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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][b]Yes it makes sense.  It is a very broad spectrum.  [/b]There are two things to know:
1)  All ASD involves social communication deficits. Usually this involves limited or no ability to pick up social cues.  A lot of the variability in ASD is from this issue because it's like someone visiting a foreign country where they don't know the language.  The visitor will act strangely, but it will look different depending on the customs of their own country.
2) All ASD involves restricted, repetitive behaviors.  Narrow interests is classic, but this group includes sensory issues, as they try to confine themselves to seeking or avoiding certain sensations.  For example, my kid eats only about 10 things, often refusing foods based on texture alone.

We don't know why those two items go together so often, but we see them together so often, we created the ASD syndrome.  A syndrome is an set of symptoms that frequently occur together without an obvious connection.

The third thing to know is that ASD is often comorbid with other disorders.  We don't know why this is either.  But it accounts for a lot of the variability too.  Many have ADHD, itself something of a spectrum.  Many have communication disorders, adding a layer of complexity to understanding your AS kid..

I hope this helps. [/quote]

It actually doesn't make sense, because the DSM is very arbitrary. The standards for ASD (such as repetitive behavior) have changed.  You used to not be able to diagnose ASD with anything comorbid, and now you say "ASD is often comorbid."  It really is a moving target.  ASD is a collection of symptoms, and the DSM criteria are so broad, that there's not really any unifying principal.  [/quote]

The "moving target" has a lot to do with the history of what the DSM is and the personalities of early Autism researchers.  The ASD diagnostic criteria are pretty specific even if how individuals express those criteria seem broad.  We see similar variance in expression of symptoms across other diagnoses where we know more about the underlying neurology.

[/quote]

No, the ASD criteria are not specific.  They are very broad, and in many potential combinations, that there is a lot of possible variety.  The "moving target" is due to the inherently subjective nature of all DSM diagnoses -- they're decided by committee based on a collection of symptoms; not through actual differential, physically-based processes (or even treatment approaches.)
[/quote]
Sure, psychiatric diagnosis is both an art and a science.  But if somebody is.crying their eyes and talks about suicide, we've got absolutely no trouble figuring out they have depression.  Then take a five-year old can give a university-level lecture on beetles but doesn't know why the rest of the world is not interested and suddenly people think we don't know what the problem is.[/quote]

Neither example is even remotely related to many of our kids.  You can have a brilliant 5 year old who is not ASD and that is part of the point of the concern with the term.[/quote]
Both are real world examples of actual.people with their respective diagnoses.  The child is a real child who was not that brilliant but knew an awful lot about insects: restricted interest, and couldn't tell when people were bored or disgusted by his mini-lectures: missed social cues.

Sometimes it's really not that difficult to diagnose these things, lack of blood tests notwithstanding.  If you don't recognize classic depression or ASD, then maybe you are not as knowledgeable about how these diagnoses are made as you think.[/quote]

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