Removing the Aspergers Diagnosis from the DSM is a controversial and hot topic in the Autism advocacy community. Many people are angered by merging Aspergers with Hugh Functioning Autism.
I was talking to a father of a high functioning autistic and he disagrees with the merging of the two diagnoses, his main reason being the verbal and intellectual development of people with Aspergers tends to be higher then those with High Functioning Autism.
I’ve yet to develop thoughts on my own about it, and am looking into the proposals, but I thought I would open it up to the community to see what opinions on the proposed changes are.
Do you think Aspergers should be merged with Autism in the next DSM or not? Why?
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I don’t have a problem with joining Aspergers and High Functioning Autism but I do have a problem with merging with classic non-verbal autism.
HFA and Aspergers need generally similar levels of support, while Kanner’s Autism needs much more. If the labels are used to allocate funding then it follows that the merging labels will result in an unfair distribution.
Those who need it most will get less and those who need it less will get more. I’d rather see Autism returned to Kanner’s roots and move High Functioning Autism to “Aspergers”.
It seems like the main argument FOR doing it is to accommodate school systems. The marked difference in Asperger’s vs HFA vs Kanner’s seems to require a different diagnosis from the medical community, especially for research purposes.
The school district here does view them all (including PDD-NOS) under the Autism label, but provides support based on individual assessments.
Thus, I think the medical community should stick to medicine, and the school districts should fix their problems. The fall out of treating Aspies as Autistics equally could mean less support for all in the long run as the communities become desensitized and the Autistic label loses it’s potence. I recently heard someone refer to it as an “over-used, catch-all” label, and this concerns me.
After considering this for a couple days I think Aspergers should remain as a separate diagnosis then High Functioning Autism.
While they have there similarities there are a ton of differences between the two, and they require different forms of support.
I don’t know! I have mixed feelings on it! Will it be a good thing, or a bad thing? Everyone is different.
“…as the communities become desensitized and the Autistic label loses it’s potence. I recently heard someone refer to it as an “over-used, catch-all” label, and this concerns me.”
Oh, communities are already becoming desensitized to it as jerks on the internet self-diagnose themselves with it then use it as an excuse for bad behavior (basically insulting and harassing people then going all “I didn’t mean it!!! How dare you treat me as though I actually meant what I said and did to you!!!!! You’re discriminating against me for my Asperger’s/Autism!!!!!!!”)
Well, I can’t speak for other people, but I know that I certainly do NOT “use it as an excuse for bad behavior”!!
“Well, I can’t speak for other people, but I know that I certainly do NOT “use it as an excuse for bad behavior”!!”
Right on!
Thanks you, Alexa.
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