What is the difference between Asperger’s Disorder and High Functioning Autism?
Many people identified as having high functioning autism (HFA) had more pronounced symptoms of autism as children. As they aged, the development of basic social skills, age appropriate cognitive skills, and verbal ability occurred. Tony Attwood (1998), a psychologist who has much experience and expertise in Asperger’s, has written that HFA is a phrase that is most often used in the United States and often applies to people who qualified for a diagnosis of autism as children. Controversy still exists within the literature about the differences between these diagnoses. Some people use the terms interchangeably. At this point, differences between the two labels (HFA and AS) have yet to be effectively clarified.
