Two interesting articles in the NYTimes today on Asperger's

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I Had Asperger Syndrome. Briefly. Link

Asperger’s History of Over-Diagnosis Link

[Moved from General Autism Discussion to Autism Politics, Activism, and Media Representation]

The first article is kind a guy generalizing his experiences into a trend.

The second article establishes a false dichotomy between Asperger's Syndrome and "true autism," and carefully places everyone diagnosed with the former outside the category of "autistic." I think it also has multiple factual inaccuracies. For example:

Desperate measures to justify the removal of aspergers from DSM 5 through media propoganda? Slimy b******ds, always picking on the weak. Before you know they'll make aspie a despised word through media propoganda. Much like communism or anarchism.

The article's riddled with numerous factual inaccuracies, and the writer seems to assume that anyone who has an AS diagnosis now would not meet the criteria for an ASD diagnosis. He also focused on speech delays as a necessary part of "true autism" when an ASD diagnosis requires no such thing.

It gets close to an important point though. I wouldn't be diagnosed with anything now (or maybe I would now but not a couple of years ago, and hopefully not in future). Yet I'm still autistic. It's abundantly useful for people to know that about themselves.

How can you be autistic but not diagnosable?

Well that's exactly what the proposed DSM changes do. Practically though it's a good question. Suddenly lots of passably weird people will have nowhere to go, which won't help them psychologically.

I thought it was odd that one of the authors, the psychiatrist, mentioned "Peter Pan Syndrome." That "disorder" is not in the DSM.

Oh. Then why are they changing it? Or does nobody know and that's what the fuss is about?

If you look up Asperger's Syndrome for the DSM-5, the rationale explains their reasons for changing it.

Short version: In practical application, what you get diagnosed with depends more on where you go to be diagnosed than it does on which symptoms you show.

New ADHD? ADHD's criteria are not vague. If anything, in particular ways, they are entirely too specific (criteria written for children and not adults) which means that adults either go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed as PI instead of combined.

all of these new definitions are beyond bizzare.i dont think we will fully know what all this means until may of 2013.and sadly enough i think we will be dealing with these rediculous articles for long time to come.i have never heard autism refered to as peter pan syndrome,has anyone else heard this.the new york times will get payback sunday thanks to Tom brady and the New England Patriots.

I believe that the second article might have some truth to it. There may be doctors out there who are diagnosing with either the wrong incentives (Insurance Company A will not pay for further treatments, or will not pay treatments over B amount of dollars, if the patient does not have a Class C diagnosis,) or there is someone exploiting the vague criteria given for Asperger's. Autism Spectrum requires you to have noticable neurological development problems. This includes physical impairments, either with dexterity (ex. building, tying, writing) or with gross motor movements (ex. running, jumping, balancing) and cognitive impairments. If this person does not have those clear distinctions, then that person may just have a social disability (schizoid, NVLD, sociophobia.) Right now the DSM-IV-TR is too vague with respect to this. DSM-V does not look like it is going to be much better. ICD-10 looks to have better guidelines.