aspies understand auties about as well as NTs understand aspies.
everyone talks about how NTs dont understand them, what about how you dont understand aspies?
no one ever seems to notice that.
Are you saying that LFAs best understand other LFAs in a room together? I'm just curious
actually yes, i find it icreadably easy to communicate with other autistics, its atcually noticably harder for me to communicate with aspies, sometimes its even harder to communicate with them than NTs.
Overall, why should there be a "vs" competition (if only stated) between Aspergers and other autistic disorders? We should all be on the same page here.
becuase aspies keep **** with me, to be blunt. im sick of aspies making ignorant comments about how autism is a horrible disability, or how they are exactly like aspies, and im sick of aspies picking on me for having more trouble communicating than they do, its just plain annoying, the hypocrocy of it.
im not saying all or even a majority do this (though a majority DO know next to nothing about lfa, just like a majority of NTs know next to nothing about aspergers.)
my point is not to start a fight, its to reveal that there is a lack of understding so that people can correct it before it becomes a big problem.
It should not be about separate groups saying understand me, it should be everyone trying to understand everyone whether they are NT, borderline, aspie, HFA, LFA or something else entirely. We should all be trying to be more tolerant, more forgiving and more accepting and allow people to just be who they are (excluding physical abuse or intentional mental harm).
I don't actually feel that NTs understand and empathise as much as they think they do, they ONLY think how they would feel and because most NTs react the same way they think they are putting themselves in someone elses shoes. Little things they say to people on the autie spectrum that they wouldn't find offensive can be deeply upsetting to someone on the autism spectrum either because its said in a way they can't understand it or because its actually not accurate.
For people anywhere on the autistic spectrum we have such a different way of thinking so even if I was with someone who thought exactly the same way as me we may still come up with different perspectives to the same question or situation. This is particularly true if we have been constantly told that was mean, rude, offensive, lecturing and we didn't think how the other person would feel, most of us have actually learnt to look for more than one answer.
Sorry don't think I'm explaining too well. I know what I mean in my head.
nonono, its perfect, you said it perfectly!
This is very interesting. I think there is a lot of truth in what Seven said, and I love Ren Chou's "It should not be about separate groups saying understand me, it should be everyone trying to understand everyone whether they are NT, borderline, aspie, HFA, LFA or something else entirely."
I do a lot of diversity workshops, and i constantly encounter people who think they understand all ethnic groups because they themselves are part of a particular ethnic group. -- for example, "I'm Portuguese, so of course I understand Mexicans." No. Portuguese and Mexicans may both be non-Anglo, and they may have a tenuous linguistic connection, so they may both understand the non-WASP-in-America experience, but the differences between them preclude an assumption of "sameness."
It's just like what Seven said about aspies and autistics. Thy both know the non-NT experience, but they may be so far apart on the "spectrum" that they may have pretty limited understanding of each other.
To take it a step farther, I am not really NT because of my ADHD, so I have some idea what it's like to be "non-NT" -- but ADHD is not AS. So I can only "know" about Aspies what I can learn by reading, living with, and working with Aspies. And I never pretend to know much about people with autism. It's very outside my experience. What I can do is what Ren Chou said -- try to understand and learn.
oh yes, that is exactly what i was trying to express thank you!
i will not say who for privacy, but there was an autistic girl who contacted me about this subject :]
she brought up a very good point
NTs are easier to communicate with for autistics than most aspies
why?
NTs are more compassionate and less self-obsorbed than most aspies, and are do not have the preconceived notion that they are alot alike, infact that automaticlaly assume they are very different, and usually acknolegde those differences immediatly, while aspies may take a long time to realize the differences if they ever do.
becuase auties are so notciably differnet from NTs, id say they are usually nicer to "us" than to "you" becuase you can talk like them, and some can even socialize like them.
so to us NTs are not scarey, aspies are :s
does that make sense..?
hmm. seven i researched Autism a year ago for school and i found the first paragraph of it.i would like to see if i discribed it right.may i pm it to you?
sure, go ahead
my co worker (and one of my only two real friends) is doing an essay on autism for school too.
ive been telling him hes an aspie for half a year now and the more he reads the more he realizes i was dead on, its kind of funny, he didnt take me seriously at first i guess. 
seven: i understand what you're trying to say
and i think we should try to have more unity between HFA and LFA to make sure no one is left out and completely mis-understood.
its not just LFA and HFA, kanners are not by definition only LFA they can be HFA too 
that is one of my points, people often assume kanners are "more extreme" and that just plain isnt the case, we are just.. different. its just a different type of autism, just like aspies are different from NTs.
Overall, why should there be a "vs" competition (if only stated) between Aspergers and other autistic disorders? We should all be on the same page here.
becuase aspies keep **** with me, to be blunt. im sick of aspies making ignorant comments about how autism is a horrible disability, or how they are exactly like aspies, and im sick of aspies picking on me for having more trouble communicating than they do, its just plain annoying, the hypocrocy of it.
Who says that? People you meet online, or real life?
To be honest, I have no idea -- apart from those who have actually stated so -- who here is aspie, who is NT, and who is kanner, and even who is borderline aspie/nt.
actually, everywhere. both online and in person. most aspies hoenstly belive either one of those statments or the other, id say around.. 70% or more.
Can I just add before my computer battery runs out (I know it's going to come out in totally the wrong way because I never know what to say when it's something important.) that personally I never think that anyone as expressive as you, Seven, is in the least way *** or anything like that and I would never DREAM of patronising you. (For what it's worth, even if it's worth nothing.)
I think it's hard to have people say - especially NT parents of autie kids - "well you don't really know anything so..." because that automatically devalues...
I can't think of words to say so I'll just say "something or other"
...That's going to sound so wrong -- I hope not.
- but I have to stop because my computer is low on battery. -
i understood the first part but not the rest :s sorry.
people actually say "you cant be autistic becuase your not retarted" very very often. then i go explaining what autism really is and they just say "oh. i never knew that. are you Sure thats true? i dont think it is."
You know what folks, I was just thinking of starting a thread about the differences between autism and asperger syndrome but then I saw someone else already did so here's what I have to say. I know all about the autistic spectrum and that AS and autism are supposedly 2 points on the spectrum but despite the diagnostic relationship, they really are NOT the same. I have Aspergers but I DONT consider myself to be an autist and Im bemused at all the aspies who identify themselves with the "autist" label. One of the major differences between the 2 syndromes is the fact that aspies are verbal whereas many autists are not. The few autists who are verbal will only speak if they are spoken to; they dont initiate conversations. I also wonder about the genetic similiarities between autism and asperger syndrome-if AS is caused by a different genetic mechanism but produces a phenotype with similiarities to autism. Moreover, in terms of needs and wants it seems that autists and aspies dont have much in common. Many autists have no desire to interact with people at all or to live independently; in fact quite a few of them are incapable of taking care of themselves at all.
yoru post got me all riled up.
im sorry but thats horrid, illinformed, and enforces teh steriotypes this whole thread is TRYING to tare down.
your partly right, they are indeed differnet things, but your going WAY too far.
MANY many MANY most autsitic people can speak. the ones who dont almost always CHOSE not to, they arent usually naturally just mute, no one really "loses speach" that does NOT happen generally speaking.
i have two mode, eitehr A. i talk alot, non stop, too fast, too lowd; or B. barley at all, quiet, muffled. but people think i "talk normal." either way. they just think i am 'energetic' and 'tired' depending.
most autistics ARE VERBAL. just look at me.
now dontget me wrong i hate speach, i hate communictaing verbally, its awful, its frustrating, it downright pisses me off alot of the time. but that doesnt mean i dont talk.
i have met atleast a few kanners, and know parenst of many more; and most of them were wrongly diagnosed as aspergers becuase they sound almost kind of nromal, like me, becuase "we can talk we cnat be autsitic" which is bull ***. if your autsitic you have to have something like central auditory procesisng disorder, yes, but that Does Not Mean We Cant Talk.
:s just saying, get your facts strait before you make such statments.
oh and no your wrong, while most autsitics are less social, and dislike being social mroe than most aspies, we DO want company generally, even if we are pickier about with who, or want it less often, we still want it.
and i can take care of myself just fine! im not the only one, i know others who do too, we PREFER being independent, we do NOT like being taken care of. they would be capable if tehy were taught HOW they can do it liek an autistic, instaid of being told tehy cna only do it if its liek an NT. i do not live like an NT i live liek an autistic, its a differnet life style, and it WORKS.
sorry to snap out that was just annoying, that kind of steriotype is EXACTLY what i made this thread to STOP.
z, i would liek to slap your hand and say "no-no-no, bad! be more open minded! stop generalizing and styiotypes that are so obviously false!"
:s your statments all over that page expose your great ignorance to the subject. you might want to actually go out and MEET alot, a ton, of autistic and aspie people before you generalize. you sound like the crappy news on TV, its all mislead, fabriacted, bullshit.
you have it backwards, many autistics are labled aspies, NOT many aspies labled autistic.
the deviding line is ONLY verbal thought processing. aspies can do it and auties have great difficulty, its that simple. it has nothing to do with how social or able you may be.
I am not a mental health professional nor have I seen your son ,but maybe he in fact has asperger syndrome and not autism. I got my information online by looking at the DSM IV and from a conversation with my psychiatrist. Some folks here seem to think that autism and asperger syndrome are basically the same thing which I fimrly disagree with!
Well I read the DSM IV and because of my sons speech delay he cannot be diagnosed with aspergers. "In contrast to Autistic Disorder, there are no clinically significant delays in language (eg: single words are used by age 2 years, communicative phrases are used by age 3. Which my son does not fit he actually is HFA. I do agree that asperger's and autism are different but yet they are similar. You are very much entitled to your opinion I can respect that.
its a myth that autsitics always have language dellay.
i was speaking before i had teeth, under 1 year old, and i am defintily without a single doubt autistic.
i never babbled as a baby, my dad told me.
my mom told me when i was two days old, i was laying on my stomach in one of those baby bins in her room, and i lifted my head up and looked around the room. apparently she was scared of me until i started talking and she decided i was just very weird.
for those of you who are baby-ignorant; a 2 day old baby should not be physically capable of lifting their head. its either weeks or months before they can, i forget which.
Alright Seven, you tell me exactly what the (clinical)difference is between autism and asperger syndrome. You certainly are correct that autists CAN speak but Choose not to do so. But could you please explain to me WHY you are an Autist as opposed to an Aspie[lets ditch the term "Autie" since it sounds waaaay to juvenile]? After all if Im misinformed then do me the favor of informing me-Noetic "didnt have the time" to so step up and have a go at it.
if you want to get technical why im KANNERs and not ASPERGERs.
your frustrating, becuase i already explained multiple times, what the one and only clencial, diagnostic, defining, and REAL difference between teh two is (fundamentally, not the only generic or possible difference, just the one fundamental difference)
central auditory processing disorder or something of that sort.
which is signified by serious problems generally processing words/langauge of all types (writen, spoken, thought, heard, read)
i have everything from dyslexia to off-and-on-mutism, if i think in words its slow, slurred, and barley even coherent; in fact the only verbal problem i DONT have is a speech impediment. it does not mean i cannot handle language, it means it can be difficult for me. if im calm its okay, but if im upset or tired or sick its very hard.
that makes me autistic, not aspergers.
im not going to bother mentioning all of my other autistic traits because for this they are irrelevant.
aspies can NOT have this, or they are NOT aspies, by definition. if they have it and are still diagnosed it was a simple misdiagnoses for autism.
first off, i hate political correctness and i never am politically correct, you said "the few aspies who are verbal only answer when spoken to, usually asked a question" which is bull. simple.
and no offence but the world isnt black and white, labeling it that was is not very smart becuase its just so incomplete and inaccurate. only SOME aspies think that way, NOT all or even most. though the ones who do think in black and white almost always assume all aspies do it, at least thats what they tell me. i know its not true, however.
categorizing is one thing, but doing it black and white is just bad, because everything IS grey, there is no black or white in life, not one ive found anyway. your categories might be fine like it would be one thing if your statistics were accurate but they are far from it. i catagorize but i leave it with like millions of strings attached and loop holes becuase nothing is ever as simple as that.
thats another difference possibly, ive never met a kanner who thought black and white.
Literal answer to rhetorical question: You can't. You have to put down an arbitrary dividing line.
And even then, the autumn leaf could have multiple shades on it, so that the color you called it would depend on how you looked at it.
thats what i do. i give everyone a million subcatagories.
like "top : age 27, republican-socialist, Argentinian, male, aspergers - details : NLD, able to amnipualte, tactful language, poor social skills, depression, black and white, no phsyical or immune problems , no typical art skills-advaned technical art skills," etc my mental lists are very long. most of it is indescribable as i think in concept lists not verbal ones.
labels like "selfish- childish- intelegent- collected-" etc top it off, and the end result is "i like this person 14% dislike 38%" etc.
im like a living computer. the stats update constantly s i find out more about said person, and i always leave files "open for editing" so to say, meaning i leave nothing as what it is, i can change my views or tweek them at any time based on the many layers of each item.