Take the Alexithymia test

Post Reply New Topic

same here, had to count them manually which was a pain. doesn't seem like a phising site to me, someone went through too much trouble with it ;p

Autism and Other Pervasive Developmental Disorders Conference (February 3-5, 2008)

Prepared by Michael B. First, M.D., DSM Consultant to the American Psychiatric Institute for Research and Education (APIRE), a subsidiary of the American Psychiatric Association

The fifth panel addressed the question Asperger’s Disorder – is it Autism? In her introduction, Francesca G. Happé, Ph.D., (London, UK) raised some of the key questions that have arisen regarding the diagnosis of Asperger’s Disorder, which was introduced into DSM-IV in 1994. These questions include: is there an ‘Asperger’ subgroup of autism with distinct cause, course, cognitive profile, and intervention needs, and if so, what is its relation to other ASDs? Asperger’s disorder is essentially defined as meeting criteria for autism without the language impairment. Lorna Wing introduced the term in 1981 to aid recognition of the part of the autism spectrum with good IQ and language. It has increased awareness and recognition and helped to clarify the core deficits of ASD, but also increases the possibility that there may be over-diagnosis of ASD. Asperger’s disorder has also had an impact on family studies of autism with regard to what we recognize as “caseness.” Dr. Happe noted that the current criteria do not work: they do not allow for developmental change, the early language criteria do not demarcate groups with different prognoses, it is hard to apply the diagnosis for adult cases, and there is no clear conceptual basis for the diagnosis. Dr. Happe concluded that although there is a recognizable Asperger’s type and that some cases of classic autism grow into this picture, she wonders whether there may be a better classification schema. Sally Ozonoff, Ph.D., (Sacramento, CA), in her presentation, compared high functioning autism (HFA) with Asperger’s, and noted that there were few differences in their definitional DSM-IV criteria; both require two social symptoms and one repetitive/stereotyped symptom, both are in the average range intellectually and have current fluent language. The main criterion distinguishing the two disorders is the requirement in Asperger’s that onset of language occurs at the expected time, e.g., single words by age 2. Dr. Ozonoff noted that it is difficult to evaluate the literature since definitions vary across studies and that many children who are thought clinically to have Asperger’s actually meet criteria for autism (which supercedes a diagnosis of Asperger's). There is some evidence to suggest that Asperger's and HFA do not represent distinct disorders: they co-occur in the same families and do not “breed true” (i.e., family members of patients with Asperger's have HFA and family members of patients with HFA have Asperger's); children with autism who develop language have similar outcome to Asperger's; HFA and Asperger's are indistinguishable by school-age; and although studies find better language skills and/or verbal IQ in Asperger's, multiple studies have found no group differences in other neuropsychological domains.

The third breakout group made the following recommendations: 1) delete Asperger’s disorder; 2) delete CDD; and 3) create an ASD with two types: Type I would be for prototypical cases characterized by problems in social interaction, social communication, and repetitive behaviors or preoccupations, and Type II is for atypical cases.