Comment by Alex3917

Yes, that was a political decision based on the fact that people with Asperger’s weren’t able to access sufficient social support. But from a medical perspective, the two have basically nothing to do with each other; Asperger’s is primarily about the connectivity between brain regions, whereas (traditional) autism is more about functionality within brain regions. Obviously there is a lot of overlap and this isn’t necessarily the mainstream scientific interpretation, but I think it’s the most parsimonious way to define these terms.