9:16pm November 16, 2014

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Professionals on the other hand, often come across a functionally able person with autism and wrongly assume (sometimes even insist) that that person therefore has Asperger Syndrome, not autism.  This type of thinking wrongly reinforces the current stereotypes and prognoses of the two conditions, that people with Asperger Syndrome re of normal or above average itelligence and people with autism are generally not and that people with Asperger Syndrome generallly go on to live independent lives and people with autism do not.  What I have seen, however, is something similar happening among less functionally able people.

There are non-verbal low functioning people with Asperger syndrome who are labelled autistic but who, often quite unlike their autistic counterparts, have excellent receptive language, can approach others in a directly confrontational way (i.e. to take a hand and remove someone from the room or have them get something) and have only minor sensory-perceptual problems (demonstrating far fewer ‘bizarre’ autistic behaviours which can stem from exposure anxiety, sensory hypersensitivity or perceptual problems).  By contrast, children with autism with the same low level of functioning often have markedly poor receptive language both visually and auditorily, have problems with connected body sense and body perception and often cannot bear the exposure of initiating direct and personal action with another person, sometimes ending up denying the want or need they’d had and engaging instead in sensations or actions to tune out awareness.

Though both may have poor language skills, one may not speak because of a lack of social instinct in spite of the (more muiltitrack) capacity for the skills and lack of the want or need to use speech.  theo ther may not use speech, in spite of intense social instinct, because the various systems aren’t on line or exposure anxiety or sensory hypersensitivities make it uncomfortable either to use speech, or encourage others to.  In other words, one may be a case of lack of social instinct in spite of ability, the other may be a case of inability or extreme difficulty in developing or using soical skills in spite of intense social instinct.  When profesionals see the difference in terms of high or low functioning they may fail to see the different types of assistance these groups needs, and the fact that a low functioning Asperger can be misdiagnosed as autistic says something for the hope of many labelled 'autistic’ and given hopeless prognoses.

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Donna Williams, Autism: An Inside-Out Approach

If you disregard some of the language used, what she’s describing is something I’ve been trying to describe for years: That there are people who are stereotypical “aspies” in every way except they are nonverbal and therefore labeled LFA. And that this fact is totally ignored by pretty much everyone because it would muck up their classification systems of high and low functioning, as well as autism and Asperger.

As far as the language Donna is using, I find it’s more important to figure out what she means by it than to castigate her for not using the same words I would use. And what she means by it… she’s describing something extremely real that nobody ever talks about. I don’t, personally, believe that either HFA/MFA/LFA or autism/AS/PDDNOS/CDD/RS are accurate ways to divide up the spectrum (except maybe Rett’s), but I understand the idea she’s trying to get at here and that’s what’s importantl

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