DSM change justified due to pandemic of AS misdiagnosis

Post Reply New Topic

And just to back up exactly what I have been saying all along, I have just coincidentally come across this whilst I was searching for something else:

http://www.nice.org.uk/newsroom/pressre ... tyLife.jsp

Here are all of the slides from the presentation daydreamer84 was talking about:

http://imageshack.us/g/1/10199818/

Unfortunately, I have no clue how to put them in proper order.
If you choose "sort by newest", the last slide is the first.

The DSM-IV-TR mentions sensory stuff in the expanded text regarding AD (not AS).

Lorna Wing mentions that sensory stuff is rarely there in adults with HFA, and by extension AS (in the original paper on AS that the DSM-IV-TR was based on).

Mind blowing, I know. You see lots of people with AS/HFA say they suffer from sensory problems, though by the old material, they shouldn't. I guess that's why it's old material.

@ Agent Palpatine - I don't know any more about what criteria he used as I wasn't at the conference but Peter Szatmari ,while he may not have been part of the development of the DSM 5, is a very prolific researcher of ASD's and authour of books and articles about ASD and also has many years of clinical experience.

In fact:"Peter Szatmari (born 1950) is a Canadian researcher of Autism and Asperger syndrome.Szatmari is a Professor and Vice-Chair, Research, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, at McMaster University. He is also the Director of the research training program in the department, and a member of the Offord Centre for Child Studies. Dr. Szatmari is Editor of the journal, Evidence-Based Mental Health, and serves on the editorial boards of several other journals.[1]Szatmari is known for his writings on Aspergers genetics, infant studies, and PET and MRI studies.[2] He is also known for his diagnostic criteria for Asperger syndrome.[3]Szatmari helped to set up the Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) team at Chedoke Child and Family Centre, a regional diagnostic and treatment program for children with a PDD diagnosis, in Hamilton, Ontario.[4]Szatmari is currently part of the Autism Genome Project.[5]"WIKI LINK

The fact that Autism Speaks was a sponsor of the conference doesn't invalidate what was said at it. You may not like their politics but there is no evidence that they falsify data or evidence or disseminate falsified data .

In a way the DSM 5 criteria is less strict and more inclusive. It includes sensory issues in the RRB criteria which the DSM 4 PDD diagnoses did not. Also, it includes a clause stating that the criteria must be met "at present or by history" and allows psychs to class you as "ASD in remission" if you had traits and impairments as a child and don't now. That way if someone meets all the criteria and is impaired at one point in their life and not another then when they do have the symptoms and the impairment and need help they can be diagnosed and treated. When they don;t it's on their record but not as a problem the person is currently experiencing but as one they have experienced and might one day again.

As I was saying before (my main point really) and as Callista and perhaps others were saying, if you're never impaired then you don't need a medical diagnosis. A medical diagnosis is used to classify you for the purpose of providing the proper treatment, support, accommodations, benefits ect. that you need because of your specific condition. If you need none of these things then you don;t need a medical diagnosis.

^^
Well, I'm just pointing out that it has no relevance as to the validity of any data presented at the conference.

I am confused. Is there really a large group of people are officially diagnosed or self-diagnosed with ASD but have never had any problems caused by ASD?

Also, the distress criterion is very subjective. What causes much distress to someone else may not distress me, even if the problem that caused the distress is equal in severity. I tend to make no big deal out of things, but other people who are much more emotional seem to be often distressed.

^ For a while I think it was a fad, I don't take much notice of fads so perhaps it still is. Fads are often silly and pointless and so is pretending to have a ASD when you don't.
I guess it's not so cool then to be autistic. But I don't care I've never been cool and it's not going to happen now.
I guess anyone diagnosed because it's cool would have good reason to be worried.

I don't really mind what it is called, as an undiagnosed person looking at losing yet another job I would be happy to have a reason to present for my differences and not be viewed as just a person with an enormous set of character flaws that is apparently unwilling or too stupid, meek or awkward to change.

The criteria doesn't talk about distress at all, it talks about impairment. It is still subjective to a certain extent. Even the measurements of symptoms are subjective because they're based on behavioral symptoms. What constitutes a severe impairment in non-verbal communication is not clearly specified, for example. All of the diagnoses in the DSM are based on behavioral symptoms.We do not yet have brain scans or anything more objective that are sensitive and specific enough to diagnose these disorders so it's a necessary evil, for now. Perhaps in the future we'll have more objective criteria.

The thing is requiring impairment for diagnosis is very practical. You don't need a medical diagnosis unless you need help of some sort. People who can not do well without help of some sort (benefits, support, accommodations, treatment) can not be diagnosed. That's fine...they don't need to be. People who can do well at one point but not another (who show all of the behavioural symptoms that are criteria for ASD)can be diagnosed with ASD in remission. Then it's noted that they had problems at one point and that they may again in the future. IMO the DSM 5 criteria is an improvement because it allows for that.

I was officially diagnosed with Aspergers when I was 8 years old and now I am 23, and I am very sure that I have it. I've had those problems that everybody on here is describing my whole life. From the time I first entered school I was bullied by both my classmates and a few of my teachers and it eventually got to the point to where my Mom had to pull me out of school due to an incident where a kid stabbed me in the arm with a pencil and I got put in a school for children with special needs, and I tell you that the years I spent in that school were some of the happiest of my life. The teachers didn't care if I acted strange or had poor social skills because they just accepted me for who I was and the students there were nice to me too. I have a little brother with Cerebral Palsy and I was once told that my level of autism is actually worse than his level of cerebral palsy. I've always been clumsy and had poor social skills, and while I've started getting better at reading other people I am not good at expressing my own true feelings to people at all. Also one thing I did not get when I was little was humor and my own mom had to actually teach me about humor and things that are funny.