whats the difference between asperger and autism?

Hope said:

As I have aleady mentioned, my mother, who does not have autism did not speak until she was over three. If she also had autism, she would be diagnosed as 'high-functioning', not Aspergers. But what if you have every other symptom of Aspergers, but learnt to speak late? In fact, there is a a lot of debate about this, and things are not set in stone. As Tony Attwood writes in his Complete Guide p42, ''the current criteria in DSM-IV have been criticised by speech and language pathologists with regard to the statement that for children and adults to achieve a diagnosis of Aspergers, there is no clinically significant general delay in language. In other words, if there have been signs of early language delay, then the diagnosis should not be Aspergers, but autism, even if all the other criteria and the current profile of abilities are met for Aspergers....the term clinically significant is neither scientific nor precise and left to the judgement of clinicians...the DSM criteria describe a child who actually has a significant language delay (!)''

Children can also depart massively from the statistical norm of language attainment, and still be quite 'normal' in other respects.

Diagnostic criteria change according to the latest research findings.

Regarding your second and third sentences, you may be correct, but then how are clinicians to know (without some other diagnosis already made for the speech delay) what the delay/regression was down to with autism present?  It's guess work until a medical way exists to prove it all.

RE the DSM - this is one of the reasons it was revised.

Yes they do change, but a diagnosis given when a particular diagnostic manual is in use is correct or incorrect at that time, so I'm not sure of your point.  Whilst a manual is in use it is written in stone until a new manual is written.

Hope said:

As I have aleady mentioned, my mother, who does not have autism did not speak until she was over three. If she also had autism, she would be diagnosed as 'high-functioning', not Aspergers. But what if you have every other symptom of Aspergers, but learnt to speak late? In fact, there is a a lot of debate about this, and things are not set in stone. As Tony Attwood writes in his Complete Guide p42, ''the current criteria in DSM-IV have been criticised by speech and language pathologists with regard to the statement that for children and adults to achieve a diagnosis of Aspergers, there is no clinically significant general delay in language. In other words, if there have been signs of early language delay, then the diagnosis should not be Aspergers, but autism, even if all the other criteria and the current profile of abilities are met for Aspergers....the term clinically significant is neither scientific nor precise and left to the judgement of clinicians...the DSM criteria describe a child who actually has a significant language delay (!)''

Children can also depart massively from the statistical norm of language attainment, and still be quite 'normal' in other respects.

Diagnostic criteria change according to the latest research findings.

Regarding your second and third sentences, you may be correct, but then how are clinicians to know (without some other diagnosis already made for the speech delay) what the delay/regression was down to with autism present?  It's guess work until a medical way exists to prove it all.

RE the DSM - this is one of the reasons it was revised.

Yes they do change, but a diagnosis given when a particular diagnostic manual is in use is correct or incorrect at that time, so I'm not sure of your point.  Whilst a manual is in use it is written in stone until a new manual is written.