My LB is under assesment at the moment. First they mentioned ADHD then said he had aspergers traits now they seem to be swaying more to autism.
Can anyone explain to me whats the difference between aspergers and autism? Everything I found on google was very vague.
thanks
IntenseWorld said:[quote]Apologies IntenseWorld, I didn't realise you'd been appointed Arbiter Of What Should Be Discussed In A Given Thread And What Titles Threads On A Given Topic Should Have.[/quote]
Now, now, now! Sarcasm uncalled for.
I was just stating facts, as an Aspie, I deal in facts and logic.
I was just pulling your leg.
Scorpion0x17 said:... in fact, of more importance in answering the question "what is the difference between Autism and Asperger's?" than what the criteria actually says.
Try telling OP that, she just asked a question she was entitled to ask and just wanted a simple answer. What else are threads asking questions meant for! Maybe you could start a thread asking the question you feel more important?
Scorpion0x17 said:Apologies IntenseWorld, I didn't realise you'd been appointed Arbiter Of What Should Be Discussed In A Given Thread And What Titles Threads On A Given Topic Should Have.
Now, now, now! Sarcasm uncalled for. I was just stating facts, as an Aspie, I deal in facts and logic.
IntenseWorld said:[quote][quote]Debating clinicians not following diagnostic criteria correctly is irrelevant on this thread.[/quote][/quote]
I disagree, IntenseWorld.
The discussion gets to the very heart of the question of what the differences between Asperger's, High Functioning Autism, PD-NOS, and Classical Autism really are.
Sometimes it just comes down to nothing more than the diagnosing clinician's personal view of where to draw the, very fuzzy, lines between them.
I'm not saying that clinicians don't do that - indeed they do, but the question was, what's the difference between HFA and AS. I explained what it is, and gave the NAS link about it. How clinicians interpret diagnostic criteria is a separate issue. That would need a thread entitled "why do clinicians not stick rigidly to HFA/AS diagnostic criteria?" or "why do clinicians diagnose on a whim!"
Apologies IntenseWorld, I didn't realise you'd been appointed Arbiter Of What Should Be Discussed In A Given Thread And What Titles Threads On A Given Topic Should Have.
But, to get back to the question in hand, whilst I agree that it would be nice for diagnosing clinicians to stick rigidly to the criteria as laid down by the diagnostic manuals, the practical reality is that because the Autistic Spectrum is just that, a Spectrum, it is impossible to define criteria that will uniquely and unfailingly place everyone on the spectrum into one box or another.
The truth of the matter is that the boundaries between the conditions are blurry, and ill defined, and, so, clinicians have to use their judgement when deciding upon the appropriate diagnosis.
It is also the case that the diagnostic criteria are informed by the way they are applied by clinicians.
It is therefore arguable that the way clinicians choose to interpret the diagnostic criteria is, in fact, of more importance in answering the question "what is the difference between Autism and Asperger's?" than what the criteria actually says.
stranger said:Does it matter why there's speech delay? I was talking to a friend who mentioned that his eldest son may have Aspergers. His son is moderately to severely deaf and because of being deaf, he was behind on speech comapred to his peers. He has now caught up, due to speech therapy though.
It does if that is the defining diagnostic criteria at any given time. What has happened with your friend is an example of what I said up the thread, if there is awareness of another diagnosis (or medical cause) for speech delay then it's going to be that, less likely to be the autism, although unless a test can prove it there will be no way to be 100% sure.
One thing that is interesting, is that there might actually be more than speech delay/regression that is different between HFA and AS. A PhD researcher I spoke to whilst taking part in autism research told me that there is a pattern specific to HFA peoples' answers as opposed to AS peoples' answers, so perhaps something else is going on in the brain.
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.
Scorpion0x17 said:[quote]Debating clinicians not following diagnostic criteria correctly is irrelevant on this thread.[/quote]
I disagree, IntenseWorld.
The discussion gets to the very heart of the question of what the differences between Asperger's, High Functioning Autism, PD-NOS, and Classical Autism really are.
Sometimes it just comes down to nothing more than the diagnosing clinician's personal view of where to draw the, very fuzzy, lines between them.
I'm not saying that clinicians don't do that - indeed they do, but the question was, what's the difference between HFA and AS. I explained what it is, and gave the NAS link about it. How clinicians interpret diagnostic criteria is a separate issue. That would need a thread entitled "why do clinicians not stick rigidly to HFA/AS diagnostic criteria?" or "why do clinicians diagnose on a whim!"
Does it matter why there's speech delay? I was talking to a friend who mentioned that his eldest son may have Aspergers. His son is moderately to severely deaf and because of being deaf, he was behind on speech comapred to his peers. He has now caught up, due to speech therapy though.
IntenseWorld said:Debating clinicians not following diagnostic criteria correctly is irrelevant on this thread.
I disagree, IntenseWorld.
The discussion gets to the very heart of the question of what the differences between Asperger's, High Functioning Autism, PD-NOS, and Classical Autism really are.
Sometimes it just comes down to nothing more than the diagnosing clinician's personal view of where to draw the, very fuzzy, lines between them.
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.
...which as we know, means humans are fallible - ergo they are diagnosing incorrectly if they fail to follow the diagnostic criteria.
Diagnostic criteria actually are set in stone, that's why they are there. The fact that individual clinicians decide to diagnose outside of them doesn't make it right, hence misdiagnosis.
It's extremely unlikely, that barring a physical impairment/other genetic condition or brain injury, an autistic person would have a speech delay/regression that wasn't because of their autism. If they had one of the aforementioned reasons for their speech issues it likely would have been picked up on already. Whether it matters or not when you learnt to speak, that's what the diagnostic manuals say. And we are talking about both delayed speech and speech regression here, let's be clear.
Anyway, yet another derailment doesn't help OP, who came to ask a simple question, which I answered. Debating clinicians not following diagnostic criteria correctly is irrelevant on this thread.
Technically, IntenseWorld is correct. The diagnostic criteria for Asperger's state that language development must be normal.
Practically, however, Hope is probably also correct. The diagnostic criteria are applied by (probably usually neurotypical) human beings, not machines.
''Well in that case they were diagnosed with the wrong ASC''. I don't think this is necessarily correct in all cases. As you yourself mention, there can be other reasons for speech delay, not just autism. Some people with very clear Asperger symptoms, still do not speak until they are quite old. In any case, the distinction between HFA and Aspergers is blurry and vague. Does it really matter for diagnostic purposes when you learnt to speak, when what matters is how well you function at a given time and context?
And diagnostic criteria are not set in stone, and individual clinicians do use their own judgement. The guy I mentioned was diagnosed with Aspergers, not HFA, despite his early speech delay.
Well in that case they were diagnosed with the wrong ASC.
You are correct that autism is not the only reason for a speech delay. Therefore it seems possible that as some relatives of people with ASC can have some sub-clinical traits that language delay could be one of those.
It states in that NAS link I gave above:
Language development
This is the area that probably causes the greatest controversy. Both ICD-10 and DSM-IV1 state that for a diagnosis of Asperger syndrome, spoken language development must be normal. Children with high-functioning autism may have had significant language delay. However, Asperger's original descriptions of the condition stated that speech and language peculiarities are a key feature of Asperger syndrome. Often diagnoses of Asperger syndrome are made when a child is quite old and they or their parents may have difficulty remembering the details of their language development.
The diagnostic criteria do not differ - and in any case we use the ICD-10 in this country regardless of what other countries use.
And yet some people, later diagnosed with Aspergers, did experience speech delay. I know someone with very high-functioning Aspergers who did not speak until he was five.
Also, people without ASD, such as my own mother, sometimes do not speak until very late - maybe there is a genetic link in families, between late development of speach and ASD?
I have Aspergers, and I did speak on time.
Different diagnostic criteria vary as to what they consider to be the defining distinction between Aspergers and classic autism.
This is from this website:
However, if he has more severe traits and an IQ below average he may get a diagnosis of classic autism.
The difference between Asperger's syndrome and "high-functioning" autism is that in Asperger's there was no speech delay or regression.
nothing.. aspergers does not even exist as a diagnosis title,, it is named after a scientist, it really should be removed as a medical label. The AUTISM SPECTRUM, has four points on it like a + shape (on the right side is low cognitive, high cognitive, on the left is low emotional coping, low emotional coping),, low cognitive, low emotional coping,, is the severe end of autism (child brain),,, high cognitive, low emotional coping is the cognitive learning curve side (child brain, adult mind),, is called the mild autism or aspergers after the guy who discovered the little professors, so the real name is high functioning autism and even that is wrong to say. Autism is autism, it really is down the support needed and development ability of the person.
Anyway that is my understanding,, with mild autism (cognitively high, low emotional coping)
