The product of more than a decade of work by hundreds of experts, the proposed revisions are designed to bring the best scientific evidence to bear on psychiatric diagnoses and could have far-reaching implications, including determining who gets diagnosed as mentally ill, who should get powerful psychotropic drugs, and whether and how much insurance companies will pay for care.
"It not only determines how mental disorders are diagnosed, it can impact how people see themselves and how we see each other," said Alan Schatzberg, the association's president. "It influences how research is conducted as well as what is researched. . . . It affects legal matters, industry and government programs."
The American Psychiatric Association’s draft proposed diagnostic criteria for the fifth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) will include new categories for learning disorders and a single diagnostic category, “autism spectrum disorders” that will incorporate the current diagnoses of autistic disorder, Asperger’s disorder, childhood disintegrative disorder and pervasive developmental disorder (not otherwise specified).The recommended DSM-5 draft criteria for autism spectrum disorders include a new assessment of symptom severity related to the individual’s degree of impairment. The draft criteria also specify deficits in two categories: 1) social interaction and communication (e.g., maintaining eye-to-eye gaze, ability to sustain a conversation and peer-relations) and 2) the presence of repetitive behaviors and fixated interests and behaviors. Additionally, in recognition of the neurodevelopmental nature of the disorder, the criteria require that symptoms begin in early childhood. Clinicians must take into account an individual’s age, stage of development, intellectual abilities and language level in making a diagnosis. “The recommendation of a new category of autism spectrum disorders reflects recognition by the work group that the symptoms of these disorders represent a continuum from mild to severe, rather than being distinct disorders,” said Dr. [Edwin] Cook. In addition to specifying a range of severity of ASD, the criteria will include description of the individual’s overall development, course (e.g. regression), and language. “We expect that the proposed changes will improve the sensitivity and specificity of the criteria for autism spectrum disorders, so that clinicians may be able to more accurately diagnose these disorders.”
The change is welcome, because careful study of people with Asperger’s has demonstrated that the diagnosis is misleading and invalid, and there are clear benefits to understanding autism as one condition that runs along a spectrum.
When the American Psychiatric Association first recognized Asperger’s disorder in 1994, it was thought to be a subtype of autism. As the diagnosis became more common, it broadened the public understanding of autism as a spectrum. It helped previously undiagnosed adults to understand their years of feeling unconnected to others, but without bestowing what was considered the stigma of autism. And it helped educators justify providing services for children who, in the past, might have been unappreciated or even bullied because of their differences, but received no help from teachers.
