Being Diagnosed with Autism/AS By Mistake

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I'm not sure, but I was misdiagnosed with PDD and ADHD before they came to the conclusion of Asperger's Syndrome. I am pretty high functioning as well, as most people are surprised to learn I have anything affecting me at all.

When Paris Hilton gets diagnosed,then you will know there is a problem. Until that day, don't worry.

Probably until the last year or so until AS/autism has got to be better-known, it was the other way around--people with AS being misdiagnosed with something else.

But now it seems to be a popular diagnosis, particularly for schoolchildren. It's also my understanding that kids can't get help for problems in many schools (even social skills training) unless they're diagnosed with some kind of developmental "disorder" like an ASD or ADHD, or a learning disability. If a child had, say, social anxiety disorder but not AS, if the parents wanted them to get any help at all with social skills or bullying, they've have to push for a diagnosis on the autistic spectrum.

So maybe in the future ASD's will be as overdiagnosed as ADHD, but probably not yet.

At the school I'm completing my internship at (for speech therapy) there are kids who have been labeled as "autistic" by their school district in their IEP so that they have access to the full range of services, even though they actually have straight-up MR or brain injury. NYC districts seem to do this a lot (it's a special school for kids with cognitive/behavioral disabilities, so we have kids from all over the NY metropolitan area).