Question after neurodevelopmental appoint.

[jolley]

I just took ds 7 and ds 5 to their appointment today and I totally forgot to ask the doc a question.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ASPERGERS AND HIGH FUNCTIONING AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER?

The "official" term has been changed on his paper. He told me his reasoning of why (ds 7s language skills) and it makes sense. But is it just language that makes the distiction? I just forgot to ask the difference between the two. Any info you can give, without me calling him AGAIN and driving the guy nuts;), would be appreciated! Thank you.

[Misty]

My understanding is that Asperger's kids generally do not have speech delay. HFA kids do typically have speech delay.

Also, it has been noted that Asperger kids do want friends and they do want to interact with people. It's just that they are completely clueless in how to go about this (or they tend to make a lot of mistakes). HFA kids generally do not mind that they do not have friends. They do not care much about social interaction.

After all of my research, these are the only two differences I have come across. They are both PDD's and both Autism Spectrum Disorders. Maybe someone else can add more to this?

[Dobela]

I think this discussion describes some of the confusion in the community LOL. My brother was first diagnosed with Asperger's. His diagnosis was based on 2 major things. One, he had high scores on IQ (abouve average), and had great scores in some areas of academic ability (like a college level vocabulary when just vocabulary was assessed) but he could only work and apply all of this at a much lower level (think kindergarten-6th grade) that made it look like broad LD. Two, his absolute inability to understand social cues and act appropriately in social situations even with coaching. Then, 2 years later, a different person evaluated him and disgnosed HFA. The only difference was that the second evaluator looked more closely at early childhood history. In my brother's history he didn't speak at all until after age 2. The second evaluator said that this lack of early language makes the puzzle look like Autism, not Aspergers.


When I was teaching on a preK level at a developmental preK for children with delays, we often had children who came initially with a diagnosis of Autism at the 2-3 yr old level. If they quickly made progress in expressive language after intervention, it was not uncommon for their diagnosis to change from Autism to PDD-NOS or Aspergers at follow-up apts with medical specialists.