There is a spectrum of different kinds of autism aspergers, ASD, PDD-NOS, Autism, Retts syndrome there are other things on the spectrum too. If your son was aspergers then he would have gotten a diagnosis of aspergers, not autism. I hope I answered your question, I know it is a bit confusing. I was told to look at the spectrum as an umbrella and all of these things fall on the autistic spectrum. Good luck Hugs Denise

I think they just guess on diagnosis.I question moderate, high functioning and severe.If they have aspergers I think they are better with speach or less effected by the autism.The other three can change so I dont think they know really Autism might be different things and they just call it autism thats what I think.I worry my son might have a little angels man syndrome and going to find out by doctor we have an office visit, but hes not a specialist so I will probably get referred.What about the children who just have Sensory Integration Disorder no autism.I am not relying on his first diagnosis by 2 woman who play tested him at age 3 and came back to say moderate autism.Im pretty sure they guess.

I've read on it and asked about it and I still don't get it. However, I do like the name aspergers because its a way to differentiate myself from classic autism in a way regular people can understand. I wouldn't really want to explain myself as autistic, since I definitely do not have to deal with the kinds of things present in classic autism, and any type of high-functioning autism is a completely different thing than classic autism.

I WAS GIVEN THE RUN AROUND TO UNTIL THE NEUROPHYCIATRIST TOLD ME THAT KIDS WITH ASPERGERS HAVE PERFECT SPEECH. THEY TALK VERY MECHANICAL AND CORRECTLY. WHILE KIDS WITH AUTISM HAVE SPEECH DELAYS AND OTHER SPEECH PROBLEMS. SO IF YOUR SON DOESNT TALK. ITS PROBABLY AUTISIM SPECTRUM. WHICH ISNT ANY BETTER OR WORSE. BUT IF YOUR ARE NEEDING FINANCIAL AIDE OR APPLING FOR SSI. YOU NEED TO GET AN AUTISIM DIAGNOSIS BECAUSE ASPERGERS IS NOT COVERED.

My son was diagnosed with high-functioning autism at the age of four years old. He did not talk, and was sensitive to light, sound and touch. When he was diagnosed, no one was using the term Aspergers. Today, my son is 23 years old. They now say that he has Aspergers. Aspergers is a milder form of autism. I'll be honest with you, I'm confused too. I don't see how my son as Aspergers if he was speech delayed. It doesn't make sense to me.

ok. here goes... i will try!
think of autism spectrum as a ladder wiht lots of runs on it. the ladder is called the autism spectrum. every run except the top one is autism. the top one looks a bit different and is not the same shape/colour but you can use it just the same. this is the aspergers run. so, they are all part of the same thing (autism spectrum) but a man called dr.hans aspergr discovred that within this spectrum there was a difference with some clients who had marked ability with language although it was odd and also usually had normal or above i.q. they may have previously been diagnosed with 'semantic pragmatic' speech as this is typical of a person with aspergers. they have lots of 'autistic traits' that define thm as being on the spectrum.


totally confused? i hope not! i hope i have made it just a little clearer!!!

OMT you know what is funny they say that Einstein had aspergers, but he didn't even speak until age 5 or so. Wierd huh?

my son was diagnosed from age 4 until last november with asperger's. the doc here said he is now autistic, high functioning. they said he couldn't have asperger's because he has a speech delay.

Too bad, Einstein is not around to straighten out this confusion. My son's doctor says that Aspergers best describes my son as he is now. It doesn't seem to matter that when he was young he had all the problems that he did which includes no speech.

I found it interesting that LV2BMOM said that you have to have the Autism label to get SSI. I've applied for SSI twice for my son and have been denied both times. At 23 years old, he is unable to drive a car and the longest that he was able to hold a job was for one month. He currently is attending a local technical college. It's my hope that when he completes his schooling that he will have more success in keeping a job.

We have 2 boys one 13 who was Diagnosed Aspergers when he was 4,and recently our youngest who is nearly 3 has been diagonsed with Autism..we see a lot of similarities with both boys..the only difference that we have picked up on so far is that our Oldest didnt have no delays..where as our youngest has delays in all areas of his development.
It is such a complicated thing I find it hard to even try to understand it.