Preliminary draft DSM-5 released

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I don't agree with this. It's definitely gotten easier for me. I think the older you get the more confident you get about yourself. Secondary school was very brutal for me, people were very unforgiving, but after I left I was in more welcoming environments and I was more comfortable about socializing and I learnt how to get much better. I don't see how these societal expectations increase 'exponentially'? Surely at secondary school the expectations are the most constricting; it's that situation in which acceptance of difference is lowest. As an adult you have more opportunity to find situations and people you're more comfortable with.

Confidence doesn't have anything to do with it (knowing what you can or can't do is confidence).

High school is the beginning, college and the workplace (either of the two), can be just as unforgiving, and they both expect the same or more than high school from you.

All that people learn with an ASD, with age that is and in regards to ASD symptoms, is utilizing the rote memory for social responses (i.e., through trial and error one finds the appropriate things to say, but it's still only a shadow of what it "should" be). Not all have the capacity to learn this though.

Good article - I like what you said.

The lead sentence is unfortunate, though:

It isn't the "condition" that would be disappearing - just the diagnostic term that currently describes that condition. That's the way it is with journalism, though - they want to lead with a sensational statement. (The rest of the article seems to be accurate, so if an inaccurate lead sentence gets people to read the rest, it's all good.)

^ I like that the Tampa paper called DSM the "diagnostic bible", I have always taken the DSM with a grain of salt; the actual condition of the human minds being studied has changed not one whit since its inception, but the paradigm and accuracy has improved with each revision. It amuses me that each edition is treated so seriously by the psychological and medical communities; if Gray's Anatomy changed its description of human organ systems every ten years, nobody would think of it as a serious product, yet if it is on the theory of mind? Then go right ahead and treat speculation as science...

I have not improved with age. I do believe it is easier to teach coping mechanisms when they're taught at a young age. I was robbed of this opportunity, by my father, who told the school that AS did not exist, and I would not be seen by a doctor.

I doubt you'll find many people who actually improve with age when their innate severity is taken into account, outside of natural development, like gaining certain abilities that people have no say over whether you get them or not (see: "he just started talking overnight, and we've been working with him for years!").

The social therapy for young children just teaches them to look into the eyes of people and other misc. things until the pain subsides; it's like constantly burning your hand while being fed a treat and then your hand eventually loses its feeling from being burnt so much.

I'm witnessing it now with my nephew, and they aren't teaching him any coping mechanisms other than what comes natural, you avoid the triggers, or if you can't, you minimize your exposure to them. Most people of average intelligence will work this out on their own.

I worked those things out, to a point. I still do not make eye contact, nor do I attempt it. It detracts from the conversation. My biggest problem is with regulation. I stim and SI. I tried to avoid this in public, but it still happens. I am sure I make others uncomfortable, but I no longer care. They make me uncomfortable.

My ability to interact socially has improved continually, albeit slowly, over many years since I was a teen. Perhaps I am just a slow learner.

As an example, I have a compulsion to correct mistakes made by others in conversation. In my teens I would just immediately blurt out the correction in the bluntest of terms and with no awareness of the sensibilities of others. By my mid-twenties I was more tactful when correcting others, after having experienced many negative reactions to unintentional, unnecessarily cutting remarks. I continued to improve thereafter and observed and learned from others who were more diplomatic. Finally, at some point, I was even able to let many errors go by without correction. I slowly improved socially in a number of in other ways, too.

Of course, my sensory issues have not improved, and my stims were controlled by high school, to the extent that they were no longer readily apparent or an embarrassment. (By then I mostly pinched into my fingers and hands with my thumb nails - not very noticeable.)

Am I correct in saying that the severity of the label can change depending on the individual and their circumstances (whether they started off "mild", but then turned out that they were actually quite severe)? I hope they do something like that.

If you look under the severity tab on the AMA website you will see that the severity criteria have yet to be proposed. In any case, I can't imagine the DSM forbidding changes in severity status when warranted.

I don't think it has to be that way. After all, typical children aren't born learning how to read; and despite lots of them learning on their own, there's still a great deal of benefit in teaching them. I'm not talking about trying to force autistics to mimic NT behavior, or forcing them to do things that are painful; I'm talking about education. Why wouldn't you teach somebody how to use casual language, or how to request something you wanted, or how to use signs or pictures or whatever when speech won't work right? I know lots of people are going about it entirely the wrong way now; but the idea that autistics will naturally learn everything they need on their own just doesn't sit right with me. NT kids don't; why should we? And even if we would eventually figure it out, why should we have to muddle about for years waiting to learn something that somebody could just have told us how to do earlier?

I agree, it's just that some things we can't actually learn due to our innate level of severity that isn't affected by outside sources (which is how it goes. There's no conclusive data saying anything actually helps ASD symptoms vanish or improve to a degree where someone who could be diagnosed as a child now can't be). Kanner's can fluctuate in severity for no known reason, whereas Asperger's has a predictable and chronic course in the majority of cases (again, with the individual's level of severity taken into account).

Teaching things like cause and effect when the individual is old enough to understand this is something that should be done (not everyone will get this on their own), to help everyone involved (being as people with an ASD have trouble with understanding how what they do has an effect on others, especially when young and compared to their peers).

At my age, you'd think a lifetime of observation would enable me to initiate a normal conversation. I can introduce myself to a new client and I can respond to questions, but being able to come up to someone in a social gathering and schmooze is totally beyond me. I'll inadvertently blurt out something special interest related. I even have trouble with nieces and nephews because I don't see them on a regular basis. I really think this is something I will never learn.

I'm studying at the moment from home. One of the course components is about communication and the exchange of meaning from one person to another. I have been laughing all morning at my clumsiness in this realm, in spite of being hyper-verbal. and I certainly wish I had been given more of an understanding and grasp of this when younger. I learned enough social scripting to get by - in the same way John Elder Robsion did, and mentions in "Look Me in the Eye," but a subtle understanding of WHAT is appropriate and WHEN, often escapes me!
My application of MANY of those scripts is not quite right - not quite sublte enough and not quite "on the mark."

I'm impressed with the learning processes for ASD kids that Stephen Gutstein advocates. His view is to teach the parents in the home to be the therapists, to slow things down and to develop unspoken and more subtle modes of communication through a reduction of verbal exchanges in the home and through a whole host of strategies that are caring and more compassionate and understanding that the current ABA and purely CBT models that are around. The child can begin to learn more about real world social exchanges and the subtleties of the non-verbal world, working through these with the family and the parents as the primary teachers of these new skills. Therapy guides come into the home and also, a lot is videotaped so that parents can actually refer back to the specific problem areas of their kids, and ASLO their OWN problem areas in terms of successfully helping their children with some new strategies that may make their lives a little less painful and sad. It is slow and kind and gentle. My HFA nephew is responding well to it and his mum (my sister) is just wonderful in her approach to him. None of this "look at me and I'll give you a lolly" behaviourism stuff.

I was thinking the other day that my son, who has atypical autism, probably wouldn't seem autistic at all if a psychologist saw him with me (except for a new screaming thing he does sometimes). The reason is that with my increasing awareness of his sensibilities I have fine-tuned my responses to him and the routines of our days and weeks to the extent where he's much less frustrated. He has some language issues so it's all about talking clearly and predictably, repeating and using cues and allowing him his rigid approaches to how things should be done.

He has me trained well!

So with me, he looks pretty normal. I don't know what he'd be like interacting with a stranger because he never does. Every new person is taken in slowly with me as negotiator and interpreter.

Um, tangent. My point is, he's still autistic but his surroundings have been adjusted to a point where his autism is not causing him much grief.

Maybe it's the same for a lot of us? By luck, or skill, or because of intuitive partners, parents or teachers, our environment has been fine-tuned enough that we can function really well, and sometimes even venture into the unknown.

I think significantly impaired should be judged based on how well or poorly you handle a situation that normal people have no problem with.

That's how it is. Clinical impairment isn't comparing us to one another, rather, it's comparing us to people without the disorder (see: normal people).

The severity tier is comparing us to one another, but they haven't posted that up yet (I kinda know which direction they'll go though).