Does My Child have Asperger's Syndrome or Autism Spectrum Disorder?

As mentioned in our last week's blog, under the old diagnosis DSW-IV, Asperger Syndrome, and Autism Spectrum Disorder were considered separate diagnoses despite being both neurodevelopmental disorders. Though under the new diagnosis released in 2013 called DSW 5, Asperger syndrome, classic autism, and other pervasive neurodevelopmental disorder are all categorized under the same umbrella term - Autism Spectrum Disorder.

That being said, Asperger Syndrome is a form of Autism, all forms of autism is Autism Spectrum Disorder and they are identified by the level of severity under DSW 5. With a new diagnosis framework, it pushes us away from the assumption that high IQ= more capable in reading, writing, and speaking as seen from our previous blog: High-functioning Autism? Low-functioning Autism?

Note: here we use classic autism, aka low functioning autism to describe the population presenting with the typical autistic features.

Historically, Asperger's syndrome was referred to as 'high functioning autism'. In casual terms, one would describe it as 'A child with a hint of autism' or that they are normal developing children with slight abnormal behaviors.

To have a better understanding, we will need to learn about what classic autism, Asperger's Syndrome and high functioning autism are. Here is a table I composed to make things clearer.

In short, what separates Asperger's syndrome from the rest are the absence of speech or language delay and the mild symptoms compared to autism.

In terms of severity, Asperger's syndrome is on the mild spectrum and low functioning autism being the most severe due to features as illustrated from our table.

I hope this blog has cleared things up and you have had a better understanding of all these terms. It is really interesting to sort out all of these definitions as this has been a big question in my mind, these big questions have never struck me until I was doing my research for the previous blog about different categories of autism.

Before I go, If would like to learn more, click here for an article from the Autism Society about the history and features of Asperger's Syndrome.

Thank you for reading and hope you all have a great day!

and don't forget to smile.

Joyce Lau