Concerns have been raised in Australia over the DSM-5 Autism Do-Over, the new Autism Spectrum Disorder. The fears echo those held by many in North America where studies have suggested a loss of autism diagnoses under the new DSM-5 diagostic criteria for autism with a possible loss of funding for autism treatment and services.
ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) News reports the concerns expressed by Autism Awareness Australia:
"Vicki Gibbs from Autism Spectrum Australia's diagnostic service said Australian research has found a significant number of autistic children would fail to meet the new criteria. "What our study found was of the 120-odd children that we assessed, about 23 per cent of those children who would have got a diagnosis under the existing DSM 4, we would not have been able to give a diagnosis under DSM 5, just because they didn't have enough of the symptoms," the clinical psychologist said."
As the parent of a 16 year old son with severe autistic disorder I learned long ago that unanticipated changes can have immediate repercussions for my son. Meltdowns have been prompted by unanticipated and, sometimes, unnecessary changes in my son's routines and expectations.
Change itself can be very disruptive. It does not appear to be a lesson learned by the autism experts on the DSM5 committees ... yeah?
"Vicki Gibbs from Autism Spectrum Australia's diagnostic service said Australian research has found a significant number of autistic children would fail to meet the new criteria. "What our study found was of the 120-odd children that we assessed, about 23 per cent of those children who would have got a diagnosis under the existing DSM 4, we would not have been able to give a diagnosis under DSM 5, just because they didn't have enough of the symptoms," the clinical psychologist said."
As the parent of a 16 year old son with severe autistic disorder I learned long ago that unanticipated changes can have immediate repercussions for my son. Meltdowns have been prompted by unanticipated and, sometimes, unnecessary changes in my son's routines and expectations.
Change itself can be very disruptive. It does not appear to be a lesson learned by the autism experts on the DSM5 committees ... yeah?
All those kids they shoved under the dx's because they had apraxia, ID, Down's etc since nobody lobbied the school/medical system to teach all of them.....
ReplyDeleteI'm expecting the numbers to finally reflect those that truly have autism. Not those that squeaked in.
I know of a school in Australia that finally had to remove those with multiple disabities and only teach those they were suppose to. Autism isn't the only dx they are screaming about.