You have a son with autism and a neighbor with Asperger's. That is probably the most common formula for misrepresenting the distinctions between the two (if any indeed exist) that there is. I even used to fall prey to it: I was diagnosed with autism and a family member with Asperger's. I used to think the difference between the two of us was the "difference between autism and Asperger's", and that how different the two of us were drove home the point of how different the two conditions were.
I have now -- through a combination of books, Internet, conferences, and school -- been acquainted with dozens to hundreds of people with all of the labels on the autism spectrum. Autism, Asperger, PDD-NOS, Rett's, CDD, high-functioning, mid-functioning, and low-functioning. One thing I have found is that two people with the exact same label can be as different as your son and your neighbor's son, or as me and my family member. Two people with different labels (one autism one Asperger's) can be very similar but have a few striking but superficial differences. Many, you would not be able to tell by looking which one had which label. There are many ways that autistic people differ, often strikingly, from each other, but the autism/Asperger line is primarily about early speech development and many people with different early speech development can still be mostly similar and people with similar early speech development can still be mostly differet.
That's how it was with the original autistic people studied, too. Some of Asperger's patients had speech delays, which would make them "autistic" by today's standards. Some of Kanner's patients spoke early and memorized a ton of information, developing special interests in intellectual subjects. This divide many promote was not there, or not as much there, in the beginning.
I have also read up on the changing definitions of autism throughout the years. Kanner's autism is used in some older publications as synonymous with high-functioning, because people regarded as lower-functioning were added to the spectrum later. (I don't agree with these terms, I'm just reporting on them.) Then that became the new stereotype.
Autism is neither a personality disorder nor a sensory disorder. It is a cognitive-perceptual condition, as far as research is actually finding. (Some of the perceptual stuff gets labeled, in error, sensory.) It provides consistent perceptual advantages (for people everywhere on the "spectrum") as well as disadvantages that are tied in with them. (See Mottron et al.) The differences in autistic perception range across both social and non-social domains and pervade every aspect of how a person perceives and understands and reacts to the world, making it not personality at all but something far deeper. That particular research was done because of all the groping around in the dark for a "core deficit" of autism, and when they abandoned the deficit model they came across a strength instead (not denying that autistic people have deficits, but saying the thing that unites autistic people -- and contributes to our many patterns of deficits and strengths -- is not itself a deficit).
You would not know this from what I write here, but I have dealt with (in myself) most of the difficulties and unpleasantness that people bring up when they talk about curing autism, and I still need significant assistance to get through the day. Writing happens to be an area of strength, don't let it fool you into thinking I'm some super-aspie.
Some autistic people are genuinely unaware that they don't fit in, or genuinely unaware of what fitting in means. Many other autistic people are quite aware that they do not fit in. (And some autistic people do have places where they do fit in.) This is not tied to "functioning level," either -- many autistic people who have just learned speech or typing have long since been aware they don't fit in and that they are different. Many autistic people who have spoken forever and hold jobs and so forth are unaware they don't fit in. The level of awareness a person has about that sort of situation varies tremendously and cannot be used as a benchmark for whether someone is autistic or not.
I have been diagnosed with autism and I have been both aware and unaware at different times that I didn't fit in, and have even at times found places where I did fit in just fine. (Usually around other autistic people, because the "social impairment" is sometimes more a result of the clash between autistic and non-autistic perceptual systems, rather than solely on the side of the autistic person. The difference is that when we don't understand non-autistic people, we're described as socially clueless and they're described as socially skilled, and when non-autistic people don't understand us, we're described as mysterious and they're described as socially skilled.)
Additionally, some autistic people pass for normal or something close to it. Some don't. Some creep people out on sight. Some don't, even when they don't pass. All of these things can be true of self-diagnosed and adult-diagnosed people as well as people diagnosed in childhood.
Pretty much the best summary of my response would be, "It's way more complicated than that."
Slashdot Mirror
You have a son with autism and a neighbor with Asperger's. That is probably the most common formula for misrepresenting the distinctions between the two (if any indeed exist) that there is. I even used to fall prey to it: I was diagnosed with autism and a family member with Asperger's. I used to think the difference between the two of us was the "difference between autism and Asperger's", and that how different the two of us were drove home the point of how different the two conditions were. I have now -- through a combination of books, Internet, conferences, and school -- been acquainted with dozens to hundreds of people with all of the labels on the autism spectrum. Autism, Asperger, PDD-NOS, Rett's, CDD, high-functioning, mid-functioning, and low-functioning. One thing I have found is that two people with the exact same label can be as different as your son and your neighbor's son, or as me and my family member. Two people with different labels (one autism one Asperger's) can be very similar but have a few striking but superficial differences. Many, you would not be able to tell by looking which one had which label. There are many ways that autistic people differ, often strikingly, from each other, but the autism/Asperger line is primarily about early speech development and many people with different early speech development can still be mostly similar and people with similar early speech development can still be mostly differet. That's how it was with the original autistic people studied, too. Some of Asperger's patients had speech delays, which would make them "autistic" by today's standards. Some of Kanner's patients spoke early and memorized a ton of information, developing special interests in intellectual subjects. This divide many promote was not there, or not as much there, in the beginning. I have also read up on the changing definitions of autism throughout the years. Kanner's autism is used in some older publications as synonymous with high-functioning, because people regarded as lower-functioning were added to the spectrum later. (I don't agree with these terms, I'm just reporting on them.) Then that became the new stereotype. Autism is neither a personality disorder nor a sensory disorder. It is a cognitive-perceptual condition, as far as research is actually finding. (Some of the perceptual stuff gets labeled, in error, sensory.) It provides consistent perceptual advantages (for people everywhere on the "spectrum") as well as disadvantages that are tied in with them. (See Mottron et al.) The differences in autistic perception range across both social and non-social domains and pervade every aspect of how a person perceives and understands and reacts to the world, making it not personality at all but something far deeper. That particular research was done because of all the groping around in the dark for a "core deficit" of autism, and when they abandoned the deficit model they came across a strength instead (not denying that autistic people have deficits, but saying the thing that unites autistic people -- and contributes to our many patterns of deficits and strengths -- is not itself a deficit). You would not know this from what I write here, but I have dealt with (in myself) most of the difficulties and unpleasantness that people bring up when they talk about curing autism, and I still need significant assistance to get through the day. Writing happens to be an area of strength, don't let it fool you into thinking I'm some super-aspie.
That's not actually true though.
Some autistic people are genuinely unaware that they don't fit in, or genuinely unaware of what fitting in means. Many other autistic people are quite aware that they do not fit in. (And some autistic people do have places where they do fit in.) This is not tied to "functioning level," either -- many autistic people who have just learned speech or typing have long since been aware they don't fit in and that they are different. Many autistic people who have spoken forever and hold jobs and so forth are unaware they don't fit in. The level of awareness a person has about that sort of situation varies tremendously and cannot be used as a benchmark for whether someone is autistic or not.
I have been diagnosed with autism and I have been both aware and unaware at different times that I didn't fit in, and have even at times found places where I did fit in just fine. (Usually around other autistic people, because the "social impairment" is sometimes more a result of the clash between autistic and non-autistic perceptual systems, rather than solely on the side of the autistic person. The difference is that when we don't understand non-autistic people, we're described as socially clueless and they're described as socially skilled, and when non-autistic people don't understand us, we're described as mysterious and they're described as socially skilled.)
Additionally, some autistic people pass for normal or something close to it. Some don't. Some creep people out on sight. Some don't, even when they don't pass. All of these things can be true of self-diagnosed and adult-diagnosed people as well as people diagnosed in childhood.
Pretty much the best summary of my response would be, "It's way more complicated than that."