Asperger's dropped from revised diagnosis manual
CHICAGO (AP) — The now familiar term "Asperger's disorder" is being dropped. And abnormally bad and frequent temper tantrums will be given a scientific-sounding diagnosis called DMDD. But "dyslexia" and other learning disorders remain.
The revisions come in the first major rewrite in nearly 20 years of the diagnostic guide used by the nation's psychiatrists. Changes were approved Saturday.
Full details of all the revisions will come next May when the American Psychiatric Association's new diagnostic manual is published, but the impact will be huge, affecting millions of children and adults worldwide. The manual also is important for the insurance industry in deciding what treatment to pay for, and it helps schools decide how to allot special education.
This diagnostic guide "defines what constellations of symptoms" doctors recognize as mental disorders, said Dr. Mark Olfson, a Columbia University psychiatry professor. More important, he said, it "shapes who will receive what treatment. Even seemingly subtle changes to the criteria can have substantial effects on patterns of care."
Olfson was not involved in the revision process. The changes were approved Saturday in suburban Washington, D.C., by the psychiatric association's board of trustees.
The aim is not to expand the number of people diagnosed with mental illness, but to ensure that affected children and adults are more accurately diagnosed so they can get the most appropriate treatment, said Dr. David Kupfer. He chaired the task force in charge of revising the manual and is a psychiatry professor at the University of Pittsburgh.
One of the most hotly argued changes was how to define the various ranges of autism. Some advocates opposed the idea of dropping the specific diagnosis for Asperger's disorder. People with that disorder often have high intelligence and vast knowledge on narrow subjects but lack social skills. Some who have the condition embrace their quirkiness and vow to continue to use the label.
And some Asperger's families opposed any change, fearing their kids would lose a diagnosis and no longer be eligible for special services.
But the revision will not affect their education services, experts say.
The new manual adds the term "autism spectrum disorder," which already is used by many experts in the field. Asperger's disorder will be dropped and incorporated under that umbrella diagnosis. The new category will include kids with severe autism, who often don't talk or interact, as well as those with milder forms.
Kelli Gibson of Battle Creek, Mich., who has four sons with various forms of autism, said Saturday she welcomes the change. Her boys all had different labels in the old diagnostic manual, including a 14-year-old with Asperger's.
"To give it separate names never made sense to me," Gibson said. "To me, my children all had autism."
Three of her boys receive special education services in public school; the fourth is enrolled in a school for disabled children. The new autism diagnosis won't affect those services, Gibson said. She also has a 3-year-old daughter without autism.
People with dyslexia also were closely watching for the new updated doctors' guide. Many with the reading disorder did not want their diagnosis to be dropped. And it won't be. Instead, the new manual will have a broader learning disorder category to cover several conditions including dyslexia, which causes difficulty understanding letters and recognizing written words.
The trustees on Saturday made the final decision on what proposals made the cut; recommendations came from experts in several work groups assigned to evaluate different mental illnesses.
The revised guidebook "represents a significant step forward for the field. It will improve our ability to accurately diagnose psychiatric disorders," Dr. David Fassler, the group's treasurer and a University of Vermont psychiatry professor, said after the vote.
The shorthand name for the new edition, the organization's fifth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, is DSM-5. Group leaders said specifics won't be disclosed until the manual is published but they confirmed some changes. A 2000 edition of the manual made minor changes but the last major edition was published in 1994.
Olfson said the manual "seeks to capture the current state of knowledge of psychiatric disorders. Since 2000 ... there have been important advances in our understanding of the nature of psychiatric disorders."
Catherine Lord, an autism expert at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York who was on the psychiatric group's autism task force, said anyone who met criteria for Asperger's in the old manual would be included in the new diagnosis.
One reason for the change is that some states and school systems don't provide services for children and adults with Asperger's, or provide fewer services than those given an autism diagnosis, she said.
Autism researcher Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer for the advocacy group Autism Speaks, said small studies have suggested the new criteria will be effective. But she said it will be crucial to monitor so that children don't lose services.
Other changes include:
The revisions come in the first major rewrite in nearly 20 years of the diagnostic guide used by the nation's psychiatrists. Changes were approved Saturday.
Full details of all the revisions will come next May when the American Psychiatric Association's new diagnostic manual is published, but the impact will be huge, affecting millions of children and adults worldwide. The manual also is important for the insurance industry in deciding what treatment to pay for, and it helps schools decide how to allot special education.
This diagnostic guide "defines what constellations of symptoms" doctors recognize as mental disorders, said Dr. Mark Olfson, a Columbia University psychiatry professor. More important, he said, it "shapes who will receive what treatment. Even seemingly subtle changes to the criteria can have substantial effects on patterns of care."
Olfson was not involved in the revision process. The changes were approved Saturday in suburban Washington, D.C., by the psychiatric association's board of trustees.
The aim is not to expand the number of people diagnosed with mental illness, but to ensure that affected children and adults are more accurately diagnosed so they can get the most appropriate treatment, said Dr. David Kupfer. He chaired the task force in charge of revising the manual and is a psychiatry professor at the University of Pittsburgh.
One of the most hotly argued changes was how to define the various ranges of autism. Some advocates opposed the idea of dropping the specific diagnosis for Asperger's disorder. People with that disorder often have high intelligence and vast knowledge on narrow subjects but lack social skills. Some who have the condition embrace their quirkiness and vow to continue to use the label.
And some Asperger's families opposed any change, fearing their kids would lose a diagnosis and no longer be eligible for special services.
But the revision will not affect their education services, experts say.
The new manual adds the term "autism spectrum disorder," which already is used by many experts in the field. Asperger's disorder will be dropped and incorporated under that umbrella diagnosis. The new category will include kids with severe autism, who often don't talk or interact, as well as those with milder forms.
Kelli Gibson of Battle Creek, Mich., who has four sons with various forms of autism, said Saturday she welcomes the change. Her boys all had different labels in the old diagnostic manual, including a 14-year-old with Asperger's.
"To give it separate names never made sense to me," Gibson said. "To me, my children all had autism."
Three of her boys receive special education services in public school; the fourth is enrolled in a school for disabled children. The new autism diagnosis won't affect those services, Gibson said. She also has a 3-year-old daughter without autism.
People with dyslexia also were closely watching for the new updated doctors' guide. Many with the reading disorder did not want their diagnosis to be dropped. And it won't be. Instead, the new manual will have a broader learning disorder category to cover several conditions including dyslexia, which causes difficulty understanding letters and recognizing written words.
The trustees on Saturday made the final decision on what proposals made the cut; recommendations came from experts in several work groups assigned to evaluate different mental illnesses.
The revised guidebook "represents a significant step forward for the field. It will improve our ability to accurately diagnose psychiatric disorders," Dr. David Fassler, the group's treasurer and a University of Vermont psychiatry professor, said after the vote.
The shorthand name for the new edition, the organization's fifth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, is DSM-5. Group leaders said specifics won't be disclosed until the manual is published but they confirmed some changes. A 2000 edition of the manual made minor changes but the last major edition was published in 1994.
Olfson said the manual "seeks to capture the current state of knowledge of psychiatric disorders. Since 2000 ... there have been important advances in our understanding of the nature of psychiatric disorders."
Catherine Lord, an autism expert at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York who was on the psychiatric group's autism task force, said anyone who met criteria for Asperger's in the old manual would be included in the new diagnosis.
One reason for the change is that some states and school systems don't provide services for children and adults with Asperger's, or provide fewer services than those given an autism diagnosis, she said.
Autism researcher Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer for the advocacy group Autism Speaks, said small studies have suggested the new criteria will be effective. But she said it will be crucial to monitor so that children don't lose services.
Other changes include:
- A new diagnosis for severe recurrent temper tantrums — disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. Critics say it will medicalize kids' who have normal tantrums. Supporters say it will address concerns about too many kids being misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with powerful psychiatric drugs. Bipolar disorder involves sharp mood swings and affected children are sometimes very irritable or have explosive tantrums.
- Eliminating the term "gender identity disorder." It has been used for children or adults who strongly believe that they were born the wrong gender. But many activists believe the condition isn't a disorder and say calling it one is stigmatizing. The term would be replaced with "gender dysphoria," which means emotional distress over one's gender. Supporters equated the change with removing homosexuality as a mental illness in the diagnostic manual, which happened decades ago.
In this day and age of coming up with excuses for people's behavior, there will always be a fight about mental disorders.  There are a lot of people in the world that have something wrong with them, but  there are a lot of people who are just jackasses lumped in with them.  Until there are scientifically sound diagnosis methods to separate the two groups, this argument of what a disorder is and isn't will continue.  Today there is too much "Little Johnny just isn't well adjusted for his age, he must have something" going around.
OK, anyone else have a problem with this?
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"Kelli Gibson of Battle Creek, Mich., who has four sons with various forms of autism, said Saturday she welcomes the change. Her boys all had different labels in the old diagnostic manual, including a 14-year-old with Asperger's. "To give it separate names never made sense to me," Gibson said. "To me, my children all had autism." Three of her boys receive special education services in public school; the fourth is enrolled in a school for disabled children. The new autism diagnosis won't affect those services, Gibson said. She also has a 3-year-old daughter without autism."
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So she has four sons with Autism, yet she keeps popping 'em out? And who's paying for all these special services?
@anon4444
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It does not specifically say she is the "bio mom" - she could be fostering or have adopted them. MANY special needs kids get adopted out because their parents can't or won't care for them - and they tend to be adopted/fostered by families with other special needs kids already.
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There is not enough information given to say she "keeps popping 'em out".
I couldn't help but think the same thing. (It's almost all I could focus on in the story, is that a disorder? Any P.C. police out there that can help me with that question? LOL)
But, do we start telling who can reproduce and who can't?
One other thing that stuck out;
sdrawkcab gnihtemos dear uoy nehw saw aixelsyd thguoht I
The DSM-IV was always hilarious and the fact they created a new one is pathetic. Anyone who believes in psychology or the current state of supposed biological psychiatry should check themselves. Our knowledge of cellular interaction of the human brain is so primitive at this point, anyone taking psycho-pharmaceuticals is literally injecting random chemicals into their brain, or was there some other reason that many of the supposed SSRIs started having the OPPOSITE intended effects on people? Behavioral psychology is even more of a laugh, self-serving PhDs actually VOTE on what becomes a disorder, there's no science behind it at all. Medicine will look back in a few hundred years and wonder what the hell our society was thinking by making all these bizarre guesses and dangerous experiments with the human brain.
@NorthwestEconomist That sounds vaguely familiar...where did I hear that? Oh yeah on the Today Show between Tom Cruise and Matt Lauer. "Matt, you dont know the history of psychiatry like I do."
 @northwestsurfer  @NorthwestEconomist Nice try, but even stopped watches are right twice an hour. Want me to post a quote from some crazy person saying the sky is blue? People like you seem to have a problem, you inject religious faith into science. You want to believe that what Pfizer and Merc tell you are true without seeing the science. Post a link to a study showing exactly how seratonin chemically interacts with neurons on a celluar level with video or slides. Also, show me a study that chemically proves that "sleepless leg" disorder is real. Until then sounds like you're just one more sucker buying into snake-oil
 @LocalLady Oh, and it's not just my own experience, there are thousands of reports of people on these drugs killing or trying to kill themselves. Granted, we have no idea why that is happening or how the drug may or may not be causing it, but that's the exact same situation for knowing if the drug is doing anything at all anyway!Â
 @LocalLady  @northwesteconomits  @NorthwestEconomist I guess you don't really care what happens to him over the years or what kind of old-age disorders these random chemicals cause, after all, you'll be gone. However, I will continue to take a stand and call out people like you who blindly espouse baseless assertions that these things are safe because they have gotten institutionalized to the point where they are being forced on children. Empirical evidence is awful. If you disagree then too bad we can't time-warp you back to the 1700s where they used to stick leeches on people and people did their best to "look and feel better" in order to get the damn leeches off! That is the level of evidence you are comfortable in dealing with at this point.  I daresay many other people would probably care about their kids' health more than to play Russian roulette with their brain cells.Â
@LocalLady@NorthwestEconomits
I can't believe you are still going on. Fine.
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http://www.webmd.com/depression/news/20060512/paxil-suicide-risk-in-young-adults
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http://www.madinamerica.com/2012/11/i-was-just-following-orders-a-seroquel-suicide-a-study-coordinator-and-a-corrective-action/
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http://depression.emedtv.com/prozac/prozac-and-suicide.html
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For the record, it's not just my opinion. I have first-hand experience of watching a close loved-one almost end their life due to these stupid pseudo-medications. I gave you proof that some people are harmed by them. Somehow, humanity made it for millions of years without these drugs, and now people are dieing from them, and you still have no idea how they work.Don;t you think the standard for something that goes into the brain should be that we know exactly how it works? Because otherwise, with your empirical, BS standard of evidence, the case can be equally made that it both supposedly helps people AND causes them to commit suicide. I guess you like rolling the dice with your children's health.
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You should be ashamed of giving them to your child. What if he ends up like the people in the above links? It would be YOUR fault.
@NorthwestEconomits @ northwestrsurfer @LocalLadyÂ
Well, I trust his doctors a HELL of a lot more than I would ever trust some raving moron on a message board. For your information, he was initially in a double blind study, and was trandomly given the placebo in the first stage of the drug study. In the second stage he was moved to the actual medication - it was like night & day.
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I am sorry you are so stuck on your *opinions* - and that is ALL they are, just your opinion. I see absolutely NO "death" of facts & reason by using personal experience to prove or disprove things. I feel sorry for you that you seem to feel that big pharma is out to get people. That is NOT the case. The vast majority of medications are tested for MANY years (Daytrana took over a decade of testing before it was FDA approved to be released).
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You keep claiming you cannot prove a negative. Here is YOUR statement that I dare you to DISPROVE: ".... Until you can show how all of these chemicals interact in the brain, please don't even bother trying to claim anything about them....". If you have absolute scientific proof that any specific drugs do NOT help and/or cure people of the disease for which it is prescribed, lets see it - put up or shut up.
@LocalLady@NorthwestEconomist@northwestsurfer
You see? The number one enemy of reason and facts is personal experience. Forgive me for not taking your word for it. I suppose I could link you to the myriad placebo studies where lots of people had better qualitative and faster results than you and your son, and I could also link you to the studies that showed the amount of suicide after using seroquel, prozac, paxil, etc., but what would be the point? You see, there is something in common between all of these: pure empirical coincidence. Empirical observations and behavioral psychology are not real science, it is basically people making stuff up because they think it seems right.
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Until you can show how all of these chemicals interact in the brain, please don't even bother trying to claim anything about them. Science has no clue what kind of old-age mental disorders the first generation that started using psychotropic drugs back in the 1980s-90s is in for, but the possibilities are frightening. And all because Pfizer and Merc didn't feel like doing real science before handing them out.
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The only thing that you and your son are proof of is that you got suckered into putting random chemicals into yourselves and you didn't die right away. Too bad that can't be said for all the other victims out there who were similarly duped and wound up dieing or killing themselves. What do you have to say to the mothers of those children? "Sorry, it's part of progress that your kids had to die"? Some people ask, "what's the harm in letting people use these drugs, even if we have no idea how they work?" The harm is that society often pushes them on the most vulnerable: children, the elderly, and people too stupid to object.
So the next time you see an add for one of these drugs, like Seroquel, and you hear the disclaimer at the end that says "Doctors think that X disorder MIGHT be the result of an imbalance..." keep on telling yourself that nothing is wrong.
@NorthwestEconomist @northwestsurfer
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NWEcon: Since you brought Seroquel into this, I will chime in. I was prescribed this due to insomnia - it WORKED. Fir the first time in years I was able to sleep a straight 8 hours, did not toss & turn trying to "get" to sleep.
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As for ADHD...my son was diagnosed when he was 5. It was not a rushed diagnosis - he was actually put through behavior evaluations done by meslef, his teacher, his grandparents, and the pastor of our church - all people who saw him on a regular basis. He was enrolled in a drug study (the drug ultimately came on the market as Daytrana). The medications DEFINATELY made a huge difference in our lives, and helped him succeed in school. He graduated HS and is now an ASE c ertified tech who is now training to learn hybrid engines. He can focus & stay on task - and seems to have outgrown (for the most part) his most severe symptoms.
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So, before you issue a blanket condemnation of all things pharmaceutical, please at least acknowledge that they ARE effect for many people. I and my son are living proof.
 @northwestsurfer  @NorthwestEconomist Whatever, you certainly act very religious. You are willing to believe wild and crazy claims without evidence. I'm not angry, just amused at your leap of faith in the priests you call psychiatrists. Once again, you need to understand, there is no reason for me to disprove something that has never been proven. I'm getting quite a laugh out of watching you fail over and over to understand basic logic. You can't disprove something until it has first been proven. Prove that ADHD is real, show how it chemically manifests itself in the brain, how it works and how it can be treated on a chemical level. Until you can do that, it falls in the same category as religion and fairy tails.
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@NorthwestEconomist
Did you miss the part in my intial response to your incoherent rambling, where I said I was agnostic? That means I am not religious.
I am not making any claims, you are. I am just debating you, and I am having fun doing so. You are getting heated and obviously angry trying to prove your theory, I find this all pretty amusing. I dont have anything to prove so I'm not going to post anything. You have been going on and on in this forum about this subject all morning, so why dont you cite something that backs up your claim? Nothing to me here but smoke and mirrors in your claim.
@northwestsurfer@NorthwestEconomist
Please, tear up your high school diploma from and then tell the rest of us where you got it from so we can keep our kids away from there. For the last time, you cannot prove a NEGATIVE.
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The burden of proof is on people who are trying to make a claim. But then, you're probably religious too, and you expect people to believe in invisible men in the sky just because you tell them it's true without any proof. Post something that shows how stimulants treat ADD chemically. Until there is proof it's just a baseless assertion. While you're act it, go check out a book on formal logic from the library and learn how statements and evidence work.
@NorthwestEconomist Mr Cruise, Listening to you rant is kind of comical; you are trying to paraphrase things you believe I have said, that I never made any mention of. I never said anything about anti-depressants, and I do not take lithium. The burden of proof is on people like you who think modern medicine is a myth. I dont have anything to prove, so I'm not going to attempt to.
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Stimulants treat ADD, not Lithium.
Furthermore, lithium has nothing to do with ADD and has zero effect on it. Lithium is a salt, it has no impact whatsoever on ADD/ADHD. Lithium is a mood stablilizer, and there is no physical side effect that anyone taking it will notice. It also takes weeks to build up to a theraputic dose in the body.
.I would like to see you cite something to back up your meaningless rambling.Â
If you've never heard of the band Porcupine Tree I think you may find the album Fear of a Blank Planet interesting.
Of course the music is highly important to the lyrics but here is a link to the lyrics.
http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/porcupinetree/fearofablankplanet.html#2
 @northwestsurfer  @NorthwestEconomist You see? You can't even think logically. I don't have to prove anything, you can't prove a negative! That's like asking me to prove that there ISN'T an invisible teapot orbiting the sun.
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No, when you make crazy claims, for instance, like that Paxil/Prozac/Seroquel helps people a certain way, then YOU have to prove how it does that. Still waiting on a link from you. The burden of proof is on people trying to claim that something is true, the burden is never on skeptics. Since you seem to believe your ADHD (one of the most ridiculous and over-diagnosed disorders of all, most of the time when a kid is hyperactive they get slapped with an ADD/ADHD sticker)Â is real, please post a study showing exactly how lithium or whatever chemical your taking interacts with your brain, and how different levels of potassium, sodium and other elements interact with the neurological myelin sheaths on nerve cells. You can't, because that study has never been done.
@NorthwestEconomist Religious faith, huh? I'm agnostic, so that arguement is a fallacy...much like the rest of your theory. I see you post without citing yourself and yet you demand I do? The detail you missed was I did not claim anything.I also didnt say anything about restless leg syndrome.
I do think I know quite a bit more than you think I do. I have been treated since I was a kid for ADHD, and bipolar disorder. I would attempt to explain more, but critical thinking isnt one of your strengths and I can see it would have no impact if I tried.
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Oh yeah - Stopped watches are right twice a day, and once an hour.Â
In a society where we are expected to thrive and be productive despite increased isolation and alienation, (see the average cubicle worker) it's easy to wonder why there is a rampant increase in the number of children born with Asperger's type characteristics. Â These things can drive a "normal" person batty, yet the Asperger's person not only is not bothered, but they actually thrive despite the lack of social contact.
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Given the increase of children born with these characteristics, it's hard not to wonder if humans are going down a new evolutionary path, and Asperger's and other forms on the autism spectrum are either steps or dead ends along the way.
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"One reason for the change is that some states and school systems don't provide services for children and adults with Asperger's, or provide fewer services than those given an autism diagnosis, she said." --- THAT is a truly tragic and truly arrogant statement! It is like saying that cancer or diabetes does not exist because we do not have a program to cure or treat it! It is on an intellectual par with the tobacco execs who testified under oath before Congress that nicotine was non-addictive and cigarettes did not cause lung cancer!
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I grew up with this condition in the '50's and '60's and with no way then to diagnose it because it simply did not have a name! (And I had real professionals trying!) It was EXTREMELY painful - inasmuch as I had no way to define or explain why I always felt left out and "different" from all my peers. I could not relate to any but a very small handful of people, and as one of my childhood friends recently observed, I became a "bully magnet" (because I could not detect the cues of duplicity and impending betrayal: I literally got several concussions and even a broken arm this way as an early teen.)
Discovering Asperger's only about 6 years ago finally gave me a way of defining those differences and their effects on my life. Asperger's does not seem to me a difficult condition to understand at all: it simply involves a disabled or reassigned set of neurons which in most people are devoted to quickly recognizing and interpreting the non-verbal cues that people pass back and forth - particular in crowds such as playgroups, classrooms and social gatherings - as well as coordinating certain fine motor skills such as the ability to write without watching your hand or to copy another person's act of throwing a football or baseball or climbing a smooth pole. I strongly suspect that it is the secondary, emotional effects of this sense of "differentness" and exclusion that give Asperger's its wide range of symptoms from social awkwardness to emotional withdrawal to obsessive-compulsive behaviors. I have likened the condition to sitting in a roomful of people who are all chattering away in a language one neither can speak nor understand: it is a frustrating cacophony from which one can discern nothing and in which one cannot participate at all. It can be physically and emotionally exhausting.
Curiously, many of the emotional symptoms of Asperger's - and even perhaps some of the physical/neurological ones - seem to abate when one reaches about the mid 20's. Perhaps this reason, I have actually been blessed with much success in life - especially from about age 26 onward. But I am still acutely aware of the non-verbal deficit and disconnect that I must endure and compensate for every day as I work and live.
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Taking the name out of DSM does NOT mean that the condition itself does not exist or will just go away! People will still suffer.
@JLS1950 I think you should read some more. I believe that this change is intended to let AS folks get MORE services. By putting AS under a NEW umbrella encompassing all autism spectrum disorders, it makes it more possible for services which have previously been denied to AS folks to possibly be available. The problem in the past was the AS folks didn't qualify for some services (like DDD) but autistic folks did.
 @WA State Mom Well, I hope you are correct. I have not had great experience with my own son (who also seems to be affected) with schools that frankly failed him completely from grade 7 on. Anything that actually improves services or even just recognition might be valuable - but only so long as it does not also stigmatize or improperly pigeonhole affected individuals.
I think Asperger's may be a good model for understanding the broader spectrum of autism disorders: it seems to have a fairly narrow root cognitive disability and a wide range of secondary symptoms or presentations that fall pretty directly from that associative deficit. Once you understand the sensory-cognitive-associative deficit, the rest of the symptom presentations seem to make a great deal of sense, at least to me. It may be therefore that all other various forms of autism involve some form sensory association deficit - rather like e.g. synesthesia in reverse, with common sensory associations being disabled rather than unusual ones enabled. Other forms of autism may derive from problems interpreting visual, auditory, olfactory, touch or even taste stimulus - for example an inability to recognize a change in auditory stimulus as an alerting factor, or an inability to recognize certain kinds of motion in the visual field. This would seem an interesting area of study. It might also help us understand root causes: Asperger's is anecdotally associated with perinatal hypoxia (blue baby syndrome) which tends to suggest neurological damage at a specific stage of development. It may be that other forms or autism derive from damage at different developmental stages which can be identified and steps taken toward risk reduction at those times. For example, the current controversy over vaccine-autism connection - if ultimately proved true after all - might depend very critically on just WHEN the vaccine is received - even down to days or hours.
However - while I can accept incorporating Asperger's into the broader range of autism, I strongly believe that it should be an identified SUB-category at the very least - if only because it is so much better understood, so much more common, and so much more clearly amenable to pretty simple amelioration.
Primarily, Asperger's-affected individuals need (by my inexpert opinion) a great deal of SOCIAL support, patience, acceptance and encouragement: as children. They (or we) are not appropriate candidates for "sink or swim" types of "therapy". Asperger's-affected individuals also do nor respond well to most forms of corporal punishment ("whupass" as another commenter suggests) or social/peer critique: they do not easily discern what is expected or what they have done wrong from inexplicit cues, and they are often punished (personal experience) simply for trying to clarify expectations or pitfalls.
Well, we will simply have to see whether this change is beneficial in the long run - or rather harmful in effect.
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"Some who have the condition embrace their quirkiness and vow to continue to use the label." - I can understand why.
I think people previously diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome will have a difficult time transitioning to the new terminology as people have grown fairly accustomed to the stereotypes surrounding both AS and Autism. People generally expect someone who is 'autistic' to be substantially and obviously impaired which simply isn't the case with Asperger's. In fact, many people diagnosed with Asperger's exhibit almost no obvious visual symptoms. Although I do feel lucky to have been assessed for AS before DSM-5, I can see how the long-term change to the diagnosis will be beneficial.Â
 @windtreeman Sorry you and your son have to deal with this! But I also inferred, even after carefully re-reading, that according to this article, this move was intended to help those with Asperger's to NOT be excluded from help that those on the rest of the autism spectrum of diagnoses qualify for automatically upon being formally diagnosed.
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Where my cynicism radar immediately staring pinging off the charts was if  and where insurance companies had any input on this and if it will adversely affect what is covered and at what rates for people with Asperger's.Â
NPR covered this yesterday - biggest outcry was from Aspie parents who did not want their kid lumped in with other autistics.
@unobtanium Strangely, Aspergers has been under the "Autism Spectrum" for years, so they already were sorta lumped in with them.
Weird. Thirty years ago, if you had "temper tantrums" or uncontrolled behavior, it was due to lack of parental "whupass." Someone HAD to come up with a pseudo "medical" reason to justify that little muffin didn't get their butt whupped if they got out of line....thus giving the parents an "out" and Big Pharm a new target audience. *sigh* I really MISS the old days.
Ohhhh Wolfen, don't you know it all!  Place foot ALL THE WAY down the throat......
 @Wolfen I'm not sure how you were parented, but I WAS parented by the "whupass" mentality.  While I acknowledge that sometimes I deserved it, I also had a bipolar parent who administered it at will.  I don't advocate this philosophy at all!  I have a friend whose child has Asperger's.  We've watched him grow up under her loving care( without the whupass philosophy) and he is thriving in high school now.  Yes he was a PITA growing up, because no one knew what was wrong with him, and he annoyed the hell out of everyone, none of the neighborhood kids liked him, and his mom cried weekly for him.  We loved her to death, but none of us liked her son, or wanted to babysit him. Once he got diagnosed, she was able to get him counseling, and treat him naturopathically.  She refused to use pharaceuticals, as she didn't want him to be a zombie.  He is now in high school, and is a straight A student. Â
There is a reason for this diagnosis, and these kids do need extra help. Â But it is true that they are not autistic in the normal definition. Â Hopefully the new definitions will help define the help they can get.Â
 @iamaqt2  @Wolfen Personally, I don't think spanking or "parental whupass" as Wolfgang so lovingly put it, is ever effective, but in the case of AS or other serious mental illnesses, is inhumane and should be shunned. People who've never had to deal with a loved one with such a disorder just don't understand, plain and simple.
Wolfen- I really hate to tell you this (since you seem to know SO much) but Asperger's is a LOT LOT more than just temper tantrums. I have had the pleasure to work with both children and Adults who have Aspergers, as do both my son and nephew, and trust me neither of these boys get a free pass when they do something wrong. Asperger's is a complex disorder, no two people with Aspergers have all the same syptoms and problems. I invite you to come talk to my brother and I and observe our children, we both often get compliments on how well behaved our children are especially considering the Aspergers.Â
 @Wolfen Being affected all my life by the condition and having painfully endured the resultant "whupass" as you so arrogantly call it, I can confidently assure you that you are abysmally ignorant in your obnoxious remarks.
If I had the time and interest, I'd go back through your postings over the past few years and count just how many issues you claim to have. I've lost count.Â
You must be a doctor's cash cow. And an insurance company's nightmare.
I'm sorry, at the time I posted that I had you confused with OrcasThunder.
He also likes to come here to write a book about his life.
 @SgtPepperSpray Rarely see or have seen a doctor, actually, and have rarely used my health insurance. I was in counseling for a time as a teenager in Jr. High School due to effects on my school performance, but since Asperger's was not diagnosable prior to 1994, I never realized that the condition even existed - much less that I was affected - until I was 56 years old. And in the interim I was very consistently and successfully employed as a SysAdmin (under several generations of titles) in the IT industry. In fact, I was already working in the industry in that role when I met two nerdy 15-year-old kids named Kent Larson and Bill Gates.
So as seems typical of your posts, you have once again "assumed facts not in evidence." I know who I am... but you have nary a clue.
 @Wolfen And a few hundred years ago, if you were dying of any number of other diseases, you were suffering from an "imbalance of the humors". I suppose you would consider diagnoses like the plague, dysentery, or leprosy "pseudo-medical" reasons. You're welcome to go back to the "good old days", the rest of us are grateful for modern medical advances...
I've read the old and new definitions of Autism and Asperger's. I agree the definition changes are for the better in the long run. In the short run it will mean some strange run-arounds with insurance and whatnot unfortunately for some. I think accuracy is more important in the long run though.