DSM-V coming soon

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Well, "NOS" (not otherwise specified) is supposed to be the "miscellaneous" category. It's supposed to hold the small percentage of cases that don't fit into any other category. So, with autism, that would be all the cases that can't be described by Autistic Disorder, Asperger's Disorder, Childhood Disintegrative Disorder, or Rett Syndrome. If the diagnostic categories are solid and useful, there shouldn't be a lot of cases that fall into the PDD-NOS "atypical autism" category.

But that's not the case. Over 60% of autism diagnoses are PDD-NOS.

Yeah... so, basically, the categories we have now are so useless that they can't even cover the majority of autism cases. Something seriously needs to be done about that.

Can we add new conditions in the PDD-NOS? Do we need a new label for the currently unknown types of autism that we see now?

Well, that's the thing; they're not really currently unknown types; or, if they are, there's one type for each individual. It's not like there are more groups than we recognize; it's more like a lot of people who have some traits from one diagnosis and some from another; people who'd match one diagnosis if it weren't for a single trait that doesn't match; people who meet neither group of criteria but are obviously autistic; people who used to match one set but changed as they developed; and all sorts of different combinations of obviously autistic but otherwise uncategorizable cases. Autism has turned out to be a great deal more varied than we ever thought it was--there are no distinct groups within the spectrum, just one gigantic continuum on any axis you care to measure along. It's an interesting problem, and I hope they handle it in a way that eliminates the huge pool of "miscellaneous" diagnoses while still leaving the diagnostic system specific enough to be useful.

Personally, I would pick a few important traits, diagnose as Autism, and then put those traits as subtypes, allowing for multiple subtypes per person (they do ADHD diagnosis this way now). It looks like they're going to do it by simple strength of the symptoms, ranking from mild to severe, which I don't completely agree with because you could have huge problems in one area but hardly any in another area, and be in the same diagnostic category with a guy who has the exact opposite going on. If you're going to use diagnostic categories as any sort of worthwhile tool, they have to say something about the person with the label. Just saying, "this guy has a severe impairment somehow related to autism," without saying what exactly that impairment is, doesn't seem to me like it'd help therapists and teachers very much.

All of the Autists I personally know with an Autism Disorder diagnose can take their own socks off just fine.

It appears you have a grossly distorted, denigrating and frankly dehumanizing view of people characterized by Autistic Disorder. Temple Grandin is highly educated, is credited with revolutionizing an entire major industry that is economically significant to the US, is the author of a number of books, is currently a professor employed at Colorado State University and is sufficiently noteworthy that a movie starring Clare Danes has been made about her. As a superior aspie so much less handi-capped than Dr Grandin, can you explain what you have done to match and better her list of achievements. Dr Grandin is characterized by Autistic Disorder and does not appear to be diagnosable with AS as a result of exclusionary criteria related to early language development.

If anything is vulgar, it is not the suggestion that these two categories be merged, but rather your apparent attitude toward people who qualify for the current Autistic Disorder diagnosis described in DSM IV.

Yup, if Autistics can improve, why not many more of us? Let us all have hope!

Another thing, if Temple Grandin is so high-functioning, why did she get noticed, even when she's a woman?

There are male aspies who can escape from AS easily, especially women with it.

Says who. As long as one is more socially withdrawn, especially females, they will tend to attract a lot of eyeballs... on why are they so withdrawn.

I can say that Dr Grandin's functioning as an autistic makes her a model for the time being, and I hope to do as well as her even as a male.

So let's say they get rid of PDD-NOS. Where does that leave me? Back to square one? I think it's a category because you can't so easily clump people into groups. With the level of individuality of people on the spectrum, most of us have litterally been able to exclude ourselves from every group in the world, even autism haha. But really I have a lot of problems with repetitive movements, stimming, self injury, and obsessions yet almost no problems socializing anymore. I worked on it like a beast but still have all the other glaring problems when I'm alone. Because of this I'm "Not otherwise specified" and if that goes away my problems will still be there.

With a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder, most likely.

If they merge the spectrum, then effectively it's more like they're getting rid of Asperger's and Autistic Disorder and dumping everybody into a general PDD category. That correctly reflects the huge variety of possible expressions on the autism spectrum, because it's impossible to further sub-divide, beyond the two options of sub-categorizing each case by one or more prominent features, or (as they seem to want to do now) ranking by severity. Both options still wouldn't allow for discrete groups, because there would still be people on the borderlines between severity levels, and people with all the possible combinations of prominent traits at different levels; the primary purpose of sub-divisions would be to give the therapist/teacher some idea of what to expect. Currently, there's so much variation within categories that the categories have lost all meaning.

The sooner the better

My son has low functioning autism and has attended special school since the age of four, since his diagnosis seven years ago he has learned to speak, make eye contact and dress himself (including taking off his own socks) although at a much slower pace than most 'average' children. He's also toilet trained, can read/write at a basic level and use the internet to search for things (usually connected to his special interest).

As an Aspie I see many similarities in our behaviours and I don't feel the autistic spectrum is as simplistic as Aspie=intelligent, Autist=ret*d.

I'm very disappointed to see such misinformation and stereotyping about low functioning individuals on a site which is intended to be inclusive to individuals on the autistic spectrum.

I hope you know the vast majority of us do not hold those stereotypes and are at the moment holding ourselves back from severely flaming those who do. Even most of the people who think they are different disorders don't have much against whatever diagnosis they don't have; they just think they're different.

It really is not as simple as Aspie/autie. I've met more than a few people diagnosed classic autism or speech-delayed PDD-NOS who are further along than me at my age; and I didn't see such glaring differences between them and me, or them and the Aspies I've met, that there should be a different diagnosis for it. Sure, if you take the most obvious cases of autism, and compare them to the highest functioning Aspies, you'll see a difference; but that's cherry-picking.

I think guys are the lucky ones, sometimes, because at least guys are straightforward. As a female, I'm constantly tangled in subtext and subtlety--NT girls have a tendency to be told they have to be "nice" by society; and to interpret "nice" as "cannot be overtly critical". So they cut you down in ways you can't even detect, and expect you to get it when they use the subtlest cues to tell you you're annoying them or they don't like you--and when you don't get it, they get mad. No, guys are better off--at least when a guy hates you, he'll just punch you. A hateful girl will poison your life for years to come, if she's allowed. Stupid cultural gender stereotypes; I wish we'd just let ourselves say what we meant.

Anyway, the idea that females are social creatures and therefore less affected by autism doesn't make much sense to me... This particular female is not a social creature, for one. Lots of female Aspies aren't. On the whole, the females who are diagnosed have more severe and obvious autism than the males that are diagnosed--partly because if you're female and autistic, it's got to be pretty obvious to the doctors before they get it. Maybe the more generalist tendencies of the female brain make autism less likely to develop in the female; but when it does develop, it's pretty much the same animal as what you get when the person is male (plus socio-cultural influences and the same minor biological stuff that makes NT males and females slightly different). I think autistic females are probably much less affected than their NT peers by the expectations the world places on women; same with autistic males. That would make the differences between autistic males and females even smaller than the differences between NT males and females. Personally, I haven't seen any trends that differentiate the genders in autism, other than the way they tend to be treated by the world (males are "violent" and females are "crazy"--either label has its problems).

Females with an autism spectrum disorder are actually more likely to have a mental disability as well.

This ridding of PDD-NOS is probably not a good thing for me, because the only thing I don't have is social impairment. I also understand metaphors, but I learned a lot of metaphors when I was little. Because PDD-NOS is basically a disorder where it is obvious that there is something pervasive, but it doesn't meet the criteria for another PDD, such as Asperger's Syndrome or classic autism. But then, I will be 18 when that happens and I don't think college would help me anyway.

Why not? I get help at college. If you need some sort of accommodation, like maybe quiet testing environment or a tutor, you'd be able to get it just as well with an "autism spectrum disorder" diagnosis as a "PDD-NOS" one.

Thank you.

You might be an aspie if you start a thread with the best of intentions (providing information), without realizing it might be inflammatory...

That could be true, but I think lectures are going to be tremendously difficult. My problem is also invalid because I probably won't go for another diagnosis when DSM-V comes out.

I was thinking that, if PDD-NOS was to be put with AS and classic autism, I would no longer belong in that group. But it is probable that it will simply have more vague criteria. Or maybe not, and more people don't have autism or a related pervasive development disorder.