this might be too much spliting hairs, but aspergers is not a type of high functioning autism. It is a type of Pervasive Developmental Disorder. "High funtioning Autism" is a colloquial term (never mentioned in the DSM) to describe kids who are NOT aspergers but who are very high functioning and have a Pervasisve Developmental Disorder. Kids with "high functioning autism" usually have the diagnosis of PDD-NOS and have the language delay, those with aspbergers do not (among other distinctions).
The only reason I think its important to point this out is that there are a lot of really interesting articles out there about the differences between HFA and Aspbergers, and to understand and appreciate them you have to think of HFA as the population who do not fit into Aspergers diagnosis, instead of Aspies being some type of subset of HFA. The first source of my info on this came from Dr. Cecelia McCarton a developmental ped. who diagnosed my son (not Aspergers but HFA (PDD-NOS)). She even pointed out that some kids with HFA are actually less impaired than those with Aspergers, as its often assumed that aspies are the "highest functioning" on the spectrum.
http://www.autism-help.org/autism-high-functioning-hfa.htm http://www.highfunctioningautism.org/irene
