Autism is a vague diagnosis.

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11 Nov 2013, 10:10 am

In the new dsm they did away with autism subtypes. Personally I think they should have added more. It's such a vague diagnosis with symptoms that can be opposite from each other on polar extremes (such as over-sensitive vs. lack of sensitivity or ADHD vs over inhibited) They could easily make an entire section on autism disorders.
Autism isn't the only vague diagnosis either. Actually many of them are vague. For example people with schizophrenia often have no symptoms in common with each other. (Another disorder where they got rid of subtypes)

ASPartOfMe
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11 Nov 2013, 3:37 pm

I don't think vague but broad to the point of possibly being meaningless I would agree with.

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11 Nov 2013, 4:05 pm

I use “abstract”, mainly due the NT's inability to wrap their brains around it.

Willard
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11 Nov 2013, 4:18 pm

Schizpergers wrote:

In the new dsm they did away with autism subtypes. Personally I think they should have added more.

I feel pretty confident that many of those subtypes are going to end up being reinstated. There's research already coming out indicating that AS/HFA and Classic Autism actually have some distinctly different neurological 'footprints'.

When I queried my therapist as to whether or not the deletion of AS from the new DSM would require any changes in my own diagnosis, this was her reply:

Quote:

Well here is the thing with the new DSM. It is up to each individual clinician to decide when they actually want to start using the new one including never. It is also considered a fluid document, thus will change whenever the board wants to change it. I am not going to use it as it is the stupidest book I have ever read. The board actually changed multiple things right before it was published so who knows. There is so much argument and disagreement from advocacy groups that the diagnosis of ASD is likely to change in an upcoming version. I would suggest just holding on until some official date is given or something changes. I think it will probably go back to separate diagnoses eventually. There was just a publishing deadline so it didn’t get changed back.

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11 Nov 2013, 5:10 pm

Those "distinctly different neurological footprints" are: People diagnosed with AS fit into a small subset that also exists within the overall population of autistic people, including those who were not diagnosed with AS." The graphs in that study didn't show distinct anything, just that if you select to exclude people with certain traits from a diagnosis, the people diagnosed with it will reflect that.

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11 Nov 2013, 6:34 pm

Big pharma helps write the DSM. Keeping things vague means more profits.

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11 Nov 2013, 7:20 pm

The DSM-5 criteria for autism are not vague. They're actually clearer in many ways than they have been in decades.

I am not saying the DSM-5 is perfect, but it's not nearly that bad.

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11 Nov 2013, 8:53 pm

The DSM 5 criteria is more specific and heavily detailed. I'm fine with it.

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11 Nov 2013, 9:22 pm

Willard wrote:

Schizpergers wrote:

In the new dsm they did away with autism subtypes. Personally I think they should have added more.

Quote:

Will that that take 19 years like it did to get from IV to V? The others question is legal and media wise will Aspergers be accepted or will they take thy DSM as the authoritative and only word? My clinician diagnosed me as Aspergers under IV and on the spectrum under V smart move by her.

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11 Nov 2013, 10:33 pm

What you point out aren't core symptoms.

Schizpergers
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12 Nov 2013, 10:35 am

Dillogic wrote:

What you point out aren't core symptoms.

I'm aware of that.
It seems my point has been missed by most people who have replied.

My point is that there are many features that are common with ASD that are not core features.

Because of this autistic people have only the main symptoms in common and everything else is not.

By making more subcategories (I would think about 10) they could give a diagnosis that is more descriptive.

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12 Nov 2013, 1:51 pm

I'm reading this book right now, "rethinking autism" by Lynn Waterhouse.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0124159613

This is helpful to get a sense of the science. She doesn't even think subtypes make sense necessarily because she argues the subtypes may not even make sense to group together under a category like autism, once we know what the subtypes are.

There's a big subtyping project in progress called Autism Phenome Project:
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/mindinstit ... earch/app/
but I haven't seen any results from it yet.

I think they removed subtypes in DSM 5 not because nobody believes they exist, but because nobody knows what they are or how to distinguish them.

The DSM 5 autism criteria are bureaucratic not scientific in nature. Their function is to classify people for school and insurance purposes, sort of a "certificate of need for services." It's a mistake to take them too seriously I think.

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