lionesss wrote:
I am sure in a way it gives you a sense of relief. Because I have a history of significant speech delay my psych said I cannot have AS at all, just PDD-NOS.. its pretty silly if you ask me. I am thinking of getting a second opinion because I am hearing mixed things about getting an AS dx regardless of speech development history.
Well, some doctors just disregard speech development...
Officially, it's simple:
The DSM-IV-TR and ICD-10 say that Asperger's can only be diagnosed if no abnormal speech delay was present.
That means that:
1. single words have to be used by at least age 2.
2. Communicative phrases by the age of 3.
Important to know: Normal speech development is faster than that. Asperger's allows a
typical (=small) speech delay. Some non-autistic children are slow and only use communicative phrases by age 3.
DSM-IV-TR wrote:
In contrast to Autistic Disorder, there are no clinically significant delays or deviance in language acquisition (e.g., single non-echoed words are used communicatively by age 2 years, and spontaneous communicative phrases are used by age 3 years) (Criterion D), although more subtle aspects of social communication (e.g., typical give-and-take in conversation) may be affected.
ICD-10 wrote:
Diagnosis requires that single words should have
developed by two years of age and that communicative phrases be used by
three years of age or earlier.
Meet that = officially warrant for AS.
Otherwise it's... well, classical for some parts of Europe and PDD-NOS (or autistic disorder) for the US.
Doctors may diagnose any way they like though.
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Autism + ADHD
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The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. Terry Pratchett