???

[conuly]

Speech and language difficulties can have many causes, including an undetected hearing impairment, poor oral muscle tone or coordination or a neurological disorder like Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism, or apraxia, a breakdown in the transmission of messages from the brain to the muscles in the jaw, cheeks, lips, tongue and palate.

The parents of a bright man I know who said nothing, not even "Mommy" or "Daddy," before age 3, were told by child development specialists in 1970 that their son was perfectly normal. Once he started talking, he spoke in full, complex sentences. But years later he received a diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome, which severely impairs his ability to relate to others.


I'm confused. Here I thought that AS meant no significant language delay. If you're not speaking until three, shouldn't you get a diagnosis of HFA?

(I am NOT getting into the discussion of whether or not this is a valid separation. I'm just asking a question by the diagnostic criteria as they stand right now)

Comments

[wakasplat.livejournal.com]

There's no such diagnosis as HFA. There's only (officially) autism, Asperger's, Rett's, Childhood Disintegrative Disorder, and PDD-NOS.

A person who meets the criteria for Asperger's, by definition, can't have a language delay. However, some really annoying doctors (annoying for a number of reasons) are trying to diagnose Asperger's in speech-delayed people. They can't even follow their *own* rules.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

So what is it if you do have the language delay?

(And it's so good to see other people who did what I did - until now I've never met anyone else who started speaking so late and went straight into complete sentences. My brother did start late too (well he spoke, just not in English) but he didn't move straight to sentences. Thinking about it, he must have been getting on for 4 before he spoke properly and in sentences, because he didn't even speak in English when he started playschool, and he wasn't allowed speech therapy because I was on the way, which would have made him 3. I'd never done the maths before.)

[wakasplat.livejournal.com]

If there is a language delay, it's diagnosed as either autism, PDD-NOS, sometimes Rett's, possibly CDD. (This is all official DSM/ICD stuff, which isn't how *I* think things work, but it's how diagnostics are supposed to work right now.)