English edit

Alternative forms edit

Etymology edit

Compound of high +‎ functioning

Adjective edit

high-functioning (comparative more high-functioning or higher functioning or higher-functioning, superlative most high-functioning or highest functioning or highest-functioning)

  1. Functioning or operating at a high level.
    • 1978, Allen E. Bergen with Sol Louis Garfield, Handbook of Psychotherapy and Behavior Change: An Empirical Analysis, New York: Wiley, →ISBN, page 944:
      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. (psychology, of persons with developmental or intellectual disability or mental illness) Able to function in society; not greatly affected by disability or illness.
    • 1986 January, R.M. Fox, D.R. Bechtel, C. Bird, J. Livesay, R. Bittle, “A comprehensive institutional treatment program for aggressive-disruptive high functioning mentally retarded persons”, in Behavioral Residential Treatment, volume 1, number 1, →ISSN, pages 39–56:
      A unit wide behavioral programming system for high functioning mentally retarded clients who displayed maladaptive behavioral excesses...
  3. (psychology, of persons with autism) Showing relatively high cognitive function.
    • 1996 August, Don J. Siegel, Nancy J. Minshew, “Wechsler IQ profiles in diagnosis of high-functioning autism”, in Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders, volume 26, number 4, →ISSN, page 400:
      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.

Derived terms edit