Is there a Status to your diagnosis ?

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Is there a status in different diagnosis on the spectrum?

I am starting to wonder if there is some STATUS about where one DX ranks in the spectrum. Is there one classification deemed better or worse over the other? What STATUS does a HFA or an AS or PDD-NOS or a just plain A has on the scale? is there a Caste System in the medical diagnosis?

Is someone of a certain status in the hierarchy if you are one thing or another?

Merle

I've wondered this, too.

If I had to guess (not my opinion, just from what I've heard), the order would be (from "worst" to "best"):

LFA/Rett's-----------MFA---------------------PDD-NOS----------HFA--Asperger's

Of course, there would be variety with all of them.

Well, I am a 3/4 on my ability to cope with my spectrum deficientices (or whatever)

1/4 being rainman-kinda not so self functioning.
1 whole being Bill gates ect-very functional.

But no, nothing like you said. And sometimes I think I am more 1/2. I couldn't live in a group home, but.....there are times one would be benificial.

All DXes are equal in status, in that there is no status. Differing qualities do not a quantifiable scale make.

I went with the all are equal. I probably have crossed that line a few times, but I think I stay pretty much with it's important to someone and I have no real right to judge them according to some DX or no DX. Probably where I cross the line is trying to get someone to understand what the hell is going on. I suspect it might come across as a one sided deal.

"Officially", it's (from worst to best):

Autistic disorder
Atypical autism (PDD-NOS)
Asperger's disorder
Atypical Asperger's (PDD-NOS)

Autistic disorder is worst due to greater deficits in cognitive ability, as well as extremely poor verbal skills in the worst cases; some cases overlap with Asperger's and they're then effectively the same disorder. This is generally based on one's ability to function in society; someone who has AD, has mental retardation (70%), and cannot communicate verbally (18-40%), will have no chance to function in society (barring outliers); the same individual with AD/AS who doesn't have mental retardation, and who can communicate adequately as an adult, will have a chance to function in society, albeit, with much great difficulty than "normal" people, and special allowances will need to be made [in the majority of cases].

The social impairment of all of the above is roughly equal in severity; it's the bits and pieces added on that separate them all.

Untrue.

Even by normal standards (which I don't use)... PDD-NOS is also used for people who are unable to complete enough activities to get an autism diagnosis, because they do so few things in general. I knew an autistic person who got that diagnosis for that reason -- she did not do enough activities in general at all, to be able to do repetitive activities (or any more repetitive than what she was able to do in general), or to show interest in things (likewise), etc.

And lots of people with "autistic disorder" can function in the world better than lots of people with "Asperger's disorder".

There's really nothing linear like this. It doesn't work in the real world, even if you were drawing a line from "most able to function like an NT" to "least able to function like an NT" it wouldn't be drawn the way you've drawn it.

As for my own vote, I said all are equal.

But there should be another thing on there, which is the thing where people think it gives someone more status the further from NT they are. Like people who think that the opinions of people who seem closest to NT count the least.

I've always called the two extremes on this, "HFAer than thou" and "LFAer than thou" respectively, both of them annoy the crap out of me.

PDD-NOS equates to someone who doesn't meet the full criteria of a specific PDD, but there's clearly a social impairment with communication difficulties or an all encompassing interest.

If you do a search, all of the clinical sites will tell you that autistic disorder is lower down on the spectrum (many of the sites anyway); AS is higher up, these are generalizations, but they seem to hold true for the majority (outcome research for example).

I picked the last option, that my view isn't represented in the poll.

I don't have a diagnosis and I don't think much of them. Not to belittle those who think they're interesting, but that's my opinion. If people benefit from them, great, but it seems to me that a lot of times they limit people more than they liberate them. "How things should be" (according to the experts) becomes more important than "how things are", and people's thinking is hampered.

But for those who think the structure and the predictability of the literature is comforting, all diagnoses are equally valuable. I guess.

I say all equal, I really hate how they give labels, like aspergers, autistic disorder, and the weird pddnos label, which could be severe or mild. I think when everything gets lumped into Autism Spectrum Disorder, and either will be high functioning, moderate functioning, or low functioning, it will be much easier, think!

Except that the ICD lists atypical autism (which is the non-DSM equivalent of PDD-NOS) as "Atypical autism arises most often in profoundly retarded individuals whose very low level of functioning provides little scope for exhibition of the specific deviant behaviours required for the diagnosis of autism," and that's considered there the most common form (whereas the DSM doesn't list what's common and what isn't).

anbuend, thanks for that.

And concerning my subjective opinion on "status", they're all just disorders/labels that one fits into, one label can have more/more severe symptoms than the other, but that just means one has more/more severe symptoms to me, nothing more.

'I'm more OCD than you!' doesn't sound like something to be happy about, and neither does less (you've still got it).

There is definitely a heirachy[?] to ASD,it's also something that affects the disability spectrum in general, there was a long thread about this on ouch a while back.
WPers who are classically autistic are often not even recognised here [and else where],various users have said-'aspergers shouldn't be lumped in with autism,don't want to be associated with autistics',partly not even noticing or ignoring that they are already associating and being 'lumped with' with autistics [classic and pddnos] on here,and partly using the same old stereotypes of classic autism that ASDers complain about the hardcore pro curists using.
There is no one best or worst ASD,to assume are better than another person for having a different label is just as petty as those who say they're better than NTs.
There is no best and worst in autism,only different.

Rett syndrome. . .CDD. . .LFA. . .MFA. . .HFA. . .PDD-NOS. . .AS. . .NLD

Labels like this are unfortunate but necessary when applying for services or trying to get
NTs to understand how AS and Kanner autism are related.