Qualitative or quantitative differences between Asperger's disorder and autism? Historical considerations.

Sanders (2009) looked back at old papers about autism and Asperger's.

The author asked: are these two separate disorders or just mild versus severe autism?

This was a narrative review, meaning the author read many studies and told the story of how doctors drew the line between the two labels.

The review shows that autism and Asperger's differ in degree, not in kind.

Kids called Asperger's have the same core traits as kids called autistic, just milder.

Therefore, the DSM-IV split between the two labels may be artificial.

Schaaf et al. (2015) later counted how many kids lost their diagnosis when DSM-5 merged Asperger's into autism.

They found 25-50 % of high-functioning clients with old Asperger labels no longer met ASD criteria.

This seems to clash with Ladell's view, but the two papers look at different things: Ladell asks if the split makes sense, while C et al. ask what happens when we remove it.

Kaplan-Kahn et al. (2026) then showed that DSM-5-TR support levels line up with IQ and adaptive scores, giving us a new way to mark severity instead of using separate names.

Chown et al. (2016) adds historical spice, arguing that Kanner may have borrowed Asperger's ideas in the first place, further blurring the old boundary.

Stop treating Asperger's as a special case. Use DSM-5-TR support levels to describe how much help each client needs. This keeps services fair and avoids the old label lottery.