Autism and Schizophrenia might part of same disorder

Post Reply New Topic

I thought it was important that I should cross-post this from the other board.
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=388969

TLDR> SSD and ASD are part of the same disorder. (most likely)

Wasn't Leo Kanner's original theory that autism was a kind of infantile schizophrenia?

I've known plenty of autistic people, and some schizophrenics, too.

No...they are not part of the same disorder.

Though "autism" was stated to be a characteristic of dementia praecox (schizophrenia) by Eugen Bleuler early in the 20th century.

They are both neurologically-based conditions. And there are similarities.

But the schizophrenics I know, and the autistic folks I know, present quite differently. Different modalities are "impaired" within the two conditions. Autism, for example, can have intellectual disability as being one of the "symptoms." The prevalence is higher than within the general population.

In schizophrenia, intellectual disability is probably about as rare as it is in the general population.

Two closely-related conditions: What was once known as Asperger's Syndrome, and Nonverbal Learning Disability. It is said that there is an 80% overlap between them. However, one can have one without having the other.

I would not deny that there is overlap between schizophrenia and autism----but they are certainly two separate conditions, even if they happen to have an identical etiology (which they don't).

Disorders of the brain can’t be neatly separated by thick steel walls.

Those diagnosises were invented in the mid 20th century or before when knowledge of the brain was non existent to tiny.

In the future maybe all born organic brain disorders will be simply labelled autism and then each broken down to its various disfunction?

The diagnosis “autism” is hardly a diagnosis in itself since it dates back to the 1940’s and there are many autism’s of varying severity that will one day in the future be broken up into their proper biological source with possible treatment options.

I am currently diagnosed with both Asperger syndrome and schizotypal disorder (according to ICD-10). In ICD-10 schizophrenia-type disorder (F21) is not a personality disorder as in DSM, but is a mental illness from the same part of ICD-10 classification as schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. I had diagnosis of schizophrenia (not just schizotypal disorder) for a short time in 2016. I have never had diagnoses of schizophrenia (F20) and PDD (F84) at the same time, only schizotypal disorder with PDD together.

PDD/ASD and schizo disorders have quite similar symptoms in some areas (poor social functioning, atypical emotionality, being considered "odd", "weird" by many people etc.). So, according to my diagnoses which I have since more than four years, I have "double mental peculiarity". I have also severe, bookish case of OCD. I function in adult life really poorly despite the fact that I was pretty good in academic skills and Wechsler IQ test (in many subscales).

My theory: maybe some cases of PDD/ASD and schizo disorders are not "pure" or typical ASDs or just standard schizo conditions (people who have schizophrenia can be mentally "normal" in childhood, while those with ASD/PDD always show peculiarity in childhood), but PDDs from the schizo continuum (and probably not from "normal" autistic spectrum)?

A thought occurred to me that when I saw some replies, some were giving examples and others were saying how the people had their theories wrong.
But something came to me that the wrong theories were just as important as the right ones because without the wrong ones in place, one has nothing to think about to reach the more accurate "Right" conclusions. (I say "Right" knowing that there still yet may be more adjustments made in future theories and conclusions).
It is a brave thing to come out with a theory knowing that it will be torn apart and likely to be reformed or re-assembled etc in other ways. I think we need to recognize that every theory put forward was a step forward in our understanding be the theories right or wrong.
As I get older I am learning to value all the steps in the process. For example, something simple like making model railway waggons and carriages. It took me many attempts before I was happy with the designs and some have further experimentations and ideas to explore. Without trying things out I would not have known what works and what does not.
Theories can also be like this. Someone has an idea. They are brave enough to share it. Others look at it to see if the idea is what they see happening in the real world and report back... It is all needed in the process of discovering the truth. (And even when we think we have discovered it we may have to makeammendmwnts to it as we go along!)

https://www.nature.com/articles/pr9201190.pdf

So I'm Schizophrenic now too.