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Autism is a spectrum. Every person with autism is different and the way autism affects their life is different for each one of those individuals. For example, some people on the autism spectrum will be hyper-sensitive to touch, while other will be hypo-sensitive to it.

In the past, the medical community made a distinction between "very smart" autistic people that were called "Asperger" and the other person on the autistic spectrum. However, such a distinction isn't done anymore in the medical field.

So, should we still use the tag? Does it make sense? Does it bring more information one question?

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What about making a new tag to cover both? I propose .

I think it is useful to have a tag to indicate that involved parties are on the spectrum, but as you say, the details of what that means will need spelled out in the question body anyways, so it doesn't seem necessary or particularly useful to have two different tags for which part of the spectrum they are under.

Using this one tag would cover both diagnoses, and fit with the current psychiatric standards that autism and Asperger's syndrome both fall under the diagnosis of "Autism Spectrum Disorder".

We can also make and synonyms of this tag, so that they are automatically re-mapped to it.

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Just a few thoughts on why it might make sense to keep both tags around:

  1. It is true that the medical community no longer makes a distinction between and . However, the general population may not be up to date with the medical terminology and many people will likely still make such a distinction.
  2. It might still be useful to have a distinction for people who are looking for questions that specifically relate to the "high-functioning" nature of what was previously called "Asperger"

To expand on the second point a bit, I was diagnosed on the autism spectrum as an adult under DSM-5. My psychiatrist told me that my diagnosis would have been "Asperger" if I had gotten it earlier in my life (and thus been under a previous DSM version). When I am looking for existing questions/answers, I tend to start by looking in because I know that the people with autism who are involved in these questions will have experiences that are more likely to be similar to my own than the average person on the autism spectrum

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