Autism and Overdiagnosis: Rampant, in psychologist's opinion
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Anonymous
Bullshit. You can't provide the most effective treatments-and preventions-without understanding etiology. That's why the DSM does individuals with various disorders, including autism, such a grave disservice. The cancer community would never stand for this kind of diagnostic carelessness and disregard for etiology. |
Anonymous
| ASD is not a disease like cancer. |
Anonymous
So you are arguing for less specificity with ASD? Just lump 'em into one big group? Good science demands specificity. I've never heard anyone argue otherwise. The truth is, today we are calling a multitude of things autism. |
Anonymous
If you don't know the difference between a disease like cancer and a developmental disorder such as autism there is no hope for you. And it's been widely acknowledged that there are different types of autism with different and multivariable causes: https://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism |
Anonymous
Yeah. At the dev ped the other day for my kid that clearly has issues - many - but clearly not asd, no less problematic probably, and probably no less dehabilitating, I saw several classically autistic kids. They look a certain way have a certain posture and a certain voice and a certain way. It's clearly genetic. I think we are calling degrees of intellectual disability all autism. Not popular. But it's true. My kid is cognitively low functioning, there's no autism. But we've been forced that way like ten times. It's fruatrating because: expertise, prognosis, specialities. Why does this need to be explained? There's no "it's just cancer." Come on. |
Anonymous
You are really clueless. |
Anonymous
I think it goes beyond even that. We are calling all developmental differences autism. I see it clearly in the special needs groups we're a part of. |
Anonymous
I think genetics is a part of it and for some kids, it is the reason why. I also don't think there is one reason for it and it can be a birth injury, drug/alcohol exposure, prenatal environmental, etc. We just don't know and they are looking at a set of criteria vs. actual tests. We did do genetic testing and it didn't come up with anything but genetic testing is so new right now and while it is good for some things, it cannot diagnose everything. I also think you are absolutely right that we now call intellectual disabilities autism when those should be separate (or co-existing). My husband and I watched a documentary on autism and many of the kids seemed to fit in that category but it was called autism. |
Anonymous
+! nicely said. Basically right now we have aba, speech, ot and pt. There are a few more out there like floor time and others. They are very generic and the go to for many things. |
Anonymous
You worry about all those things too but the diagnosis and IEP greatly impact the classes one takes and opportunities given. With all the comments about why people follow the advice of the Camarata's is because of the educational impact and sadly they advocate keeping kids out of public in a private or homeschooling because of all of it. We are taking their advice as I am too tired to fight IEPS. |
Anonymous
This poster doesn't realize that in some situations once a diagnosis is made and it is part of the official record, no outside evaluations count in less it is removed by the original evaluator. We got an outside eval, brought it to the developmental ped who agreed but said it was still autism based on history and too bad. So, because its an electronic record, it is seen by everyone. Differential diagnosis is a very fine art. Most developmental peds and psychologists are generalists in many areas and not true specialists in any one in less they choose it. So, they are very skewed and may not be able to tell the subtle differences between receptive language issues and autism. I can get 20 more evaluations by the top folks and if this one person doesn't remove the diagnosis we are stuck. And, we've tried studies that people have posted on here and every one we get referred back to a major hospital, usually Children's who told us our child was not delayed when it was clear he was. It isn't that simple or easy to get into studies. If we were in a different health care setting, we could easily ignore the original diagnosis and use the current ones but that's not the medical plan we have nor can we get another one given the cost. |
Anonymous
When the DSM-5 came out there was a lot of controversy among people with Asperger's who did not want to be put in the same group with people who had intellectual disabilities who could not speak, etc. Even with all their objections, I agree that the higher end of the spectrum got a lot more out of being put into the spectrum since it qualified them for services: Notably states like California and Wisconsin did not easily grant IEPs to students diagnosed with Asperger's before they were subsumed into ASD. But it's hard to see how funding is a zero sum game especially when it comes to schools since students on both ends of the spectrum require very different supports and services. Kids on the mild end of the spectrum probably require as much supports as kids with ADHD if that. |
Anonymous
+1! |
Anonymous
Gosh, you are that nightmare relative we all have... The one who knows better than the parents and the experts and insists on saying "he'll grow out of it". Please, butt out! FWIW, the boy sounds just like my son, who seemed to have no social issues and talked gibberish at first. A year later, it's so much clearer to others, not just us, that the diagnosis was correct. |
Anonymous
Yes, this is our experience. We've been fighting the good fight with the schools, but it's such an uphill battle and takes so much energy, it's starting not to feel worth it. |