OK - tell me how this differs from AS??

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It's not rumored. The APA is currently having conferences for the next edition of the DSM right now. They've been at it for a year or so now, and they're going to continue for the next few years.

EVERY "mental" disorder is being examined and the criteria will be re-written. It's not exclusive to ASDs. We won't see the new DSM until around 2010-2011 though. They have a website up where you can read some notes from each conference they have as they go along. That website is here:
http://www.dsm5.org/
They haven't gotten to discussing ASDs yet.

As for this "new disorder" in the original post, it doesn't seem distinct from autistic disorders. I think some doctor or group of doctors made this up and they're basically the only ones using it/listening to it. I would bet $5 that it doesn't make it into the DSM.

Hey! I love you guys! Thank you everyone for your thoughtful comments and perspectives. You've really helped me think about this.

Exactly what I've sort of thought all along Maldoror. You put it well. What I've always thought about myself is that the sensory stuff often stands in the way of my communicating - too much extraneous noise, lights, anxiety, other external distractions. So to that extent, my 'communication difficulties' are secondary. I've always felt that if I have enough time and encouragement then I can probably communicate with the best of them. And, indeed, this is quite often the way: it's why, when I'm with a good friend 1:1 or someone whom I know loves me, I can speak and understand with ease UNLESS the other person is irritated, being angry or attacking me (anxiety and/or negativity automatically makes me go mute, my brain shuts down, I can never compute what I've said or done wrong to incur their annoyance).

I also think that the DSM descriptions are only descriptions of how AS looks from the point of view of a clinical observer. They don't in any way describe, still less do they explain, the internal processes. So maybe (and I'm cautiously being less cynical here) this MDSS whatsit is simply a little step towards the clinicians' understanding that there actually ARE very good reasons for the outward behaviour - and that it's not simply 'faulty wiring' and 'they are poor communicators full stop'.

Last edited by AmbientRainbow on 05 Mar 2007, 7:52 am, edited 2 times in total.

I don't think it's distinct from Autistic Disorders I could see a need for something that fills the gap that it's attempting to describe. Parents with kids in the neighborhood of this description often find it hard to get school services unless the diagnostician stretches it and gives a label even if they don't meet the criteria.

I wouldn't take you up on that $5 bet but I think there's some room for improvement in the criteria for the ASD's.

LOL - that's why I said it is "rumored"!

because there's always a chance to get something "COOL" named after you. jk... and a poor one at that... /bur

Maybe it's because they (being NT) haven't figured out the incredible diversity to be found amongst us. They keep seeing new people and want to pigeonhole us but we're none of us pigeonhole-able.

I bet there are a number of people who would fit these criteria, who maybe haven't thought they have AS or haven't been able to get diagnosed, like me. I bet at least some people with social anxiety disorder developed in childhood would fit many of these criteria. I think a lot of these fit me. I don't have the first one (except not liking really hot weather). But I've always had the other ones--I think the second one can relate to anxiety. I didn't have the third one as a young child because I was always around adults due to my dad's fear of germs, but when I had to communicate with other kids I definitely had problems and became socially anxious as a result. And I really have problems communicating now, whether it's from anxiety or autism, it's still a problem. I've had the others too, especially clumsiness. And these things all affect one's social development and can also cause one to develop social anxiety and probably other things that seem autistic, and probably will be found at some time to be somewhere on the autistic spectrum.

Even though I don't personally have the sensory problems myself I've heard of other people with social anxiety but who probably weren't autistic who had these problems, which added to their social anxiety. There's even a book about social anxiety in which sensory problems are touched on.

All this is being revised and researched constantly--I'm sure in 10 or 15 years even more people who are thought of as having social anxiety will be considered at least mildly autistic.

How does a low IQ person define genius? How does a high IQ? Dr_Mobius has another view.

I am great at finding order in systems, there is none here. From all of you I can not match a pair, when I do find something in common, there is not an exact match, and they are not even from the same deck.

We have five wise, but blind, men describing an elephant.

I know I fit in around here somewhere, but none are like me, for all are like me.

I follow your stories, some has meaning, the next paragraph is a blank to me, then I relate again.

In the exact same situation no two people will react the same. It has to do with basics, gender, age, IQ, but also with the rest of their life and their personality. I am a much different person after coffee.

I see vegetive plants, so consistant. Spring comes and a new type of stalk grows, a flower, and all of the plant experts define how it is only a defective plant. What else could they think? Adaptive mutation would be the end of the plant world. They convince some flowers they are bad plants, and need help. Some can no longer hear them. More flowers form, new and different, surpressing some, others pop up. Not a single cure, but a hundred new disorders. It is what they were trained for.

Occam says, things are changing.

I think that's right on the money. Every aspie will have some of the markers, but there will never be a single diagnostic. Hyperlexia? Maybe, maybe not. OCD? Probably, but no guarantees. It's a "pick one from column 'A' and two from column 'B'" sort of diagnosis. Not to mention the matter of severity of the various markers, and the basic personality that they are interacting with. They will never find a bright line which indisputably distinguishes the autism spectrum from the NT (or anything else!), people are just too complex for that.

Why does everyone have to diognose every Eccentricity?