I believe that Aspergers differ in one but very important sense from high functioning autistics, and that is in their attitudes towards social interactions. Autistics shun from socialising in favour of lone wolf activities. They don't like forming friendships just for the sake of it (there would have to be a huge pay off to even concider it),while an asperger might very well seek to be social but fail at it. Again, a high functioning autistic is likely to fail too, but the difference is that a prototypical autistic hates it...
My condition has always been far more consistent with High Functioning Autism. Running from my classmates when school ended and locking the door in my home was common practise. The mere concept of socialisation horrified me. I concidered it a great burden and was prone to extreme anxiety because of it. I did not want to form friendships, even with people I "liked". School OK, but on my free time, never... Never played with other kids as a toddler either.
My highest scores in the IQ testing were in picture completion, picture arrangement and coding - usually relative strenghts for HFAs. I scored scored in the low average in the verbal section of the test - again consistent with autism. But since block performance was low and language development normal, they rejected the HFA alternative, or simply concidered it a distinction without a difference. I later attended a high school were they did not make any distinctions between Asperger and HFA in my country. Please note that it was later discovered in one study that 25% of high functioning autistics scored low on the blocks, so it is by no means inconsistent with HFA, just not as common. And some HFAs later in life developed verbal skills comparable or even higher than their Visual IQ scores.
You might ask yourself at this point how I know that Aspergers don't mind socialising? Well, since not a single asperger individual in my school had a problem with it, I think it's sufficient to state that although plenty of Aspergers might seek it, they do however fail it. HFA don't want it, period.
Some researchers, such as Gillberg, contend that one may very well have characteristics more consistent with HFA instead of AS or vice versa, and that it should therefore take presidence. No problem there....The issue I have is that Aspergers is concidered to be autism, when in fact probably 60% of Aspergers don't mind socialising at all, if they have full access in advance what's ahead.