Is AS being overdiagnosed?

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I don' think it's being overdiagnosed, but rather misdiagnosed, i.e. it's the "go to"-diagnosis, the "flavour of the moment" thing.

There's no doubt in my mind that it's being overdiagnosed. The most telling circumstancial (albeit not concrete) evidence of this, is the statistics we are hearing from Autism Speaks. First it was 1 in 150 children. Now it's 1 in 110. What gives?

Autism has become the new childhood "it" thing to diagnose, the way ADHD was in the '90s.

All things considered, I think autism in adults remains underdiagnosed. It is thought of as a childhood condition, and the way it affects adults is given short shrift.

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Last edited by Daryl_Blonder on 25 Oct 2011, 2:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I wonder what will happen to diagnosis rates when the DSM-V comes out. An ASD diagnosis will require significant impairments in both social interaction and restricted/repetitive behavior, so maybe diagnosis rates will drop.

I dunno, but I see it as almost counterproductive in some cases. If a kid isn't actually impaired and he's just a huge gamer who's a little shy, and you treat him like he's disabled, he's gonna act like it. You've sold his life short, and possibly ruined his confidence forever. Not like NT society won't do the same thing though.

No easy answers.

Except that:

ADHD was never overdiagnosed in children. I linked to an article that goes into this in depth earlier in this thread, but here's the thread again: http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/bipolar ... ageNumber=

And the increase in numbers of people diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorders does not logically lead to "it's overdiagnosed." It could mean it is overdiagnosed, but only if earlier diagnostic rates were actually the true prevalence. One of the side effects of improved diagnostic criteria (and demonstrated with both PDDs and ADHD) is that you're going to diagnose more people with them when they would have previously slipped through the diagnostic cracks.

I'm not arguing that no one gets misdiagnosed with these or anything else. My point is more that it's somewhat arbitrary to pick an earlier point and say "everything past this means there's overdiagnosis." There's nothing substantial or concrete to support it, even as you acknowledged.

I was told by my psychiatrist that, in Canada at least, it was being over diagnosed. So regular psychiatrists or psychologists can't diagnose it anymore. It means I have to go for an expensive psychiatric evaluation to be diagnosed. Which is okay, because I'm told they tell you a lot of fascinating information about yourself, and I might be covered for most of the costs.

Lots of medical professionals believe it too, but a lot of it is pure - often Scientologist - propaganda. I would be interested to know if there's any research that supports the idea of it being overdiagnosed in Canada.

That said, the full evaluations like that are great if you can get one.

I think its a bit of both, overdiagnosed and underdiagnosed. My sister got diagnosed with borderline aspie and she is no way in hell aspie. She's very social, always read social cues naturally, made friends easily, is super attached to her friends, she needs to socialize. She has ADHD, I think the overlap in aspergers and ADHD accounts for some of her aspie symptoms. There are still people who are missed and others that who don't really have it. I'm persuaded its hugely self-diagnosed especially on this forum. I understand a lot of people feel socially awkward, it doesn't mean we all have aspergers. You may have a combo of social anxiety and OCD and just "feel" socially awkward. It can just be a self-perception thing. Besides just aspergers, people on here self-diagnosis themselves like crazy, its like I have 8, 9 things, you must be crazy.

Yeah that applies to me as well. You meet me now, you probably wont think much. But that's after 5-6 yrs of behavioral modification. You met me as a senior in HS, anyone who knows who Aspergers is would have easily spotted me. My prof last sem for Cog Neuroscience is also an educational specialist who works with a ton of people with Aspergers. I disclosed to her after she went off on a huge tangent about aspergers in class(it made me very nervous). She didn't know.



I 100% agree. It has become a trendy diagnosis, just like how ADD was. And people are likely freaking out too much due to the drastic increases. And I bet ya soon enough people are gonna be casually branding anyone the least bit socially awkward and nerdy with Asperger's. Just like how everyone casually branded any disruptive kid who couldn't pay attention with ADD.

I know I am repeating myself, but ADHD was never overdiagnosed. The idea that it was is basically media propaganda. Just because a certain piece of information "feels right" doesn't mean that it is factual.

Sorry, but I get the feeling that people are "threatened" by the higher rates of ASDs because they think more ASD DXes = "I'm not special anymore!"

I repeat: does anyone actually have any concrete, physical evidence of what autism actually IS? As of right now, it's diagnosed based on opinions of observed and reported behavior, not brain scans, blood tests, or genetics. Therefore, people's interpretation of the diagnostic criteria is going to vary. In the meantime, while we're waiting for science to catch up, it's less than useless to claim it's "over-diagnosed."

Do I care if I'm "really" autistic? Not particularly. At the moment, it just gives me a useful framework with which to work on my issues. But I'm sure as heck not going to loose any sleep worrying if my DX isn't good enough for the Aspie clique.



Which is great, except what qualifies as "disabled" is also going to vary. My mother has MS, quite badly too, but she still works and drives. She can't afford not to. Anyone claiming she's not really disabled based on the fact she works is a moron.

"Disabled" is subjective.

I have no idea.



One thing that I think needs to be kept in mind that impaired or disabled doesn't have to mean "Can't work." It mostly means that something or many things are harder for a disabled person than they are for other people, and that this causes often unavoidable complications in people's lives - or that avoiding the complications is itself extremely costly and may cause other complications. Not directed at you, and not directed at pensieve, either.

Well, I'm thinking it's because they don't want people who aren't "really disabled" like they are to dilute the meaning of the label, causing people to view aspies as "capable whiners" and projecting that image on those who are truly disabled. If the percentages keep on rising, then eventually the term is going to lose its original meaning. I mean, what, South Korea scientists estimate an incidence of 1 out of 38 people being autistic? You don't see 1 out of 38 kids flapping their hands so autism just must be the newest label for shyness.

And I repeat, what counts as "really disabled?" And, without examining the evidence, how do we know that these people DON'T fit the criteria? Or are we just guessing that they don't because there's a higher prevalence of ASDs being DXed? And, seeing how subjective the criteria already is.........I don't comprehend getting butthurt over there being more DXes.

I certainly don't get anything "special" for having an official DX, so I'm content to wait out the growing pains.



I can agree with that.

Oh yes, I agree with your reasoning, I'm just saying people are afraid of the meaning of the label changing in a way that hurts the truly disabled by becoming more meaningless.

I have a friend who is autistic and he is very social and seems to make friends easily. But he has social skills and emotions of a four year old and he is a savant with maps and geography stuff and he seems to know every oldie song and the singer of them, he is also obsessed with toddlers and their shoes and longalls and collects them, including maps. Those are his obsessions. He seems more social than me but that doesn't mean he has better social skills than I do. I am just shy and possibly social anxiety and he isn't so he talks to anyone in public and online. But yet as a child he had a hard time fitting in and making friends. He gets along better with toddlers and elderlies he said but not anyone in his age range or middle age or twenties or teens. He also has ADHD.

My husband is considered disabled by his old doctor but he doesn't see himself as that way. He works but yet it would limit him when he get home because he couldn't be very active and he had a hard time moving because he be in so much pain and he couldn't cook either because it hurt him too much to stand on his feet. Now that he is taking medication, he isn't as limited and he is more active and started to lose more weight again.


I don't see myself as disabled either nor does my mother but sometimes I do feel disabled.