DSM change justified due to pandemic of AS misdiagnosis

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No holding down a job does;t automatically disqualify you. To reiterate: Someone with relationships maintained up to developmental level -first of all does not have all the symptoms of autism because not having developed or maintained relationships to developmental level is now a mandatory symptom of ASD and second of all obviously doesn't have severe impairment in social interaction. If someone has a good marriage of many years, good relationship with his kids and a few friends and no problem with co-workers for many years WITHOUT ACCOMMODATION AND DISCLOSURE then he has relationships developed and maintained to appropriate developmental level. It's not just that he kept a job -in my original example I specified that any problems he had were to the point that they didn't cause him to be in danger of losing his job and the fact that he maintained all those relationships without problems severe enough to threaten them and all this with NO ACCOMMODATION OR SPECIFIC SUPPORT.

edited for disambiguation, this post is a response to Daydreamer84's comments about what "obviously is and is not impaired"

Hypothetical bollocks. Real lives don't work that way.

You don't have the first clue about other peoples' lives.

The people who diagnose them probably know more than you about both the criteria for diagnosis and the details of the individuals life.

I keep seeing variations ont the same theme here: "There are people out there who are not impaired in the same way I am, so they can't be autistic." That's faulty thinking.

What's obviously true to you about an autistic person with a long term marriage or job may in fact have no resemblance to reality.

^^

No , I don't think p[people have to be as impaired as me to have ASD but I'm just saying that some people just have traits of autism and not the full disorder and I'm sure people are misdiagnosed. People get misdiagnosed with lots of things. Of course professionals know more than me about criteria and the lives of people they diagnose. I would and never did dispute that. Obviously the p[professionals thought the criteria should be stricter and i'm saying I agree with that. I was only using hypotheticals to show an example of someone with autsitic traits but without impairment. Also, I specified that the marriage or job were not in danger and the person had no support or accommodation to distinguish between someone who might be married and have a job but still be impaired and someone without impairment.

Sorry to have brought my hypothetical prof into this discussion. I'd like to continue the argument/discussion about the changes to the DSM and whether or not they're justified without him in it. He's going to go retire to his sitting room with a glass of brandy to swill and a good book.

The thing is, unless you are in intimate conversations with someone, like a therapist, you know very little about what goes on in their life and in their head. Aspects of their lives that look very functional from the outside may be fraught with the difficulty on the inside--there's no way to tell unless the person let's you in.

And yet people say that the kids and the marriage and the job make it obvious that the person is not impaired.

How do you know? You don't. Really. You don't know. So why do you choose to believe this?

I have been in a relationship with my wife for nearly three decades and I have had a job for nearly two decades. I have two kids. And you have no idea what that means, how hard it has been, in what ways i have had unofficial accommodations and supports or how badly autism has impacted my social communication, social interaction or social imagination.

iI don't think you know this about many other people either. So how can there be a conclusion that there are lots off unimpaired autistics rushing around claiming a classification they don't deserve! It seems insane to me.

^^^
There were empirical studies showing that about 60% of people with PDD NOS and a smaller but significant number of people with AS were misdiagnosed when their records were examined in detail. Peter Stazmari said this at a conference I believe. I will check this with my friend who attended said conference....Ill try to get the study to post. That is part of why they did change the criteria The main thing was that they couldn't reliably distinguish between the various PDD's so it made sense to subsume them all under ASD but there were also concerns about the criteria not being strict enough.

I often relate positives about my Asperger's and the gifts it has given to me. But I have also made if perfectly clear that I have challenges like others. And, I have also had my share of time in The Haven during difficult moments.

For those of you who have known me here at the WP and the way I think about having autism, let me relate some things about me:

*social situations cause me extreme distress, I feel so awkward at social events I feel it would easier to float an anvil in a lake, (at one social event I attended years ago I felt so awkward that I got physically ill and began breaking out in hives), I have had to find darkened rooms away from the crowd during some social events. This evening for example, I had to go to a family member's b-day party and her mother's retirement party combined event---I excused myself after awhile to get to a private area for about a half hour just to regain myself so I could return to the party. As a child I hated any kind of social events with classmates---I hated it!! !

*sensory issues---yeah, let me tell you about those. In a restaurant for example, if we (family) are seated next to a sunny window, my wife automatically speaks up for me and asks the waiter or waitress for a table away from bright lights. If a place is noisy, I can't take it---I will go into meltdown. I don't like being touched by people other than my immediate family. This evening at that party, several people patted me on the shoulder and it felt like a gun blasting through me---aghhhhh!! !! ! DON'T TOUCH ME!! !! !! !! !

*friends??? hmmm...I don't guess I have any. I speak to my neighbor maybe once a month, and our houses are close together. In school I could manage one close friend, but when there was more than one friend around---awkward!! ! And as I said, today, no friends.

*taking things literally---yeah, all the time. I get lost in most movies because of this.

*depressed---yeah, I've just been going through a bout of it.

*my job---I've been screwed like most of you. I got pushed into spending $7000 to get schooling for another position because the administration yanked me out of teaching English. Then, after that new job, and $7000 in the hole, I got screwed again. They took that job away and now I work in a position that I....well...I'd rather not talk about it.

*rules follower---I get extremely irritated at people on the road (for example) that speed or don't come to complete stops at stop signs that it makes my entire family nervous at me ranting about it behind the wheel.

*eye contact---I've been to therapy to try to learn how

*empathy---I feel for others, I just have difficulty expressing it---and I have been to therapy to try to learn how to show it

Gee, I could go on and on and on...but yeah, I have plenty of challenges. Those were just a few. Trust me...I can't even throw garbage out without inspecting it because of fear that something might have gotten thrown away that shouldn't have---you know, attention to detail---afraid of doing something wrong.

But...................I could focus on those things to the point of making myself miserable. But, I try to focus on the positives and post those things here on WP. I am a talent savant in music. I can memorize statistics to certain things that interest me. And I love my special intense interests---they make life fun.

*oh, did I forget bullying? Let's see, maybe I would have been bullied more if I hadn't been 6'1" in 7th grade and my father hadn't been a respected teacher in the same school---students were afraid of him, so most wouldn't have picked on me (his son). But---I did get my trombone smashed, I did get my shop project (chess set) stolen (though later recovered), I did get set on the water fountain, I was a passenger in an older student's car who decided to drive ultra fast to bully me and scare me, I was bullied by students when I began teaching, I was...yeah...I could go on. But I don't want to dwell on that anymore.

To the OP. Yes, a lot of us seem to really emphasize the positives, but I think you will find most of us that do have also had some major issues. As for the ones who say they have never had any issues, I can't judge them.