> This is why I feel like merging Asperger's into Autism was a mistake.

Merging Asperger's into Autism was the natural result of finally evaluating all of his research. This shows that he always worked with persons who are at all parts of the spectrum, including the worst cases people think about when they hear autism. Historical circumstances led to him being very popular for the "light" cases (i.e. the cases which didn't lead to immediate termination of life under the Third Reich), but the body of his research shows that he always was aware of the full nature of it. Unlike people who split it in autism, high-functioning autism, Asperger and whatever "separate" things they found.

I can understand why they changed the definitions, because both conditions have the same root cause (an issue with sensory processing) but I think it was a mistake. You've got a completely different presentation, and completely different treatments. So now any research into developing new therapies for autism will have to specify which subset of Autism spectrum disorder they are targeting, subsets which may not be well defined or consistent. I think eventually they will carve out sub-categories of autism based on which therapies they best respond to.