereas people with HFA do not care. the AS one. I want freinds.
4.) - Children with AS might have precocious language development while children with HFA do not and might even have delayed language development. the HFA one I am delayed. I still have a lot of dificultly with talking. Years of spech langae theripiy.
5.) - People with AS usually do not have repetitive, stereotyped patterns of behavior except for the all-absorbing preoccupation with a special topic about which an extensive number of facts might be memorized, whereas people with HFA are more likely to engage in repetitive behaviors that draw attention such as head-banging, hand-flapping, and chewing. the HFA one. hand flaping, head banging also somtiems rocking side to side. leg jigerling for hours. I regualry leg jigle non stop for 5 hours and somtiems more sometiems for 7 hours. I will sit in one place and leg jigle and not stop or move. I do this aprximatly 3 times a week.
6.) - People with AS are more likely to exhibit motor clumsiness. People with HFA are more likely to have average or above average motor skills. the AS one. I am clumsy. I was delayed moter skills. walked at 18 months. which is not very late but a bit late. I had to get taught how to walk strait with many hours on many years.
7.) - People with AS are more likely to be diagnosed as teenagers or adults while people with HFA are more likely to be diagnosed as children because of the slight differences in symptoms. the AS one. I was misdiagnosed before then.
8.) - People with AS might be more imaginative than people with HFA. the AS one. I have a good imagniation I think.

Yeah it seems it's as hard to get answers about this as it is about ADD.
It seems to be a question that cause a lot of confusion and that there might not be a sure answer to (yet). Some claim it is, others that it isn't. I find that I seem to have traits of both. And according to these threads, I'm not the only one.
www.wrongplanet.net/postt111907html
www.wrongplanet.net/postt111908html

maybe it simply shows that autism is a spectrum.

As for your questionnaire, this applies for me, an diagnosed aspie:

1.) - Children with AS might seem normal in family situations and have extreme stress when family is not present. Children with HFA have difficulty in all situations, including those with family.
AFAIK the AS applies, though examples would be appreciated. I didn't experience extreme stress in nursery though. I would rather have been home, but I saw nursery as part of the day's ritual. But if separated in a shop, I'd panic.
2.) - Children with AS are more likely to form attachments to family but not to strangers, while children with HFA tend to withdraw from everyone.
definitely AS here; I have always loved my parents and maternal grandparents dearly, and I have never felt any attachment to any other people (at any age actually)
I do need alone time, though, without even family. As a kid (and now) I'd at times go to my room to be alone and think and space out, at other times I simply space/d out where I was.
3.) - People with AS want friendships, whereas people with HFA do not care.
HFA on this one
4.) - Children with AS might have precocious language development while children with HFA do not and might even have delayed language development.
AS here
5.) - People with AS usually do not have repetitive, stereotyped patterns of behavior except for the all-absorbing preoccupation with a special topic about which an extensive number of facts might be memorized, whereas people with HFA are more likely to engage in repetitive behaviors that draw attention such as head-banging, hand-flapping, and chewing.
Definitaly have the AS obsessions, but I also have handflapping and some amount of rocking and hand movements.
6.) - People with AS are more likely to exhibit motor clumsiness. People with HFA are more likely to have average or above average motor skills.
AS clumsiness here
7.) - People with AS are more likely to be diagnosed as teenagers or adults while people with HFA are more likely to be diagnosed as children because of the slight differences in symptoms.
When I was a kid and early teen, AS still wasn't a diagnosis. people who were in their mid teens or older in 1994 are obviously dx'ed as adults. Obviously a speech delay will be noticed early.
8.) - People with AS might be more imaginative than people with HFA.
I find it hard to rate my own imagination, but my stories have been praised by family, class mates and teachers alike from elementary to high school. Only worked with those stories I wanted to write, though.

So, 6 AS, 1 HFA and 1 mixed.

Yeah, it looks like that list is made up mostly of stereotypes. Only #4 and #7 approach accuracy; #4 because language delay is a criterion for Autistic Disorder but not Asperger's Disorder, and #7 because language-delayed children are more likely to get an early diagnosis. Other than that, the statements on the list have no basis in reality. They could even be downright hurtful: Assuming that people with HFA do not want friendships could isolate people with that label even further, when, like Aspies, most deeply desire friendships and some are even extroverts.

Like the people who have already replied to this topic, the list can't put me in either category--I fit some descriptions but not others. If HFA and AS were distinct groups, then lists like that one could actually categorize people

Here's the official list for HFA and AS differences, according to the diagnostic criteria:
1. HFA have absent, delayed, highly unusual, or non-communicative speech, or they can't hold a conversation, or they have completely normal speech but don't engage in imaginative (presumably cooperative) play.
2. Asperger's do not have a language delay, an IQ below 70, or delay in adaptive skills. They were also not completely withdrawn as children (had some degree of "curiosity about their environments").

With the official criteria, this is the only difference between HFA and AS, other than having to have a higher number of traits if you're going to be diagnosed HFA (but this is trivial because I have yet to see an Asperger's diagnosis where the person didn't already meet most of the Asperger's traits, which would also be enough in those categories for HFA).

You can see here that diagnosed HFAs can have perfectly normal speech if they don't play "normally", and that while Asperger's excludes developmental delay, so does, in some meanings of the term, "high-functioning". The overlap is huge--it's more common to qualify for both disorders than to qualify for only one or the other, and the great majority of Asperger's cases can also be diagnosed as autism. Individual cases of HFA are indistinguishable from individual cases of AS, especially after childhood. The only obvious difference tends to be if the person diagnosed HFA has a speech delay--but then, remember, a speech delay is not necessary for autism diagnosis.

We don't need the Asperger's diagnosis. We don't even need "HFA", though that's another issue that I don't need to clutter this post up with. They're quite simply the same thing.

I've AS
1.) - Children with AS might seem normal in family situations and have extreme stress when family is not present. Children with HFA have difficulty in all situations, including those with family.
I don't "seen mormal" in family situations
2.) - Children with AS are more likely to form attachments to family but not to strangers, while children with HFA tend to withdraw from everyone.
I'm likely to form attachments w/ anyone/I withdrow from anyone. It just depends on my mood
3.) - People with AS want friendships, whereas people with HFA do not care.
Well, I cannot object here. I want friendships
4.) - Children with AS might have precocious language development while children with HFA do not and might even have delayed language development.
I had precocious language development, but it was highly unusual (mixed languages, words no one could guess what they were,etc, i spelled the words)
5.) - People with AS usually do not have repetitive, stereotyped patterns of behavior except for the all-absorbing preoccupation with a special topic about which an extensive number of facts might be memorized, whereas people with HFA are more likely to engage in repetitive behaviors that draw attention such as head-banging, hand-flapping, and chewing.
I have repetitive and stereotyped patterns
6.) - People with AS are more likely to exhibit motor clumsiness. People with HFA are more likely to have average or above average motor skills.
I've awful gross motor abilities, so, yes i'm clumsy.
7.) - People with AS are more likely to be diagnosed as teenagers or adults while people with HFA are more likely to be diagnosed as children because of the slight differences in symptoms.
My parents knew of this when I was 4or 5, I was diagnosed when I was 9 or 10, just coz no-one knew about AS before
8.) - People with AS might be more imaginative than people with HFA.
I'm highly imaginative (much more than most NTs I know)

1. HFA/AS -- hard to tell, I do better around my family now.
2. AS
3. HFA/AS -- didn't want any until late, sometimes I do sometimes I don't.
4. AS
5. HFA
6. AS
7. AS
8. HFA

I can think of some more (mis)conceptions.

9. People with AS have a higher verbal IQ than people with HFA.
10. People with HFA are more oblivious or unaware of social rules.

This difference is a disputed matter in the research with some studies finding a difference while many other studies find no difference between the two. In any case the list you gave is the differences that have been proposed but these differences have not been consistently found in enough studies.

Bearing in mind that to find a difference there must be common traits found that are not in the DSM definition to qualify as truly different. In particular the case of adults is that there has been little evidence of difference which is one of the reasons why in the current DSM-5 it has been proposed that AS be removed as a seperate category.

For me:
1) HFA
2) HFA
3) AS
4) AS
5) AS (with repetitive behaviours that are kept unobtrusive but still present)
6) AS
7) AS
Don't know - Score lower on imagination tests than "typical" not sure where this would lie on AS/HFA comparison though.

Official diagnosis wise I meet AS criteria. Meet HFA criteria for all but language delay as a child.

Thank you all for your inputs.

It seems that of the 8 of us I'm the only one who had delayed language development. I'm also the only one who got diagnosed in infancy, but I think both may stem from the fact that I spend my first 4 years in an institution. As it were, once I began to develop language things happened fast and my skills are obviously above the average (even when taking my higher IQ into account). It may not show here, because I didn't grow up with English.

You seem to confirm what I found peculiar about the list: That people with AS would no have repetitive and stereotyped patterns. Also, as Ale notes on: My language were highly precocius to say the least, and many of us (aspies and HFA alike) have our hand-flapping, rocking, etc..
Lastly, something I didn't know that much about: It seems aspies generally do want friendships. I didn't think about this much before.

When I was a kid I really wanted friendships, but I also had a great need for privacy, a need that has grown larger over the years. I am also no longer quite as keen to make friendships, though I would value a few close ones greatly. Other than that I enjoy the less "strictly social" way of relating to others that come from meetings on "neutral" grounds such as f.ex. the Internet.


@Sydney,

can I ask you how it came to be that you were diagnosed with HFA and not AS?


@Coldkick,

I'm not sure where this list came from. I found it during a Google search on Autism and Asperger's Syndrome that led me to a Geocity page with a discussion about the possible connections between Autism, Asperger's and Psychopathy. I meant to link to the page but had lost it at the time. If you want me to, I'll try and look it up again. (I delete History along with Cookies i.e. frequently).


Turtle, ... I mean ...

@Skilpadde,

Yes, you're right: It shows how impossible it is to schematicize Autism, personality and the Human Condition in general. Autism is a spectrum.


@Callista,

Thanks for the official list of AS and HFA differences!

You mention that some aspies are extroverts. That's definitely true, I have some very extrovert traits, which also was something I noticed to be an overall difference between myself and most aspies that I've met and know.

You write: "We don't need the Asperger's Diagnosis".

We may get rid of it in the coming years. It certainly has helped stigmatize some of us, where for others it hs been beneficial. I'm not sure if you mean that we shouldn't attempt to chategorize people?
People will always try to understand people, and we do that by chategorizing, it's how our brains work. The problem is more in what is being done with the chategorizations, and what motivates and defines them.

*******

I get the impression that HFA was probably more originally part of a tentative definition of various "conditions" on the Autism Spectrum, whereas AS came into the picture when Hans Asperger wrote his project on psychopathy in children and found that some of them weren't psychopaths, but autistics.

News of late will tell that it is being speculated whether psychopathy is also an autism spectrum condition.

Interesting?

I'm not so worried about categorizing as I am about the results of the categorization. Categorizing people as "autistic" can help because autistic people often need different kinds of education or services from the ones NTs need. But categorizing AS versus autism doesn't help very much, because it results in assuming that people with AS cannot have "autistic" problems, and assuming that people with autism cannot have "AS" strengths, when in reality they are so close together as to be functionally the same thing.

When categories cause more problems than they solve, we don't need them. Granted, AS has had its function, and had its benefit over the years; Asperger's taught us that autistic people do not have to have speech delays or cognitive disability or be completely withdrawn. But now that we know that, AS is just hanging around being useless and getting professionals to assume that Aspies don't need help because "it's just Asperger's", and autistics can't be counted on to do anything useful because "they're autistic". That's no good, because neither of those stereotypes is even approaching true.

1 - mixed (in some phases of my life, I was more normal outside family!)
2- more HFA
3 -difficult to say (if you have an abstract desire for friendship, but if you not have desire to be friend of any concret person you jnow?)
4 - AS
5 - AS
6 - AS
7 - not diagnosed
8 - probably AS

1.) - Children with AS might seem normal in family situations and have extreme stress when family is not present. Children with HFA have difficulty in all situations, including those with family.
I'm pretty normal with my closest family, but when I was younger, I wasn't.

2.) - Children with AS are more likely to form attachments to family but not to strangers, while children with HFA tend to withdraw from everyone.
I prefer people I know and who are used to me.

3.) - People with AS want friendships, whereas people with HFA do not care.
I want friendships, but I have problems with howto.

4.) - Children with AS might have precocious language development while children with HFA do not and might even have delayed language development.
I wasn't delayed, I learned language quickly.

5.) - People with AS usually do not have repetitive, stereotyped patterns of behavior except for the all-absorbing preoccupation with a special topic about which an extensive number of facts might be memorized, whereas people with HFA are more likely to engage in repetitive behaviors that draw attention such as head-banging, hand-flapping, and chewing.
I have my obsessive topics, but I also rock, jump, flap and repeat words/phrases.

6.) - People with AS are more likely to exhibit motor clumsiness. People with HFA are more likely to have average or above average motor skills.
I'm clumsy and dyspraxic.

7.) - People with AS are more likely to be diagnosed as teenagers or adults while people with HFA are more likely to be diagnosed as children because of the slight differences in symptoms.
When I was a child, AS and HFA wasn't known. Auties were thought as ret*d, rocking kids.I was just odd and terrible kid, but intelligent. I was dxed when I was 18.

8.) - People with AS might be more imaginative than people with HFA.
I can imagine something if it doesn't require emotions and feelings knowledge.

@Sydney,

can I ask you how it came to be that you were diagnosed with HFA and not AS?

delayed milestones in walkign and takling. I still have lots of dificutly with talking. I was diagnoes with mental retardatin when I was little. After a IQ test I have inteligence with in normal levels. they said I have clasic autism. that it is shokign it was not diagnosed when I was litle. instead i was diagnosed with mental retardation and verabl apraxia when I was a little bit older than that and some other thigns. I do not have mental retardation. I still have apraxia. it is the spech type. I didn't learn to read beyond the msot easy leavel until 16 years age. Also it is about how when I was little I just would sit on my own all day in the corner of my room and look ahead at nothing and scream if a person got to close. the psycogist says that is clasic autism. but a inteligence with in normal leavels. Also I have improved alot and have done some of a unviersity corse that is why I am diagnosed high funtionign autism. on the paper it says autistc disorder. btu we got told I am high funtioning.

1.) - AS most of the time.
2.) - AS
3.) - HFA
4.) - AS
5.) - AS most of the time.
6.) - AS
8.) - AS I guess.

Unless a certain friend of mine is actually secretly an Aspie, this list is incorrect. (And if she were an Aspie, then the list would still be incorrect.)

As for me, I'm a diagnosed Aspie, and running myself through:

1. Neither possibility has ever described me, but the HFA description comes closer.
2. Again, I'm not either of these clearly. On the one hand, I have formed emotional bonds with my family (as well as some non-family), but on the other, if I don't withdraw from my family I don't know what could possibly count.
3. Used to want friendships intensely, now will take them if I can get them but don't care enough to seek them out for their own sake. So first AS, then HFA (stop the presses, Aspie becomes Autie rather than vice versa).
4. Aspie. This one is clear-cut.
5. This one depends on what you'd consider repetitive and stereotyped. Does pacing a set path and touching certain specific things as I pass them count? Because as the list is phrased it seems that only self-injury can be repetitive and stereotyped. (And if hand-flapping counts, does rocking?)
6. Wonder where you got that one from, but yes, Aspie here, clumsy.
7. I was diagnosed as a child.
8. I would consider myself imaginative, but doubt the validity of this item.

1.) - Children with AS might seem normal in family situations and have extreme stress when family is not present. Children with HFA have difficulty in all situations, including those with family.

I've had lots of problems with my parents sense I was a kid. I got along better with other family but I still had problems & I was not around other family as much.

2.) - Children with AS are more likely to form attachments to family but not to strangers, while children with HFA tend to withdraw from everyone.

I never been close to my family but the only family members I'm around a lot are my parents & we've had lots of problems getting along. I am NOT close to anyone offline

3.) - People with AS want friendships, whereas people with HFA do not care.

I do want friendships but I get so stressed-out/overwhelmed by things sometimes that I think I'm better off not having any freinds at all & don't want em at times.

4.) - Children with AS might have precocious language development while children with HFA do not and might even have delayed language development.

What does precocious language development mean
I was in speech therapy till I started high-school & I still have problems at times. Stutter/slur, talk to loud, talk to low, mumble, don't pronounce the S or Th sound correctly sometimes

5.) - People with AS usually do not have repetitive, stereotyped patterns of behavior except for the all-absorbing preoccupation with a special topic about which an extensive number of facts might be memorized, whereas people with HFA are more likely to engage in repetitive behaviors that draw attention such as head-banging, hand-flapping, and chewing.

I was diagnosed as having OCD & OCPD. I love routine & I have lots of problems with sudden changes. I head-banged & rocked quite lot as a kid & I still do but I also air-guitar to sometimes like Bill N Ted now but I only do that in private.

6.) - People with AS are more likely to exhibit motor clumsiness. People with HFA are more likely to have average or above average motor skills.

I am very clumsy at times but I'm diagnosed as having "Essential Tremors" & having bad fine motor skills goes along with it & being clumsy is not uncommon with it.

7.) - People with AS are more likely to be diagnosed as teenagers or adults while people with HFA are more likely to be diagnosed as children because of the slight differences in symptoms.

My mom suspected I was autistic sense I was a toddler but when she mentioned it to my general practitioner he laughed & said "Nick's just being Nick". I saw a psych in high-school to get recertificated for dyslexia & he thought I had AS but he couldn't diagnoses. I saw a psych when was I was 20 cuz I was having a mental breakdown & she said I had AS but when I saw a doc for an official diagnoses; he said I had Schizoid Personality Disorder instead & other psychs I saw after all seemed to think I had SPD instead.

8.) - People with AS might be more imaginative than people with HFA.

I day-dreamed quite a lot as a kid & I still do but I think the meds made my imagination worse cuz I zone out more but my imagination isn't as good/colorful as it was when I was a kid.

I sometimes feel like I mite be mentally retorted sometimes cuz I have lots of problems at times. I was called retorted a lot as a kid. Other times thou I feel like I'm not really dysfunctional; I'm just different than the norm