Examining the Overlap of High Functioning Autism and Asperger's Syndrome

Ever since Asperger’s Syndrome has become an accepted diagnosis in the western world, the overall overlap of high functioning autism and Asperger’s Syndrome has been a thorn in the sides of clinical psychologists and physicians. It is hard to ascertain where one condition begins and the other stops. In the most general terms, a high functioning autistic patient will not show the signs of disability that those who suffer from other aspects of the autism spectrum will display.

The IQ is measured at or above 85, and verbal development is adequate. The same, of course, can be said from a patient suffering with Asperger’s Syndrome. There is not mental retardation but the use of language is different from the way an individual without the condition would utilize it. There is a noticeable lack of emotional inflection in the speech patterns of Asperger’s patients, and furthermore they show a marked lack of understanding when it comes to sarcasm, irony, and other language based humor. Body language is not properly developed either.

The problem of course arises from the fact that both conditions are found under the umbrella of neurodevelopment disruptions and as such inhibit speech development, learning abilities, and also proper socialization techniques. Moreover, the individual sufferer will enlist a number of self protecting mechanisms to make up for the perceived lack in development and also the reaction that it garners from peers and others. Some physicians have gone so far as to suggest that both high functioning autism and Asperger’s Syndrome have too vast an overlap to be entirely separate conditions and instead champion the notion that both are one and the same variant of autism.

Others, most commonly those who have yet to warm up to the notion of Asperger’s Syndrome as its own disorder to begin with, comment that the latter is indeed little more than high functioning autism and not its own condition in the least. To the patients and their families this is little more than academic bickering and truly does not bring about any changes in treatment or even diagnosis. It is therefore the kind of discussion that is generally limited to behind closed door discussions at symposiums and other medical conferences where the intricacies of the conditions are discussed and separated, but where little progress in treatment is usually logged.

Without a doubt, the fine lines between the two conditions are indeed blurred, and the overlap of Asperger’s Syndrome and high functioning autism is extreme. It makes sense that so many believe both to be just another side of the same coin, and even though there is little doubt that the research Hans Asperger conducted in 1944 yielded respectable values for those who did not fit the usual autism spectrum, there is also a strong likelihood that he may have unwittingly included some high functioning autistic children in his studies. Using the terminology of Dr. Asperger’s findings, however, is crucial when seeking to discuss a group of individuals who display a similar set of visible symptoms that all appear to shape the way an individual develops intellectually and socially.