Proposed new autism criteria: the DSM-V

Here they are and here are ten off-the-cuff thoughts:1. The most sit-up-and-take-notice change is the total removal of Rett syndrome from the DSM. It is gone. The DSM-V people are saying, " genetic syndromes don ' t belong in our book, " or words to that effect, and I agree.2. Indeed the vast majority of named neurodevelopmental disabilities do not appear in the DSM, past, present, or future. This raises the question of why autism is there. Rett ' s being excluded is not going to immediately result in Rett ' s individuals being catastrophically deprived of recognition or assistance. Instead it may result in these individuals being regarded more accurately, to their great benefit. Removing autism from the DSM would have the same beneficial effect.3. Another change to grapple with: CDD (Childhood Disintegrative Disorder) is now lumped in with autism, which in turn has a single vaguely phrased onset criterion. To cover CDD (Volkmar et al., 2005), that criterion will have to cover onset at age 5 (fairly common in CDD) and up to age nine (rare, but happens).4. In addition, autism and CDD have very different cognitive profiles. This is one of many ways in which the DSM-V, even more than its predecessor, is running away from the productive and beneficial--to autistics--notion of autism as a cognitive phenotype.5. The headline-making but most predictable--and most predictably responded to--change is the loss of Asperger ' s and PDD-NOS,which have both always been considered part of t...
Source: The Autism Crisis - Category: Child Development Source Type: blogs