High-functioning

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Functioning or operating at a high level.

    "The high-functioning therapists were found to have a greater tendency to confront patients and, when they did so, confronted them with their resources."

  2. 2
    Of a person with a developmental or intellectual disability or mental illness, able to function in society; not greatly affected by a disability or illness.

    "A unit wide behavioral programming system for high functioning mentally retarded clients who displayed maladaptive behavioral excesses..."

  3. 3
    Of a person with autism, exhibiting relatively high cognitive function.

    "Analysis of Wechsler IQ test scores for high-functioning autistic children and adults with Verbal and Full Scale IQ≥70 only partially supports previous contentions about the presence of a distinct profile of scores in autism."

Example

More examples

""High-functioning autism" isn't an official medical term or diagnosis."

Etymology

From high + functioning.

Related phrases

high-functioning autism

More for "high-functioning"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.