Reclassification of Autism

Post Reply New Topic

This is what is in the news.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/healt ... .html?_r=1

http://www.bendbulletin.com/article/201 ... 201200404/

What this will do is escalate the bullying even more. It looks like the Psychiatric Association wants to narrow down the criteria of Autism only to those who are not able to speak up for themselves and complain about bullying.

I want to major in psychogy in college and become a PhD, just so that I can be an authority to be taken seriously on the subject of bullying.

But why should I have to go through all of that trouble to be allowed to talk about bullying. A bully victim has to be taken seriously. Autistics who are being bullied have to be speak as an authority on this subject simply because it is happening to them and they want it to stop.

What happens if they narrow the criteria of Autism. I have to have the authoity to talk about the bullying that happens. If I am not classified as Autistic, then I won't have any authority to address the bullying of Autistics.

I will have to go to college and get an advanced degree in psychology in order to have the authority to address the bullying of Autistics. I am discriminated from college. If I am  not classified as Autistic, then how can I claim that I am discriminated from college.

Athother catch 22 situation. I have to be Autistic to be able to address bullying as a bully victim. If they declassify me as Autistic I woll have to get an advanced degree in psychology to be able to address bullying. I won't be able to do that because the I will continue to get dicriminated from college if I can't prove I am discriminated from college. I can't prove I am discriminated from college if they declassify me as bing Autistic.

Whatever panel is reviewing this, are they in any way motivated by money that comes from Autism speaks?

It's an [odd] appeal to authority fallacy to feel that you need an ASD to be taken seriously about bullying.

It's not just people with an ASD who're bullied (far, far from it).

This is a direct quote from the second cited article:

"The study results, presented Thursday at a meeting of the Icelandic Medical Association, are still preliminary but offer the latest and most dramatic estimate of how tightening the criteria for autism could affect the rate of diagnosis. Rates of autism and related disorders like Asperger’s syndrome have taken off since the early 1980s, to prevalence rates as high as 1 in 100 children in some places. Many researchers suspect that these numbers are inflated because of vagueness in the current criteria."

Rates of autism and related disorders like Asperger’s syndrome have taken off since the early 1980s,

I don't understand the reasoning here since asperger's didn't even "exist" until the early 90's.

Does this mean I'm too "normal" to have any form of autism spectrum disorder, but I'm not "normal" enough to be NT?

So I become an NT failure again instead of a person with AS that's coping pretty well?
I don't like this.
One criteria we have to meet is big trouble dealing with change. So, they decide to change who we are and expect us to deal well with it????
I don't like this one bit.

They originally were planning on having severity levels ranging from low to high, but now they changed it to a three level severity scale with the lowest level requiring professional support. Level 1 would require the person to have such a strong fixation to their rituals and routines that they would resist attempts by others to interrupt their rituals and routines or to be redirected from their fixated interest.

I think this was a bad decision, hopefully they go back to their previously proposed severity system.

You can see the new proposed changes to the severity scale here:
http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevision/Pa ... px?rid=94#

Interesting what you say about Autism Speaks.

It does seem like they are really trying to narrow it down and classify it as more of a disability than ever before.

I get the motives, I mean it's partially because so many "able' people are on the spectrum and the rates of DX are high(relatively, still not HIGH).

But, at the same time, who cares? I like seeing people here that are able and may not be immediately viewed as disabled by others. Not there's these anything wrong with having an apparent disability, but autism IS more than to me and a lot of people. They definitely don't want to emphasize or talk about the positive aspects anymore and that is very Autism Speaks.

They want to make it as scary as far from normal as possible, IMO. Given what I've heard about the genetic research they're doing I don't doubt they might be playing a part in this.

When will the final decision on the revisions be made?

December of this year.

So according to them I'm no longer on the spectrum?

So what am I according to them now? Not normal but not different either?

This makes no sense.

Is there anyone out there with a diagnosed ASD that gets by like their peers without support in place?

One of the many reasons I'm very peeved about the exclusion of AS from the DSM-5 is that it took me years to figure out what condition I have, and now, they're going to take it away and say that I don't qualify? I'm a strong proponent that AS and HFA are NOT the same, which is the main reason I'm against this change, but regardless of that part of it, I think it is silly to call everything "autistic disorder" and use severity. All of us on the spectrum know very well that there is a vast difference in functioning among so-called "high-functioning" individuals alone. According to their proposal, all high-functioning people would be level 1. Just because I was able to get through school/life without accommodations due to my high IQ and lack of knowing what AS was during childhood means that I'm not on the spectrum and that I don't struggle living each day?! It is garbage and going to make the diagnostic process even more muddled.

I do think that ASD diagnoses are being overdiagnosed in the last few years. It's the new ADHD. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't keep the label of Asperger's or PDD-NOS. People are just starting to know what AS is and that PDD-NOS is "atypical autism," and they're going to go around and undo all the progress that's been made in educating the public. I also highly dislike the proposal to take OCD out of the anxiety disorders and make a section JUST for OCD-spectrum disorders. The whole POINT of OCD is the anxiety! That FUELS it! To say it's not an anxiety disorder makes NO sense.

Personally, I think the "spectrum" idea is going too far. It's a good technique to explain differing severities of disorders, but to classify conditions with a spectrum alone is poor. Yes, disorders aren't black-and-white categories, but spectrum ideology is making overdiagnosis. This isn't just for ASDs, either. Bipolar disorder is becoming like this, too. The idea of bipolar spectrum disorders is lame. Yes, bipolar disorder can take many different forms, but we don't need bipolar 1/2 and bipolar 1 1/2, for crying out loud! (And yes, those are being proposed by some bipolar researchers.) Bipolar I, II, III, and IV are completely sufficient.

The DSM sucks as it is for most disorders. OCD, mania, and ASDs are all poorly described in terms of their symptoms in the DSM-IV. But rather than improve explaining what the disorders are so people can actually recognize that they have a condition, they are just making the criteria even MORE vague and blurred. It really angers me, because the new edition is supposed to make the disorders' descriptions BETTER. So many things are currently missing from diagnostic criteria, and none of those things are going to be added/changed. Is it any wonder so many people are being incorrectly diagnosed and/or not diagnosed at all? The reason I slipped through the cracks for so many years is because my forms of OCD and Asperger's are not the stereotypical cases presented in the DSM. And so few people know that mania is the most common form of psychosis after schizophrenia, and why is that? Because it's never even MENTIONED in the DSM that mania is often a psychotic state.

Final revisions will be decided by the end of 2012. We have this whole year to protest this.

What are the steps needed to protest this?

I was thinking, Carly Fleischmann seems to be THE voice of autism right now. Maybe we should
see if we could get her on our side for this issue.

The proposed American criteria do not seem to make a difference to anyone I know, and do seem much clearer.

There are plenty of signs that the rest of the world will not follow DSM-V on autism, so major autism centres in the UK and Australia will continue to use alternative diagnostic criteria and continue to diagnose Asperger syndrome as a separate condition.

It would be great to have an objective genetic or MRI test, and dump the psych professionals in the sea.

Last edited by StuartN on 21 Jan 2012, 8:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

I found this so funny. (because its true).

I don't know, what you want to say, but yesterday I had to do something unexpected, so it was a change in my routine and I could not function the rest of the day anymore and was stimming the whole day to calm down. To function today I had to write everything down again what I would do, which is, what I would normally do.
So to me trouble dealing with change is a big issue and I guess it is because of autism. I do not see other people having this issue to this extend. But still I try to find ways to get better in that.