Why I believe Asperger's is is still relavent
ASPartOfMe
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Originally, when there were two distinct separate categories in the DSM diagnostic criteria, people treated the sufferers of each category different, and generally regarded people with low functioning autism as extremely needy, while people with higher functioning Autism (people with average or above average IQ's) as being not as needy.
i.e. people with low IQ's = disabled.
people with high IQ's = normal but just a bit of a weirdo trouble maker.
This created a pattern of treatment that was based on IQ level rather than a persons disability.
At some point, some of the psychiatrists started to realise that some of the people with Asperger syndrome, who suffered the same or perhaps even worse problematic symptoms that the people with low functioning autism suffered, were not perceived as disabled, and thus were not given the same treatment or opportunities as the people with low functioning autism.
Someone also made the observation that some of the sufferers of Asperger Syndrome actually were hindered by having the disability more, as they were unable to reach their potential for a person with their IQ level and capabilities outside their autism based symptoms, when compared to someone who had low functioning autism, who would be easier to help reach their potential in such areas as employment. So, taking into consideration this observation, the people who made this observation realised that in some cases the person with Asperger Syndrome were actually more disabled by the condition than people who were low functioning.
I also note, the psychiatrists also realised at some point that the deliberating symptoms for both conditions were the same, and include a wide range of symptoms, with no 2 person suffering from the exact same paradigm of symptoms.
So, the psychiatrists decided to amalgamate both disorders, include the entire broad range of symptoms, and at the same time evaluate a person by the amount their symptoms affect them in every day life.
I do not have nearly enough knowledge to discuss your diagnosis or how things are done in the UK. In the USA Aspergers was removed because it was felt that it was being overdiagnosed and it was costing people money. The APA is beholden to the insurance companies.
Below is a Psychology Today article from 2012 right before the change.
Why Claim Asperger's is Overdiagnosed?
In February, science writer Emily Willingham delivered an intricate critique of the flabbery jabbery coming from some of these autism “experts”: anecdote cited as evidence, opinion as certainty. A less measured commentator accused the DSM team of pseudoscientific delusional syndrome. Some of the overdiagnosis comments sampled below have achieved notoriety in the autism community, but still, the Asperger’s Alive! archive would be remiss not to include them. And its worth remembering that social communciation and Theory of Mind present challenges for some autism researchers.
Susan Swedo, chair of the DSM-5 neurodevelopmental disorders workgroup, said in May that many people who identify with Asperger’s Syndrome “don't actually have Asperger's disorder, much less an autism spectrum disorder.”
David Kupfer, chair of the task force charged with the DSM revisions, blurted to the New York Times in January: “We have to make sure not everybody who is a little odd gets a diagnosis of autism or Asperger Disorder. It involves a use of treatment resources. It becomes a cost issue.” (This was startling to those who’d missed the memo that declared costs and treatment resources the responsibility of the APA. Which was everyone.)
Catherine Lord, the director of the Institute for Brain Development at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and another member of the workgroup, told Scientific American in January, “If the DSM-IV criteria are taken too literally, anybody in the world could qualify for Asperger's or PDD-NOS... We need to make sure the criteria are not pulling in kids who do not have these disorders.”
Paul Steinberg, a D.C. psychiatrist, declared in a New York Times op-ed in January that “with the loosening of the diagnosis of Asperger, children and adults who are shy and timid, who have quirky interests like train schedules and baseball statistics, and who have trouble relating to their peers” are erroneously and harmfully labeled autistic. He blamed a 1992 Department of Education directive that “called for enhanced services" for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders: “The diagnosis of Asperger syndrome went through the roof."
Dr. Bryna Siegel, a developmental psychologist at the University of California, San Francisco, told a Daily Beast reporter in February that she “undiagnoses” nine of out ten students with so-called Asperger’s. Siegel was a member of the panel responsible for the inclusion of Asperger’s in the DSM-IV, which the reporter cited to me in a phone call as evidence of Seigel's objectivity: implicitly, Seigel is critiquing her own work. But that same journalist made no mention in the piece of Dr. Seigel’s history as an expert witness for school districts fending off families’ claims for those “enhanced services,” and the obvious conflict of interest (as well as the selection bias in her client pool) this represents. In October, she told New York magazine that she undiagnoses six out of ten. That's quite a shift in eight months. Hope it was evidence-based.
Bolding mine
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DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity
“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
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StarTrekker
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Back when Asperger's was still a thing, I would still refer to myself as autistic, because it seemed that more people were familiar with autism than they were with Asperger syndrome. These days, I think my autism is too severe to classify as Asperger's; I think I'd be diagnosed with autism as it was known back in the DSM IV.
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