Dsm 5 severity levels

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What is your opinion of DSM-V severity levels for ASD. And if you are diagnosed with ASD what is your severity level on the scale? Mine is 2.( diagignosed) If you were not diagnosed with classic autism and were diagnosed as Aspergers or something else before how is your diagnosis changed?

Last edited by jenisautistic on 09 Mar 2014, 7:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I suppose mine would be a 1 - requires minimal intervention.

Do you like the idea of three levels?

Mine didn't change because I have not been to any doctors nor has my company sent me to get reevaluated to see what my disability is. I don't think a person's diagnoses will change unless they are going for help and I feel I don't need help so I am not in any therapy even though I have been told I should go.

Mine is 2 for social communication deficits and 1 for repetitive/restrictive behaviours. They can be given different severity levels if need be. I asked the psych. I was seeing to re-assess me to see if I met the new DSM criteria even though I was diagnosed with Asperger's at 13 and that's what she decided. I would have thought it would be the other way around actually.

Yeah, I think the severity levels are a good idea. With the levels severity doesn't just depend on IQ or language delay and it can be determined for each individual based on level of impairment and need for support in each of the two domains, social communication and RRBs.

level 1 probaly,but Im more learning disable than Autistic.

I think it should be more levels maybe 4 or 5 . I think 3 is a little too vague.

Actually 5 levels might work better or maybe some provision for people to be classed as level 1.5 or 2.5 when they're in-between levels or a close call. I like the idea of having severity levels though.

The severity levels seem really vague to me.

They are clearly delineated in the DSM 5 though. I remember my psychologist looking at the outline of the three levels for each domain and explaining why she classed me the way she did. For example she thought I was level 2 in social communication because I still had "significant impairment in my life caused by social communication deficits even with supports in place" and level 1 and not 2 for RRBs because my RRBs "aren't immediately apparent to a casual observer" This is only part of the specification for the levels. It's very detailed.

I suppose five levels might be better. Mild, Moderate & Severe might still have limitations.

I think I might be in between 2 and 3 but its confusing.

Ummm... that's kind of like saying "I'm more autistic than autistic". What I mean by that is that autism is always a learning disability at least in terms of it's developmental delays in social behavior, and more often than not autistic people have trouble with all but a few learning settings. Some more solid scientific evidence is starting to accumulate that this is because of a deficient amygdala (your amygdala is the part of your brain that registers negative reactions like repulsion, fear, anger, depression, anxiety, etc.). Also, it seems to be a common trait amongst autistic people that they suffer in certain areas, typically areas that involve "imaginative play" thought processes (actually, if you had no trouble during the imaginative play part of your assessment then that would raise some doubt as to whether or not you're on the spectrum). Yet at the same time they often excel in other areas as a result of their ability to concentrate, because the frontal lobe in particular compensates for the amygdala. Depending on the case this can gift people with exceeding discernment, data retention, and either quick and diverse data access or excellent topical thinking (i.e. "connecting the dots").

Check this out, guys:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/article190.html

I'm probably level one. But on top of that I have social phobia, anxiety, OCD, depression, dyslexia, and agoraphobia. Im severely disabled by the combo of autism and my co-morbids. Of course, they aren't considering co-morbids in that autism diagnosis, so I'm not sure how useful the levels are.

The vagueness to me is in determining what constitutes a support in wh at what age and for how long. To me it's vague.

True, maybe there should be some concrete examples of what should be considered "support" and "substantial support" ect at different ages.

As for co-morbidity, this is only supposed to determine the severity of your ASD. Then your other diagnoses would be listed and perhaps the severity of each individual one. It just indicates how impaired you are by that one disability but , for example,you might also be blind and have diabetes and epilepsy and so you'd be way more disabled than the one diagnosis indicates. When you're applying for disability and benefits the "cumulative effect" of different disabilities is taken into consideration, at-least in Canada it is.