IT'S OFFICIAL: No More Aspergers

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No one needs to be defining you "high functioning" and if they are you shouldn't have to listen. You're your own unique person.

I am waiting for a diagnosis. So please EXPLAIN IT TO ME. From now on, every single person that would normally be diagnosed as an Aspergerian, won´t be diagnosed an Aspergerian but a High functional Autist?

Or will we be STILL Aspies, but the asperger´s itself will be put under the head of Autism, and there won´t be ANY difference for us?

It's pretty simple. Currently, there's "Asperger's Disorder", "Autistic Disorder", and "Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified" (PDD-NOS; atypical autism). Their goal is to take all of those and put them together into a single category, and call that category "Autism Spectrum Disorder". The definition of ASD will encompass the three former diagnostic categories. So if you would be diagnosed with Asperger's or Autism/Atypical Autism now, you'll be given the diagnosis of ASD instead.

They are doing this for a few reasons:
1. There are no reliable ways to tell the difference between Asperger's, Autism, and PDD-NOS. It's easy to diagnose someone as autistic, and most psychologists will agree whether someone is on the spectrum. But when it comes to deciding which category that person should be in, their agreement is not much better than if they'd flipped a coin for it.

2. Currently, PDD-NOS--atypical autism--makes up a majority of the people diagnosed with autism. That means that using the current definitions, atypical is actually typical. The current definitions aren't serving a useful purpose for categorizing most of the cases of ASDs.

3. Some people are not approved for treatment or special ed because they have an Asperger's or PDD-NOS diagnosis. Others are simply being diagnosed with whatever will get them the services they need. Since those services are often very similar from category to category, putting everyone in one group reduces this arbitrariness.

4. Autism changes in its presentation as children grow. Some criteria for Asperger's and Autism require a person be a certain age before they can be evaluated. For example, it's impossible to tell whether an eighteen-month-old is truly speech-delayed, or just on the late side of normal. Where do you put that eighteen-month-old? Similarly, changes can take place over the lifespan: Some children who used to be non-verbal will become fluently verbal in adulthood, indistinguishable from their non-speech-delayed Spectrum peers. It's easier to put everyone in one category and dodge the problem of whether to skip them from diagnosis to diagnosis as their abilities change.

Sorry I'm a child of the 80's the it was a trait or symptom
ADD is now a concomitant disorder. Generally speaking a big part of Aspergers, and usually the part seen at school.
My teachers said I had ADD and my brother ADHD, They ordered a complete physco-evaluation through the school in 1979.
They labeled us with a form of Autism. Of which the state of NY deemed we were gifted not disabled. So we did not receive an education.
Right now today 2012, My son is facing the same situation, in the very same school district. They refuse to evaluate him under IDEA
so obviously we are. I am not misinformed, but instead sick of insurance companies and government institutions changing things to wiggle out of teaching these kids. It's the children that benefit from these labels, They deserve an education. They deserve to understand themselves.
By giving teachers a name to describe these traits and allowing them to keep the term for school use would help develop a system to catch these kids. I am saying the system is did not work for us then and is not working for my son now.
School is just a great place for him to add to his ever growing pencil collection (you've heard of loving lampposts he's loving pencils)

FYI My brother and I failed 1,2,3,4,5,6 grade in this very same district and they passed us anyway because NY ordered them to "Help us" not Teach us.They were so worried that others would enter the district in search of an education they just promoted us every year. Using lawyers to skirt the order.

I just feel that this will totally leave the borderline children on the curb again. They are barely in there now.
Whats the harm in leaving it in anyway. We are not all the same why lump us all together. Yes it makes it easier but shouldn't it make things better?

As an 41 year old with Aspergers I must say it is invaluable to constantly test myself and determine where I am, It helps me cope and understand. 1 simple diagnosis when I was 8 years old didn't help then and won't help now. This is not a new system it has been done before!

What about mid-functioning? its going to be on a scale of severity so if you're not 'high functioning' then you likely may not be labeled as such. Don't know that I am exactly high functioning either, I have other disorders besides autism so its hard to tell if those or the autism cause most impairments or whatever.

I'm sure I would be classified as high functioning ASD (with ADD and dyslexia). I just think high functioning can sound like we don't have significant difficulties in some areas, as well as our strengths in others.

I don´t know, but to most NTs, "autistic" means "ret*d", and I don´t want to be seen as such.

I haven't seen any one of those patterns we've found that

a) is only for people diagnosed with Asperger's
and
b) fits everyone diagnosed with Asperger's

There are different subtypes. The diagnostic splits we were using weren't meaningful splits though.

We should pay attention to those patterns, but saying "look this is what Aspies are like" when its either ignoring the people with other diagnoses or forcing people with the Asperger's diagnosis into being something they aren't because that's "What Aspies Are Like" (which happened to me by professionals on multiple occasions) is a problem.

Wouldn't it just make sense to develop definitions as according to differing severity and then promote neuro psych testing.
That is the only test to determine what happening, It should be administered in schools by schools to help identify strengths and weaknesses.
But all this rodeo nonsense is to avoid that. IF you had Autism as a label and carried that evaluation then they should be able to help you.
But they don't want to pay for or perform that test. Because then they would have to teach you!

ie, just rate these by number in comparison to a "NT"

sensory stimulation
sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, hot, cold, etc
Piq
Viq
Social ability
visual spacial ability...and so on
special interests...

A label does nothing, they need to figure us out but they are too damn lazy and corrupted.
I'll say it again this just hurts school children

Well those NT's must be a little slow on common knowledge so I wouldn't pay much mind to what they find 'ret*d'.

So now I have to use the word "autistic" if I want to disclose my "disorder", which has even MORE of a negative connotation than Asperger's! My guess is 98% will deny that I'm "autistic" and conclude that I must be NT.

this
though anyway im not entirely that aspergers is on the he spectrum I think it just collaterates with it a lot..
the problem is how does one differentiate symptoms and syndromes

I have dyspraxia, I have a diagnosis of dyspraxia. It has caused me problems.

I have a non-standard diagnosis of aspergers traits. The letter says, I have an Autistic Spectrum Disorder. The psychiatrist said, there are no problems. My mother, sister and a Pakistani psychiatrist said that I do not have aspergers traits.

My Autistic Spectrum Quotient score is 24/25/26.

Charities like the National Autistic Society, seem to provide adult services, based on parents of children's services. They seem to say you have full traits (aspergers syndrome) or do not have AS.

Last edited by ALADDIN_1978 on 04 Dec 2012, 3:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I like the idea of mid-functioning, too. Now, the immediate knee-jerk response of a bureaucracy is, well, what help do we then give the person ? ?

And to me, the obvious answer is, if the person is older and verbal, why don't you ask the person what help they would like to receive. For someone less verbal, try something. If it seems to help, keep going. If not, go in a different direction.

If a famous person, said, no, actually I'm middle functioning, there's a lot of things I'm not good at, I think that would do a lot of good.

Coming from the other direction, Chris Murray might be a person who (erroneously) could be considered low functioning, but who's actually squarely middle functioning. The subject of a documentary by his brother, Chris has two jobs and lives independently in an apartment, and he has his artwork. Chris's mother is supportive and pretty alright. (his father, now deceased, sounds like he was really pretty awful) And his family has some money. And that helps, for my guess would be that the two jobs do not support Chris's apartment.
http://inheavenmovie.com/

And without a modest amount of help, Chris is the kind of person who could end up in really awful institution, and that doesn't need to happen.

I preferred the Aspergers classification, as there are hugely varying degrees of autism. I don't really care too much as I haven't disclosed to anybody but my wife that I have Aspergers. It's a label and I don't let a classification determine who I am. In my case it will never be a me vs. them attitude regarding how I view neurotypical people. As you're fighting a loosing battle trying to get people to understand what it's like for people who are on the autistic scale.