3 ms·

>Dyslexia is really a collection of disorders It's a practically meaningless catch-all, because the only useful definition is "bad at reading". The DSM5 polite

>Dyslexia is really a collection of disorders It's a practically meaningless catch-all, because the only useful definition is "bad at reading". The DSM5 politely declines to offer any diagnostic criteria. The only treatment that consistently beats placebo is reading practice; dyslexic students improve at about the same rate as non-dyslexic students after intensive reading practice. By the logic we use to diagnose dyslexia, I have countless developmental disorders, by simple merit of being bad at lots of things. It's entirely plausible that specific but as yet unknown developmental disorders have been lumped in to the classification of dyslexia, but dyslexia itself is a politically convenient label rather than an evidence-based disorder.

timthelion 9y ago
I agree. I also think that autism spectrum disorder is a meaningless catch all. But I further believe that these catch alls are harmful and should not be used. When I was in school I read a lot of papers on autism, and I found that almost all studies found that there is no general biological cause for autism, but there were always outliers. Some 20% of autism sufferers, for example, have significantly raised serotonin. I think, that rather than concluding in study after study that, "though some subjects showed signs of raised serotonin, this was not found to be a reliable indicator of autism". We really should have created a new disorder "speech delay with elevated serotonin disorder". And started studying that as a separate dissorder. Maybe we would have gotten somewhere. But instead, the US spent millions, perhaps billions of dollars trying to figure out the one and only reason why some people can't walk. "Oh no, it can't be because they don't have legs, 90% of people who can't walk DO have legs!"
- LaikaF 9y ago
  I think depression has the same problem. While I'm aware there are several types there's no really no guarantee for success for any particular medication or treatment for every case.
  - timthelion 9y ago
    Yes, but with depression the subtypes are recognized by medicine. For example, it short allele[1] is a recognized cause of depression, as is loss triggered depression[2]. And there is fruitfull research on the subtypes. When I am feeling paranoid and cynical, I go as far as to think that the reason for not having split up the autistic spectrum, as has been done with depression, long ago is that there is a lot of funding ear marked specifically for "autism" which would go away if you started actually breaking out the real causes. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15877307 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15877307 [2] https://www.mentalhelp.net/blogs/the-difference-between-grief-and-depression-the-dsm-v/ https://www.mentalhelp.net/blogs/the-difference-between-grie...
kolinko 9y ago
If I'm not mistaken, this is true for most of the psychiatric disorders. Since we are yet unable to figure out the exact causes, and distinguish between variants, we group them by the appearance.

timthelion 9y ago

I agree. I also think that autism spectrum disorder is a meaningless catch all. But I further believe that these catch alls are harmful and should not be used. When I was in school I read a lot of papers on autism, and I found that almost all studies found that there is no general biological cause for autism, but there were always outliers. Some 20% of autism sufferers, for example, have significantly raised serotonin. I think, that rather than concluding in study after study that, "though some subjects showed signs of raised serotonin, this was not found to be a reliable indicator of autism". We really should have created a new disorder "speech delay with elevated serotonin disorder". And started studying that as a separate dissorder. Maybe we would have gotten somewhere. But instead, the US spent millions, perhaps billions of dollars trying to figure out the one and only reason why some people can't walk. "Oh no, it can't be because they don't have legs, 90% of people who can't walk DO have legs!"

LaikaF 9y ago
I think depression has the same problem. While I'm aware there are several types there's no really no guarantee for success for any particular medication or treatment for every case.
- timthelion 9y ago
  Yes, but with depression the subtypes are recognized by medicine. For example, it short allele[1] is a recognized cause of depression, as is loss triggered depression[2]. And there is fruitfull research on the subtypes. When I am feeling paranoid and cynical, I go as far as to think that the reason for not having split up the autistic spectrum, as has been done with depression, long ago is that there is a lot of funding ear marked specifically for "autism" which would go away if you started actually breaking out the real causes. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15877307 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15877307 [2] https://www.mentalhelp.net/blogs/the-difference-between-grief-and-depression-the-dsm-v/ https://www.mentalhelp.net/blogs/the-difference-between-grie...

kolinko 9y ago

If I'm not mistaken, this is true for most of the psychiatric disorders. Since we are yet unable to figure out the exact causes, and distinguish between variants, we group them by the appearance.