Autism Action Network: It Started: DSM5 Used To Revoke Autism Diagnosis

The Autism Action Network reports, in It started: DSM5 used to revoke autism diagnosis,  that the revoking of autism diagnoses under the DSM5 regime and the resulting denial of services and educational placements for people with autism disorders has begun.   Here in Canada the Childrens' Hospital of Eastern Ontario, CHEO, has excluded from its autism early intervention program a child it described as having global developmental delay, the express exclusionary phrase used in the DSM5 Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnostic definition.  Swedo, Lord and company were warned this would happen and stubbornly insisted that their vision of autism be imposed on the lives of children who would have otherwise received DSM-IV autism diagnoses.  Presumably they are happy to see the results of their efforts.

It started: DSM5 used to revoke autism diagnosis 

Share your story to stop the DSM5 

As many of us expected, the new definition of “autism” laid out in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fifth Edition (DSM5) is being used to deny services and educational placements to people with autism. We are receiving more and more reports from around the US (Buffalo, Dallas, Utica, etc.) of schools, Medicaid providers, insurance companies and local government service providers using the DSM5 to deny services to people who have an autism spectrum disorder. 

If you are facing difficulties or the loss of services as a result of the DSM5 please let us know. Please contact us atjgilmore@autismactionnetwork.org with your stories. Your stories will be a crucial component in stopping the DSM5. 

All the studies on how the DSM5 will affect people with autism have shown huge numbers will lose their diagnosis, their services, Medicaid and educational placement along with it. One study from the Child Study Center at Yale University showed a 55% reduction, including 30% of those categorized as low-functioning.

We have had bills introduced in several states including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to require the continued use of the DSM4 and other diagnostic tools such as the ICD. We are working on getting bills introduced in other states. Illinois has already passed legislation prohibiting the use of the DSM5 to deny services. And we are working to prevent the federal government from using the DSM5. 

The DSM5 discards the labels of “Asperger syndrome” and “pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS)” Schools and insurance companies and Medicaid providers are using these changes to tell people who have an Asperger’s or PDD-NOS diagnosis that they no longer have “autism” and are losing insurance coverage, placements in special education and other services. 

The DSM5 is wrapped in controversy. The federal National Institute of Mental Health considers the DSM5 so flawed that they will not spend any research dollars on studies that use it. We do not have to put up with this. 

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