Over diagosed

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This must be one of those geographical things. Here in the UK hardly anyone (outside of the medical community) knows what Asperger is, although public awareness of Autism is otherwise ok. I'd lived nearly 40 years without hearing the term or ever having met anyone with the condition. Only recently has public awareness started to shift because of people in the news such as Gary McKinnon, though one could argue even there that this has come about all for the wrong reasons and not necessarily in the most positive light.

I'm constantly amazed by what I hear from people in the North American continent; of how many people they know personally with Aspergers, of how many they have met, its penetration in the media. Seems to me you can't move without bumping into someone with AS over there

I don't know why this is so. Perhaps partly a product of different health care systems have different incentives, goals and expectations. Perhaps its cultural differences. Anecdotal and personal experience suggests it is very hard to get a diagnosis in the UK.

Only in the future when the causes of Aspergers are understood better and there is a more scientific and standardised assessment for individuals will we hope to have any idea if it has been over or under diagnosed.

Oh, they're going to love you here.
At least it takes the attention off me.


In Australia it's impossible to get an official diagnoses without a psychiatrist. It actually cost more for an unofficial assessment with a psychologist than be diagnosed by my psychiatrist. Although another psychiatrist at the same clinic charges $500 for their first session. I've never had to pay. Medicare. Something about a gap fee. I dunno.


Perhaps it was being overdiagnosed (as in misdiagnosed) by over zealous doctors who suddenly heard of this new disorder that was being talked up in the media. And not just doctors but parents were getting worried much like they get worried if their child shows the slightest sign of autism.

I think people fear the word autism especially those with young children who see any slight oddity as being a symptom of autism. The media hypes it up and doctors can diagnose the mildest conditions. parents want to get them diagnosed as quickly so they can get their kids onto therapy ASAP. There are even parents who want take no for an answer. The problem is not always autism but some mothers take doctors to court if they don't diagnose their kids.

When I watched Touch and when the father denied his son had autism it just hit me that people really place negative connotations on it but are extremely negative, like the child has no hope. It's sad. they can call him mute or special needs but not autistic, oh no.

That's strange. Are you required to get the unofficial diagnosis before seeing a psychiatrist for the official one? If they were just separate options, it would be pointless to go to the psychologist for something unofficial.

I believe the diagnosis in Canada is done by a team of people, which would include a psychiatrist and other mental health workers. My psychologist told me it costs between $900-2000, not including the cost of travel. So I'm definitely waiting for the referral, so it will be covered.

No, I was seeing a psychologist because a panel of university psychologists thought I had severe depression. So the psychologist I saw in my home town said she could do an assessment for AS, only I didn't know to get on any government services I needed to be diagnosed by a psychiatrist. I had to travel an hour out of town just to see him, and I still have the same one and it still takes over an hour of travel just to see him.

Sounds like in Canada they might take the changes in the DSM 5 seriously. And by that I mean adopt the changes quickly.

Outside of WP in the real world:

Slightly over-diagnosed in the wrong people, adults without impairments and supposedly oh-so-"severe HF AS" children whose parents want an excuse for their (non-autistic) behaviour issues because they figured out that quite a few people don't take a diagnosis ADHD seriously.

I think over-diagnosis is increasing every half a year or so. I heard professionals and an ASD centre say it's "the new ADHD". It's as if there's a sudden immense rise in alcohol-addicted children that randomly spit and then laugh at people and try to come up with the best ways to get people on the edge which is exactly why they absolutely have to have AS (but they are not disabled, AS is not that bad, nooo!) according to their parents.

Under-diagnosed in.. well, in people who have it from mild to severe but who aren't diagnosed because they don't fit some stereotypes associated with AS.

It's the same with ADHD. "You really have ADHD? But you can be so polite and you're not slu*ty, Sora/Miss!" (slu*ty? What the...? I don't think people should talk about ADHD if they don't know anything about it.)

It must be pretty new now they made it restrictive. One of my aspie friends from there was diagnosed in 2002 at age 13. It was at his school by the school psychologist.

For children who have both autistic and neurotypical traits in abundance and ambiguity, the bias is probably towards diagnosis, because parents desire early intervention for their children, and early intervention requires diagnosis.

Perhaps there will be a backlash of adults who were misdiagnosed in childhood and do not identify with the ASD label and/or resent the ASD label in adulthood.

However, it will be unclear whether the lack of autism in adulthood was caused by the lack of autism in childhood or whether the autism in childhood was early intervened out of the child to cause the lack of autism in adulthood.

What exactly does that mean?

Probably that it looked as though you were implying self diagnosed aspies are faking it, and its likely people will be offended. Could be wrong that was just my interpretation.

I was more interested in knowing what he does.

People will interpret something in many different ways. I thought my post was pretty clear but if people want to read between lines that aren't there and get upset believe me I won't lose any sleep over it.

hmm guess I was way off, I figured you were being sarcastic because that comment about people faking could piss people off. did not know it meant 'what do you do.'...in any case I was just trying to explain what it could have meant to that poster, but I explained wrong if you were not trying to imply their comment about people faking might not be the best thing to post.

I'm not in a mood that allows for being offended by anything as I am pretty numb and apathetic about everything today.

Under-diagnosed in Israel, and that's because of the stigma autism attracts, in my opinion. Not all Aspies have difficulties with language, but it seems like people only become alert and try to diagnose/get diagnosed with Aspie if there are severe difficulties with communicating, I wish someone around me knew about ASDs when I needed help.

Last edited by Bun on 30 Jan 2012, 7:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Was it actually a proper documented diagnosis? What province did they live in? I tried checking most of the provinces. In most of them, you have to see a psychological evaluation by a multidisciplinary assessment team. And in others, you have to see someone specifically trained to diagnose it. Though, a couple of provinces confused me, so I'm not sure about them. Ontario and BC are ones I'm sure of. I believe school psychologists can only refer you for a diagnosis, at most. There are all sorts of waiting lists to get the assessments done, which can be months long.

Of course, the school psychologist is perfectly able to give an unofficial diagnosis.

He lived in Ontario. He got evaluated at his school because he was having problems if I remember correctly. They gave him tests and the doctor diagnosed him with it. But this was when he was 13 and he be nearly 23 now. I assume documented means official. He was official.

Last edited by League_Girl on 31 Jan 2012, 1:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

I have not checked to see if there have been any scientific studies on the issue recently, though imagine such a topic would be difficult to actually study.

I become very familiar with the psychiatric industry as a child, and I saw many disturbing shifts occur in the late 80's as new drugs began to flood the market and laws were changed dictating how pharmaceutical companies could advertise and operate.

Psychiatrist moved away from basic diagnostic functions such as physicals and workups, as well as from the counseling roles they had previously undertaken, the latter shifting sometimes to psychologists but more often to social workers and licensed counselors.

While many social workers and licensed counselors are excellent at what they do, the role of counseling in the context of psychiatry is not just to help the patient but to help the doctor help the patient, in terms of collecting information that might strengthen or refute a diagnosis, and determine whether or not adjustments need to be made to medication.

Additionally, many psychiatrists started accepting kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies, and may have been engaged in other activities which posed a conflict of interests. SSRI class medications, and things such as Ritalin, were considered to be relatively harmless, in the sense that they wouldn't really kill you if you didn't actually have a condition, and a lot of psychiatrists seemed to take the view that if someone brought their child in because they were having difficulty dealing with them, there was nothing wrong with giving the child a diagnosis of something and medicating them if it made life easier for the child and the parent.

At one point or another I recall almost every other child in my brother's class being on Ritalin for ADHD, most particularly the boys. The mothers talked about the difficulty they had getting the children to do their homework, and how rambunctious they were, but I had observed many of these children since before they were on medication and they never struck me as different than any other boys.

However, in my class, which was not a mainstream class, we did have boys with a diagnosis of ADHD who probably did have it. When these boys were off of their medication, they were impulsive, got in trouble frequently (enough so to land them in such a class), became depressed because they wanted to do well and just couldn't control themselves, and they frequently needed one of the aids to calmly remind them what it was they were supposed to be doing. On the medications they were calm and focused and typically did well enough to feel proud of themselves and would point it out that they got all of their homework done or cleaned their room that day.

In contrasts, most of the boys in my brothers class weren't unusually impulsive when they were not on medication, didn't seem to feel they had an unusually difficult time doing basic tasks, and didn't want to do their homework even when they were on the medication, quite simply put, because it was "boring". Additionally, they never really seemed to have trouble minding any more than any other children when they were over at our house. Perhaps a few of them did have some form of attention problems but I think it's statistically improbable that all of them did.

At that time in American history it seemed pretty much anyone could walk into a psychiatrist's office and walk about with pills for something. I recall one time my mother had taken me to a new psychiatrist and brought my brother along, who was 2 1/2 at the time. My brother was a generally typically little boy...perhaps slightly introverted, and he generally minded but on occasion he couldn't help himself or thought it would be fun to test his limits. We had been in the office for a while and he was getting restless and started to try to occupy himself by investigating some figurines he had been told not to touch. Eventually, after telling him three times to leave them alone, my mother picked him up and somewhat jokingly said "Do you think he has ADHD?" and the psychiatrist replied rather seriously "Oh definitely!" My mother was taken aback and responded by asking him if he had children, to which he said he did, and on the way home she decided he didn't know what he was talking about and she didn't know how he expected a two year old little boy who had been stuck in an office with no toys for an hour to act, and I couldn't help but to agree with her.

Mind you she had absolutely no problem admitting that I was different or medicating me so this was not an issue of her being offended at the suggestion that something might be wrong with my brother. This was an issue of her being well educated on child development and psychiatry and knowing what was normal and what wasn't.

I have to be honest with you Sweetleaf. I'm thoroughly confused. BTW, are you named after the Black Sabbath song or after what I just smoked?