6 ms·

As a father of a child in the same situation as yours, who has been personally diagnosed with Aspergers: 100% agree. It’s not something you want. I’m completel

As a father of a child in the same situation as yours, who has been personally diagnosed with Aspergers: 100% agree. It’s not something you want. I’m completely over being polite to the people who spout this “I have the symptoms but no diagnosis” line then try to speak about it.

runarberg 2y ago
Curious question: Do psychiatrists still offer the Aspergers diagnostic? I was under the impression they removed it in the DSM-V revision in favor of Autism Spectrum Disorder. A large part of the neuro-devergency community is not fan of the Asperger’s term. The primary reason is that the distinction between Aspergers and Autism was based on outdated—and frankly, problematic—believes around IQ.
- PlutoIsAPlanet 2y ago
  From personal experience, although it was about a decade ago, my doctor referred to it as Aspergers but put it down as high functioning autism. This was in the UK though.
  - runarberg 2y ago
    I’m guessing old habits die hard, especially among the expert classes. I think the ICD-11 standard (which is used in Europe instead of DSM-V) didn’t make the merge until a couple of years ago. Although as far as I’m aware psychiatrists generally use the DSM internally in their work, and mostly refer to ICD for e.g. insurance reasons. Also—since I talking about this—I think many in the neuro-divergence community don’t like High Functioning Autism either (and it is not included in any of the diagnostic tools anyway). The reason cited is that it is rather ableist to call it “high functioning” and would much rather focus on the specif disabilities which needs accommodating.
- CobaltFire 2y ago
  My diagnosis is ~20 years old and would likely be HFA now.
  - runarberg 2y ago
    I see. I did my bachelors in Psychology ~15 years ago (admittedly did not focus on psychiatry nor pathological psychology). At that point the diagnostic still existed in the DSM-IV, but the term was very much falling out of fashion. I think the (other) APA was drafting DSM-V as I was studying and people knew that Asperger‘s disorder would probably not exist much longer. In my class on pathological psychology I thing Asperger’s wasn’t even mentioned. I was reading about HFA, and I don’t think that exists in the diagnostic tools either. I think the focus instead is to just diagnose people with autism spectrum disorder and then enlist the disabilities which needs accommodating. The more sever cases has a larger set of disabilities. I’m guessing you would have had a pretty limited set. I think this is the right choice as there is a little bit risk of ableism in separating a disability as high functioning. The reason we give diagnostic is that some people need accommodation for their disabilities, being accurate about which sets of disabilities need accommodation is better in every way, as opposed to a blanket term like high functioning. The term also risks people perceiving some superiority (intended or not) when it is referred to as such.
- mrangle 2y ago
  That there is some kind of large community consensus on anything will always be a fallacy. There's an Ivory Tower, the Media, and then a lot of suffering individuals underneath both. People with issues like to exercise them on a vulnerable population that doesn't need to be lectured on long-standing identity. They need sorely missing help. The term Asperger's was simply a holdover from the man who brought the condition to light. Period. Anything else is inference, and I hold with malice. See the fact that the new categories still imply a categorical difference and there is therefore still a categorical difference. In fact, the difference between autism categories is generally massive. Whether or not that difference includes IQ would be down to the individual, but often it will. The term Asperger's having nothing to do with it. What they didn't like was the implication that Asperger's isn't tightly connected to the other autism categories. It may or may not be. They don't know, either. The renaming was a weird point of focus and highly political. What is true is that almost anyone would have a difficult time observing that Type 1 autism (formerly Asperger's) bears any resemblance to Types 2 and 3.
  - runarberg 2y ago
    This is the first time I heard of Type 1, 2, and 3 Autism. I was under the impression that DSM-V eliminated subtypes from the diagnostic, and favored a multi-dimensional under a single category (maybe it is still an ICD-11 thing, which I think has 8 subcategories). Wikipedia has this to say: > Disagreements persist about what should be included as part of the diagnosis, whether there are meaningful subtypes or stages of autism. And cites a paper [1] claiming: > The elimination of subcategories was controversial for various reasons, including concerns over the removal of an important part of an individual’s identity and community, specifically related to Asperger’s disorder, as well as concerns over losing services due to an individual no longer meeting more stringent diagnostic criteria. However, the evidence for the existence of subcategories within ASD has continued to be very weak (Miller and Ozonoff 1997, 2000). Furthermore, the shift from multiple subcategories to a single dimension resulted in improved diagnostic specificity and good diagnostic sensitivity, with over 90% of children with PDDs meeting DSM-5 ASD criteria (Huerta et al. 2012; Mandy et al. 2012), and with the remainder likely captured by the new social communication disorder diagnosis. It looks to me that if they would have kept multiple categories, that would have been a political decision (in particular, identity politics for thous which identify as Asperger’s). It seems like the current single category / multiple dimensions has proven it self to be a much better approach for diagnostic. That is evidence suggest this is a successful change, with both autism advocates and psychiatrists preferring the current single category approach. 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8531066/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8531066/
- selimthegrim 2y ago
  Which problematic beliefs?
  - CobaltFire 2y ago
    There are claims that Hans Asperger sent children to Nazi clinics for experimentation and/or murder. As far as I know there is no solid evidence he was involved in that, though there seems to be evidence it did happen. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Asperger https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Asperger
    - dragonwriter 2y ago
      You literally cite the Wikipedia article which describes (with citation) the fact that that was his job in Vienna under the Third Reich.
      - CobaltFire 2y ago
        Fair; I linked that for others evaluation. I don’t tend to tie what I know to Wikipedia until I’ve done the research; too many things I’m knowledgeable about are blatantly wrong there. My personal feeling is that it’s likely he did these things. At no point is there more than circumstantial evidence he actually did them. That evidence is strong (his job, it did happen, etc) but I don’t think there’s a signed order or the like that would cement it.
    - runarberg 2y ago
      That is certainly one of them. However if that was the case, the name would have simply shifted from Asperger’s to High Functioning Autism, which is not the case (neither in the diagnostic tools nor among neuro-diversity advocates). The problematic beliefs I was referring to was the notion of high IQ. IQ is a very controversial term in psychology, and has a very problematic history. Even though it was initially conceived exactly for the purpose detecting individuals which may have learning disabilities, it has since grown into something which was integral to the eugenics movement. Today we know that IQ has some racial and class biases which we should probably avoid when creating taxonomies which are then used to describe people with disabilities.
- shrimp_emoji 2y ago
  Believes around IQ are completely accurate and based and they do not care about your feelings.
  - runarberg 2y ago
    Regardless of what you think, the fact is that psychiatrists and psychologists have done the research, and they have found that using IQ to create subcategories of autism is not useful. See your sibling threads for sources. Of course you are free to disagree with people who’s actual job it is to diagnose autism. But I don’t see what that brings to this conversation.
mrangle 2y ago
There's a lot of over self-diagnosis because autism is the trendiest disorder aside from ADHD. That being said, the majority of accurate adult diagnosis will at least begin and often end with self diagnosis. It will end with it sometimes due to lack of resources and sometimes due to the realization that there is virtually no benefit to formal diagnosis. Unless one needs formal accommodations. Most undiagnosed child Asperger's, which turns into undiagnosed adult Asperger's, will never be diagnosed by the individual nor a professional. There's a lot of it out there.
- CobaltFire 2y ago
  I can’t argue with that; my diagnosis was a byproduct of a suicide attempt after a TBI. I doubt I would have pursued or ended up with one otherwise. It also doesn’t do anything at all for me; it’s not like there are accommodations I really need. My main reaction is due to all the undiagnosed people who swear they have it and attack me for giving my son the help and treatment he needs. It’s an ongoing issue, stemming from ignorance on their part. Hence my lack of patience or sympathy any longer.

runarberg 2y ago

Curious question: Do psychiatrists still offer the Aspergers diagnostic? I was under the impression they removed it in the DSM-V revision in favor of Autism Spectrum Disorder. A large part of the neuro-devergency community is not fan of the Asperger’s term. The primary reason is that the distinction between Aspergers and Autism was based on outdated—and frankly, problematic—believes around IQ.

PlutoIsAPlanet 2y ago
From personal experience, although it was about a decade ago, my doctor referred to it as Aspergers but put it down as high functioning autism. This was in the UK though.
- runarberg 2y ago
  I’m guessing old habits die hard, especially among the expert classes. I think the ICD-11 standard (which is used in Europe instead of DSM-V) didn’t make the merge until a couple of years ago. Although as far as I’m aware psychiatrists generally use the DSM internally in their work, and mostly refer to ICD for e.g. insurance reasons. Also—since I talking about this—I think many in the neuro-divergence community don’t like High Functioning Autism either (and it is not included in any of the diagnostic tools anyway). The reason cited is that it is rather ableist to call it “high functioning” and would much rather focus on the specif disabilities which needs accommodating.
CobaltFire 2y ago
My diagnosis is ~20 years old and would likely be HFA now.
- runarberg 2y ago
  I see. I did my bachelors in Psychology ~15 years ago (admittedly did not focus on psychiatry nor pathological psychology). At that point the diagnostic still existed in the DSM-IV, but the term was very much falling out of fashion. I think the (other) APA was drafting DSM-V as I was studying and people knew that Asperger‘s disorder would probably not exist much longer. In my class on pathological psychology I thing Asperger’s wasn’t even mentioned. I was reading about HFA, and I don’t think that exists in the diagnostic tools either. I think the focus instead is to just diagnose people with autism spectrum disorder and then enlist the disabilities which needs accommodating. The more sever cases has a larger set of disabilities. I’m guessing you would have had a pretty limited set. I think this is the right choice as there is a little bit risk of ableism in separating a disability as high functioning. The reason we give diagnostic is that some people need accommodation for their disabilities, being accurate about which sets of disabilities need accommodation is better in every way, as opposed to a blanket term like high functioning. The term also risks people perceiving some superiority (intended or not) when it is referred to as such.
mrangle 2y ago
That there is some kind of large community consensus on anything will always be a fallacy. There's an Ivory Tower, the Media, and then a lot of suffering individuals underneath both. People with issues like to exercise them on a vulnerable population that doesn't need to be lectured on long-standing identity. They need sorely missing help. The term Asperger's was simply a holdover from the man who brought the condition to light. Period. Anything else is inference, and I hold with malice. See the fact that the new categories still imply a categorical difference and there is therefore still a categorical difference. In fact, the difference between autism categories is generally massive. Whether or not that difference includes IQ would be down to the individual, but often it will. The term Asperger's having nothing to do with it. What they didn't like was the implication that Asperger's isn't tightly connected to the other autism categories. It may or may not be. They don't know, either. The renaming was a weird point of focus and highly political. What is true is that almost anyone would have a difficult time observing that Type 1 autism (formerly Asperger's) bears any resemblance to Types 2 and 3.
- runarberg 2y ago
  This is the first time I heard of Type 1, 2, and 3 Autism. I was under the impression that DSM-V eliminated subtypes from the diagnostic, and favored a multi-dimensional under a single category (maybe it is still an ICD-11 thing, which I think has 8 subcategories). Wikipedia has this to say: > Disagreements persist about what should be included as part of the diagnosis, whether there are meaningful subtypes or stages of autism. And cites a paper [1] claiming: > The elimination of subcategories was controversial for various reasons, including concerns over the removal of an important part of an individual’s identity and community, specifically related to Asperger’s disorder, as well as concerns over losing services due to an individual no longer meeting more stringent diagnostic criteria. However, the evidence for the existence of subcategories within ASD has continued to be very weak (Miller and Ozonoff 1997, 2000). Furthermore, the shift from multiple subcategories to a single dimension resulted in improved diagnostic specificity and good diagnostic sensitivity, with over 90% of children with PDDs meeting DSM-5 ASD criteria (Huerta et al. 2012; Mandy et al. 2012), and with the remainder likely captured by the new social communication disorder diagnosis. It looks to me that if they would have kept multiple categories, that would have been a political decision (in particular, identity politics for thous which identify as Asperger’s). It seems like the current single category / multiple dimensions has proven it self to be a much better approach for diagnostic. That is evidence suggest this is a successful change, with both autism advocates and psychiatrists preferring the current single category approach. 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8531066/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8531066/
selimthegrim 2y ago
Which problematic beliefs?
- CobaltFire 2y ago
  There are claims that Hans Asperger sent children to Nazi clinics for experimentation and/or murder. As far as I know there is no solid evidence he was involved in that, though there seems to be evidence it did happen. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Asperger https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Asperger
  - dragonwriter 2y ago
    You literally cite the Wikipedia article which describes (with citation) the fact that that was his job in Vienna under the Third Reich.
    - CobaltFire 2y ago
      Fair; I linked that for others evaluation. I don’t tend to tie what I know to Wikipedia until I’ve done the research; too many things I’m knowledgeable about are blatantly wrong there. My personal feeling is that it’s likely he did these things. At no point is there more than circumstantial evidence he actually did them. That evidence is strong (his job, it did happen, etc) but I don’t think there’s a signed order or the like that would cement it.
  - runarberg 2y ago
    That is certainly one of them. However if that was the case, the name would have simply shifted from Asperger’s to High Functioning Autism, which is not the case (neither in the diagnostic tools nor among neuro-diversity advocates). The problematic beliefs I was referring to was the notion of high IQ. IQ is a very controversial term in psychology, and has a very problematic history. Even though it was initially conceived exactly for the purpose detecting individuals which may have learning disabilities, it has since grown into something which was integral to the eugenics movement. Today we know that IQ has some racial and class biases which we should probably avoid when creating taxonomies which are then used to describe people with disabilities.
shrimp_emoji 2y ago
Believes around IQ are completely accurate and based and they do not care about your feelings.
- runarberg 2y ago
  Regardless of what you think, the fact is that psychiatrists and psychologists have done the research, and they have found that using IQ to create subcategories of autism is not useful. See your sibling threads for sources. Of course you are free to disagree with people who’s actual job it is to diagnose autism. But I don’t see what that brings to this conversation.

mrangle 2y ago

There's a lot of over self-diagnosis because autism is the trendiest disorder aside from ADHD. That being said, the majority of accurate adult diagnosis will at least begin and often end with self diagnosis. It will end with it sometimes due to lack of resources and sometimes due to the realization that there is virtually no benefit to formal diagnosis. Unless one needs formal accommodations. Most undiagnosed child Asperger's, which turns into undiagnosed adult Asperger's, will never be diagnosed by the individual nor a professional. There's a lot of it out there.

CobaltFire 2y ago
I can’t argue with that; my diagnosis was a byproduct of a suicide attempt after a TBI. I doubt I would have pursued or ended up with one otherwise. It also doesn’t do anything at all for me; it’s not like there are accommodations I really need. My main reaction is due to all the undiagnosed people who swear they have it and attack me for giving my son the help and treatment he needs. It’s an ongoing issue, stemming from ignorance on their part. Hence my lack of patience or sympathy any longer.