MushroomPrincess wrote:
A communication disorder stemming from a malformed or deficient frontal lobe, usually characterized by clinically significant delay in language development and difficulty with non-verbal cues.
If, for the sake of argument, I except your definition exactly “as is” then the statement “some people, n percent, diagnosed as autistic do not “have” autism makes some sense. The problem? The DSM doesn’t define it that way. Neither does the ICD. Further frontal lobe isn’t always identified in MRI or FMRI or EEG studies of people diagnosed by DSM criteria. So you see the problem with the original assertion. As the meta-analysis I cited in a previous post stated: there are NO biomarkers with enough studies and enough statistical evidence associated with them to act as a replacement for the DSM criteria. And the DSM criteria are about observable behavior, and quantifiable (by use of a rubric) included in the DSM5.
Further non-verbal LD is a separate diagnosis.
No-one I have ever met here on the forum has said “i has this brain scan and they found autism, so now I have a diagnosis”.
Because the definition you are using isn’t the one used.
Quote:
I thought everyone on here knew what autism was
I have discovered that many people here have a variety of ideas of what Autism is. It is a matter of much discussion.
For my oldest son, his diagnosis was by DSM5 criteria. The decision was not objective, but subjective, the criteria were applied by a PhD who was also certified in school psychology. She used a number of statistical instruments to support her subjective opinion as well as informational interviews with teachers and parents and he, himself. But in the end it was a DSM5 based diagnosis. I specifically went over the DSM5 (newly published then) with her and specifically asked her to use the new quantitative measures.
No brain scan was involved.
My diagnosis was several years later. Different PhD. She also used statistical instruments and interviews with me and my wife. My dad was recovering from a stroke and did not participate. My mom had died 10 years earlier. Parent interviews were not used. A specific instrument (my subjective answer to a list of questions each on a scale of 1 to 5) to measure my level of masking was used, which had not been used with my son. The final decision was based on expert subjective opinion and DSM5 criteria.
No brain scan was used.
Both these diagnoses are evidence of Autism. And that is the legal definition of Autism in the USA. It impacted the government payed support my son got in high school. It was the reason a particular consulting company that only worked worth Autistic talent agreed to take me on. It IS the definition used in many cases.
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ADHD-I(diagnosed) ASD-HF(diagnosed)
RDOS scores - Aspie score 131/200 - neurotypical score 69/200 - very likely Aspie
Last edited by Fenn on 14 Apr 2024, 1:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.