Aspies For Freedom

Have your say about future DSM-V diagnostic criteria

For everyone concerned, the DSM-V criteria are being worked out to possibly being published in 2011. Suggestions regarding adding, changing or deleting present diagnostic criteria in DSM-IV can be filed online here: http://www.dsm5.org/suggestions.cfm

So, go for it, and write your opinion about how people on the spectrum will be categorized, labeled, and treated respectively in the soon future!

Thanks for posting that. I will be sending in some comments to them.

This form is designed to allow you to submit suggestions for deleting a current DSM-IV-TR disorder for future consideration by the relevant DSM-V Work Group (which is not expected to be appointed until at least 2006). As with its predecessor DSM-IV-TR, consideration of all changes in DSM-V will depend on a review of the empirical data base supporting the proposal. A high threshold of empirical support will be required in order to justify the deletion of an existing disorder. Data in support of such a proposal might include 1) empirical evidence indicating that the existing disorder lacks fundamental aspects of diagnostic validity (e.g., that the current condition that is not a mental disorder but is instead a developmental phase); 2) evidence supporting the clinical utility of deleting the disorder (e.g. reduction of false positives), and 3) evidence suggesting that deleting the disorder will not lead to excessive false negatives.

Thus, all suggestions should be accompanied by a description of the empirical support that is currently available. If the empirical data supporting the suggestion is limited, we would recommend that you consider collecting relevant data that might ultimately be made available to the DSM-V Work Group. Please be aware that your submission will not be formally evaluated until the relevant work groups are appointed and begin their deliberations, which will occur no earlier than 2007.


Indicate disorder to be deleted (the first 100 characters will be used to summarize the suggestion) and describe reasons for suggesting deletion:
Note: If your suggestion in longer than 500 words, please briefly summarize your suggestion here, create a document containing the complete suggestion, and attach it below (where it says "Upload Associated File")  
Literature currently available in support of the claim that the disorder in question lacks diagnostic validity:  
Literature currently available in support of the claim that deleting the disorder will improve clinical utility:  
Literature currently available in support of the claim that there will be a low risk of false negatives resulting from the deletion of the disorder:  
Upload Associated File (optional):

1999-2005 Development of DSM-V Preplanning White Papers

2002 Publication of “A Research Agenda for DSM-V” (monograph containing six white papers)

2004-5 Publication of additional DSM-V Preplanning White Papers

2004-2007 Review data from the 10 APA/NIH-sponsored conferences on "The Future of Psychiatric Diagnosis: Refining the Research Agenda"

2007* Appointment of DSM-V Workgroups

2011* Publication of DSM-V


* These dates are tentative; although these events will not occur any earlier, they could occur later.

Isn't it better to at least inform/protest to them, and say where they are going wrong?
Otherwise their ignorance is bliss, and they will say the old classic 'well no-one complained, so we must be doing it right'.

Thank you for informing us about this matter Attention-tunnel. I believe this is a hugely important matter, in fact I think getting autism/AS out of the DSM should be a major focus of efforts for the AFF and wider aspie community, maybe a theme for the next APD. I'd love to read opinions about this matter and see it discussed and debated. I'd love to read a detailed account of how homosexuality got removed from the DSM.

I don't believe anything will be achieved in changing the DSM if a handfull of individuals write their own submissions, and I don't believe we should be obliged to follow the narrow and restrictive guidelines for submissions, because the idea that AS is a mental disorder never had any scientific validity anyway. What needs to happen is for an organised campaign involving many people to be organised.

I would also recommend Paula Caplan's book about the DSM, and I'd also recommend "Selling sickness: how drug companies are turning us all into patients" by Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels. It's a new Australian book, not exclusively about the DSM, but it provides some interesting insights into the "branding" and creation of mental disorders.

Are you going to send them a printout of the "Your Personal Aspie Criteria" thread?

According to Pat Howlin, the rates of schizophrenia for autistics is the same for the general population. So therefore, 1% of those on the spectrum would have schizophrenia and autism/aspergers.

It seems that the exclusion rule is for doctors' benefit.

The full name of the DSM is "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders". What exactly is a "mental disorder"? I honestly don't believe I have a "mental disorder". My mind is not in a state of disarray or disorder. It isn't out of my control, running amok, doing bad things. It works fine, in a way that is different to the way other people's minds work.

I have a secondhand copy of DSM-IV (fourth edition). There are many conditions listed in it that I wouldn't categorise as mental disorders, such as stuttering, Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder and Gender Identity Disorder. The DSM is full of conditions that I think are medical conditions, neurological conditions or conditions that are only problematic due to social pressures. Since when does having a speech impediment make you a mental case?

Isn't it time that someone told the psychiatry profession to @#$% off back to their place in society, and stick to trying to help the depressives and the delusional, and stop meddling in areas that they have no right to interfere with?

Sophist said "I had read a research article from The Journal of Autism and Developmental Disabilities which took a sampling of high-functioning individuals. They found there was a surprising rate of increase in near-relatives of autistic individuals who had Schizophrenia. In addition, also more who had Schizotypal Personality Disorder."

We discussed that article some time ago and felt that the relatives that were diagnosed with schizophrenia etc, could have been misdiagnosed aspies and auties, certainly from cases in the past.

Considering the genetics of autism its much more likely that relatives would have increased rates of ASDs.

I agree with Amy's point. I'd like to add that the type A personality disorders are probably misdiagnoses given to autistics. Here is a link to an article in which some "expert" openly describes diagnostic sloppiness between the categories of Aspergers and the type A pesonality disorders, including Schizotypal Personality Disorder, which I find alarming.
http://trainland.tripod.com/sula.htm

I guess if the professionals don't think there are any effective cures for two different conditions, or would prescribe the same drugs regardless of the diagnosis, then there is little motivation to make an accurate diagnosis.

Synaesthesia is a neurological condition that seems to be found with autism/AS quite often. I have heard that synaesthetes have been known to be misdiagnosed with schizophrenia, but I'm not sure how common this experience is. It is pretty easy to imagine how synaesthesia could be misdiagnosed as a sensory hallucination, in fact LSD hallucinations are thought by some to be similar to synaesthesia or a kind of synaesthesia. I'd like to make it clear that I do not think synaesthetes are crazy at all, but some of us do report some pretty unusual sensory experiences.

Ryuuyin, I understand what you mean, but much more often people have relatives who are aspies, or with traits, bipolar, depression etc.

That's going from the people I meet and talk to, we talk about these things in great depth in the chatroom a lot.

Pretty sure its the same one, its posted somewhere, probably in the news section.

Sophist wrote

A very important fact that you need to keep in mind is that up until the 1960s the two categories of schizophrenia and autism were hopelessly confused by the psychiatric profession, and if you go back in history to the very first usage of the word "autism" by the psychiatric profession it referred to one particular aspect of the disorder schizophrenia. "Childhood schizophrenia" was a term used for autistic children. Just have a look at this ridiculous old academic paper about "childhood schizophrenia" and I'm sure you will realise that this was a term applied to autistic children (broken link)
http:// http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v07n3/07318fis.html

If academics are doing research on mental institution inmates who are old enough to be autistics misdiagnosed as schizos, then that is going to confound all of the research findings, obviously. It could erroneously make autism and schizophrenia seem to be similar or associated, when in fact the only link is misdiagnosis.

I'm sure there are many practitioners to this day who are still confused about the important differences between the categories of autism and schizophrenia. The other day I stumbled across a web site giving a schizophrenia traits checklist, and I was impressed by how easily an aspie could be misdiagnosed using that checklist. An aspie would only need to fail to convince the psychiatrist that it was really true that people are out to get them, and they could be judged to be paranoid, and they could easily meet all of the other requirements for schizophrenia (especially if they have strong synaesthesia).