Let's clear this up...

[chaoticidealism]

When I say I am "Autistic":

I use "autistic" as a general term for the entire autism spectrum. I think Asperger's and other types of autism are too similar, with too much overlap between them and no clear dividing line, with too many cases on the borderline between them, to be truly separate entities. Certainly you can pick examples of other types

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Re: stephanielynnkeil.blogspot.com

[chaoticidealism]

The "book" in question is the DSM. It does say "autistic disorder" trumps "asperger's disorder". However, the criteria for autistic disorder include ever having had a speech delay. That's the confusing thing. In adulthood, it is possible for someone with an autistic disorder diagnosis and someone with an asperger's disorder diagnosis to have identical check-marks in the DSM boxes--all except for childhood history of speech or developmental delays.

I don't know whether the people with autism who are diagnostically identical to people with Asperger's in adulthood tend to be more successful. I've been digging through the research a lot, and that's an awfully long-term study that I haven't seen yet. If so, it may simply be that if you choose someone who has learned an awful lot since childhood (the classic autistic) compared to someone whose development has been more typical (the Aspie), you could simply be comparing someone with a large capacity for learning with someone whose abilities are more average. The closest thing I could come up with is a study revealing that among classic autistic and PDDNOS two year olds, 88% were talking by age nine and thirty-some percent were holding back-and-forth conversations. It only had an experimental group in the twenties and was blinded only to the extent that it's usually hard for a doctor to recognize a child at nine that he last saw at two.