LennytheWicked wrote:
How would that explain nonverbal autistic people who later learn to talk, type, or sign as a means of communication? This seems poorly thought out.
Being non-verbal is not a necessary impairment for a diagnosis. As long as those individuals continue to meet the minimum clinically significant requirements for a diagnosis, there is the likely hood that they will keep their diagnosis. Again, they are not suggesting that a person cannot adapt from "more severe to less severe impairments", just that the clinically significant social communication impairments are observed over the course of a lifetime.
There is some suggestion recently in one small study that a small minority of individuals on the spectrum "mature" out of their previously diagnosed impairments, however that is very new research that has yet to be replicated in larger studies. The DSM chair does not appear to be taking this information into consideration in her comment, and likely shouldn't since that research has not yet been replicated with larger well controlled studies.
There was another study last decade generated from a national parent survey that suggested that up to 40% of children reported by their parents on the spectrum earlier in life were no longer identified on the spectrum later in life. But, that methodology of remembering what happened in the past as opposed to the present by opinion is not considered reliable enough to make definitive conclusions on who does or does not retain a diagnosis through the course of a lifetime. A statistic that is as large as close to 40% suggests there are at least a significant number of children who once were diagnosed who lose their diagnosis later in life, but how significant that number is remains to be conclusively determined.
And the reasons for it could be diverse from misdiagnosis to effective treatment or adaptation. Those are the answers that are still not clear, until further studies are done.
31 Jan 2013, 7:09 pm
