Reply to Why is everything now just ASD?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]They changed the diagnostic codes and eliminated Asperger's and PDD-Nos.  Now everything is coded as ASD, but with degrees of severity.  [/quote]

OP here, I know that, was just wondering what the reasoning was. It seems counterintuitive to me to go from more specified diagnoses to more generalized so I just didn't know why they went that direction. [/quote]

Because the previous distinctions weren't helpful. For example, the difference between aspergers and high functioning autism was whether there was a speech delay before age 3. That does not provide any meaningful guidance for what a 10 year old needs. Calling it autism but having levels based on how much support someone needs at that time is more helpful and specific.[/quote]

And Asperger's was often used as a label to indicate that a kid didn't have any IQ deficits, when that isn't in the criteria at all and not what it meant.

The label high functioning autism was just confusing for patients and families because the researchers used it to mean a patient with language impairments and an IQ greater than 70, but lots of parents didn't think of that as "high functioning" compared to  a neurotypical kid.  And it really didn't say anything clear about the kid with autism and a testable IQ over 100.
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A language impairment is different than autism.[/quote]

This again? Yes, we know that MERLD kids do not have autism. But some kids with autism do have language impairments and delays and under DSM IV, whether a kid (who met the other requirements of autism) had a language delay or not was the difference between autism and aspergers. [/quote]

MERLD falls under Social Communication Pragmatics Disorder under DSM V.  In case, you actually care about diagnosing your child correctly.  (Other than it's [i]not[/i] autism, of course.)[/quote]

Never heard that Mixed Expressive and Receptive Language Disorder is the equivalent of Social Communication Pragmatics Disorder!?!   Thought MERLD meant that the person had issues with expressive and receptive language skills that were more severe than just problems with social communication and pragmatic language.  For instance in the DSM-IV, kids who got diagnosed with Asperger's had no delays in language (was verbal without expressive/receptive language delays) other than pragmatics.[/quote]
MERLD and Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorder are two different things, but they are both classified under Communications Disorders.  MERLD is not necessarily more severe, just a different diagnosis. It's true that in DSM-IV, an Asperger's diagnosis meant you had delays in language, but this was dropped from DSM-V because they found that   the lack of language delays wasn't really meaningful once the child gets older.[/quote]

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