Aspergers vs. Autism?

Question

I know that Autism occurs on a spectrum but I have noticed some things about Aspergers that seem to be opposite of full blown autism.
My sister (11) was diagnosed with Moderate autism when she was a toddler. She communicates mostly by sign langauge and hand gestures, but she will speak verbally with the family when she wants although she has a very limited vocabulary. I knew several people with Aspergers in high school, and while they struggled to communicate in a socially appropriate way, they often used large words.

Another important difference with my sister is that she has never been able to play pretend games and plays with toys differently than other kids. If she watches a cartoon, she will state the facts of it rather than talk about the storyline. She has no interest in fiction and would rather look at a map than hear a story. Wheras the people I have known with Aspergers seem to like fiction a lot, sometimes material intended for a younger audience, but they do enjoy it.

I understand that people with Aspergers struggle a lot and they should be helped, but I feel like it shouldn't be grouped with Autism because they are so different. I know that no two people with Autism are alike, but like I said...

Also I dont mean everyone. Just who I know.

Answer 1

Just so you know, I have Aspergers and I do not like Fictioon much as I just find it difficult to follow the whole storyline, I tend to just see the details but never the whole picture. And therefore prefer to read factual information. I also prefer to look at maps too then listen to a story.



But then again that is is just me. No two people with Aspergers are the same and it's exactly the same for other Austism spectrum disorders.



The new labelling diagnosis structure is rather flawed in my opinion and I think it just makes things more complicated. The levels don’t really say much at all for example someone with Autism may be rather academically gifted, but suffers from severe anxiety and would not communicate inn the same ways a as others. What kind of level would you put this person in? Are they considered high or low functioning?



I don't believe there is such thing as High functioning and low functioning either. All people with Autism have different levels of functioning in different departments. So just because someone struggles with communication, you can't say they are going to struggle with school woek. And just because someone is a genius, you can't say they are going to be the same for everything else.



Your sister sounds rather intelligent really. I have geared many stories about people with Autism do find amazing ways to communicate with the world. The nuerotypicals can only seem to function communicating in one way.



I know Aspergers and Autism is different, there are differences with language vocabulary.



Also differences in connectivity within other parts of the brain's left hemisphere. Connections between several regions were stronger in children with Asperger's than in other children, including those with autism.

Answer 2

The real name now is Autism Spectrum Disorder or ASD. This means that the ways the traits of autism effect you lie along a spectrum. (Inability to make good eye contact and inability to tolerate scratchy textures/tactile defensive would be considered traits of autism.) Some traits might be present in very severe forms (cannot stand wearing any clothing that has not been washed multiple times) and others in very mild forms (can make good eye contact) in the same person. Some might have only milder or severe traits. Some may have almost entirely milder traits and have one severe trait. Some have nearly all severe traits, but have one trait where they excel (often called savants.) It's very hard to pigeon hole a person into a distinct level of diagnosis, so people are evaluated on the basis of how well they function in the world, not of the basis of the presense or absense of specific traits.



While there has been quite an uproar about the change, I think in the end it will much more accurately describe the way a person actual functions with autism.

Answer 3

Autism and Asperger Syndrome are not that different.



The only real difference between diagnosis Asperger Syndrome and diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder is that the latter has developmental delays. There is no other clear difference outside of that distinguishing factor - thus why Asperger Syndrome was merged with Autism diagnosis, and it's commonly believed that many who have the diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome do so only because doctors preferred this diagnosis to attaching the stigma of Autism to children or scaring parents.



Autistic people are all different and impacted in different ways by their neurology - you have met people with Asperger Syndrome who are different to your sister, who show different characteristics or have different functioning abilities, that doesn't mean that Asperger Syndrome and Autism are hugely different. If you were to take a person with an AS diagnosis and one with an ASD diagnosis, both the same age and with similar characteristics, you would not be able to tell the difference. Your peers seem different to your sister as they don't have developmental delays and have different communication problems (e.g. they've clear social communication issues, but fewer general communication problems).



I'm diagnosed as Autistic as I was non-verbal as a child, along with other characteristics I was very severely affected as a child - it sounds likely I was more severely impacted than your sister when I was her age - by the end of high school I was closer to how you describe the people with Asperger Syndrome you know in high school, and as an adult I can pass for neurotypical. For the record I've a very high IQ and don't have mental or physical developmental delays, also I know many people who have a diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome but who have far more severe problems compared to me despite my ASD diagnosis.



The idea that Autism = 'low-functioning' / Asperger Syndrome = 'high-functioning' is false.



This is where the spectrum comes in, it's not just that the autism spectrum is one straight line with more severely impacted people (e.g. Autism) on one end and less severely impacted people (e.g. Asperger Syndrome) on the other. As well as the fact that how a persons autism presents will typically change dramatically throughout their lives, but how a person is affected and the severity will differ too - e.g. your sister may have more severe communication issues to those you've known in high school, but for all you know those you've known in high school may have more severe executive dysfunction than your sister.



This is a nice explanation of the spectrum that explains a little more of what I mean:

http://alannarosewhitney.tumblr.com/post/113254781979/shades-of-slander

Answer 4

There seems to be some difference in cognitive profiles between autism and Asperger's - even though they are no longer differentiated (ASD is now only differentiated by level of functioning). For one, in Asperger's -a person's verbal IQ will be usually be higher than a person's visual-spatial intelligence- often by several points. In this way, Asperger's can sometimes have a lot of overlap with Nonverbal learning disorder. NLD often presents similarly to Asperger's , and it is a disability in which a person has impaired visual-spatial reasoning and some difficulty picking up on nonverbal communication.



Autistic disorder on the other hand, is often associated with speech and language delays. A person with autism may always struggle with language their entire lives- and some may think and reason primarily in pictures. A person with autism may have the opposite cognitive profile of Asperger's- with verbal abilities being lower than visual spatial.



A lot of the difference may come from how the disorders were defined. Asperger's specifically excluded those with significant speech or developmental delays. So in order to have a problem - they have to have issues in other forms of communication than verbal. People with Asperger's usually develop vocabulary normally but have a difficulty in picking up on social context and tone of voice.



Since autism is usually more severe than Asperger's , a person with autism can have a greater range of impairments- and a higher degree of autistic thinking. While a person with Asperger's will have a narrower range of problems and their thinking patterns will be closer to normal. So you are more likely to see certain autistic symptoms in a person with autism than in a person with Asperger's.





The problem with keeping the two as separate diagnostic labels is that there hasn't been clear neurologica evidence that Asperger's is anything other than a milder form of autism. And since the criteria for an Asperger's diagnosis excludes those who have significant disability - the difference in functioning level between autism is Asperger's could just be tautological- Asperger's is less severe since its defined as such.

Answer 5

This is a very, very basic example of the differences.



Asperger's (some of them) patients are often highly intelligent, but socially inept. They are on different ends of the "Autism Spectrum," just like there are poorly functioning Austism sufferers and poorly functioning Asperger sufferers.



Consider it like this ... think of a "Learning Disability" Spectrum, with someone with an IQ of 20 on one end, and someone with an IQ of 160 on the other.



Even Steven Hawking has learning disabilities, based on his medical situation, but he's got an IQ of 160.



He's still on the learning disability spectrum, even though his disabilities aren't all intellectual.

Answer 6

Your sister is somehow like me...but I am not diagnosed with Asperger or Autism (or the doctor hasn't found it in me yet)?

My big old brother is in his mid 20s now and he has autism but he is a rare case. He cannot speak at all (brain development remains as a two year old), he communicates using hand gestures or screams. He has no interest in watching long cartoons, films, whatever,with the exception of old disney short clips (those in 60s, 70s) and Armenian movie scenes (two or three minute scene). Anyway, he cannot focus for long and my family never know how to communicate with him properly. He just like reading maps and remembering all train station names. He doesn't even know how to play games.

In my early years when my brother was with Asperger schoolmates, they acted like my brother though, only that they could speak but in a messy way (don't know how to communicate in a nice and polite way), they didn't like fictions, they like watching documentary (real-life things), reading maps, focusing on facts than imaginary things



Indeed, I notice that Asperger have normal cognition and communication level , their IQ are normal and even higher than normal people, whereas autism are usually having communication and cognition problems, their IQ are not normal either. But I would say Asperger is High-functioning autism whereas the common autism we know is low-functioning autism.

Answer 7

As someone with Aspergers- I'll state the differance is degree.

Answer 8

they are the same thing. autism is a spectrum which includes aspergers