Are we diagnosing AS too soon?

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So one of the biggest problems that I believe is causing a lot of ignorance towards autism/asperger's is the fact that any child who seems awkward or different in personality or socialness or even intelligence from other kids seems to get automatically diagnosed.

These days doctors are diagnosing kids in their toddler years (2-3 years old). I envy them of course because I didnt get diagnosed till I was 18...which brings me to another point...I think it's easier to diagnose an aspie person when they're older because their social behaviors will stand out more. Many children these days are easily dismissed as having a typical normal tantrum.

So could if be that we're diagnosing children too early? Should their be an age minimum on diagnosing AS? I'm not saying that we should wait till people are adults to diagnose them. That would be far too late. I believe that children should be diagnosed by at least their preteen years. The middle school phase is often considered the worse as far as symptoms go for people with AS (some say it's the peak but who knows).

What do you think?

Three or older. Diagnosing too young is irrelevant after that because if the label no longer applies it no longer applies. Labels are given normally if a child needs services. If a child needs speech therapy or OT, and get a diagnosis to do this, well so what?

I agree that there is such a thing as too early. As far as that being a major cause of ignorance toward autistics, I'm not so sure.

I think the reason for the push for early diagnoses is that early intervention is seen as the cure for autism. A lot of parents seem to regard ABA and such as "fixing the autism," and think of it like a cure. That's going to mean a lot of pressure for early diagnoses from many parents and groups like AS.

Unfortunately, when an early-diagnosed kid gets early interventions and turns out "normal," it could end up being attributed to the early intervention, rather than the kid maybe not being autistic in the first place, or being autistic but one who would've turned out relatively "normal" even without interventions. Kind of a self-reinforcing loop, unfortunately.

I'm generally against labeling a child with AS, or ADHD or the likes so early in life, however if the child blatantly expresses some profound pervasive development delays, then I don't see anything wrong with pursing non-medicative treatments, as this could be quite beneficial should the child actually have a very pervasive developmental disorder.