DSM-V Is taking away our identity.

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i already call it 'aspergers autism' anyway, besides it would be good because then there will be less Wautistics claiming to have 'mild aspergers'

Aspergers isn't worth fighting for, especially since NT's will never understand it anyway. Just live your life the way you want to live it, and not try to be an activist and get an identity.

Next, we'll be in concentration camps.

This step will lead to better and more accurate filtering of the aspies populations by enforcing the position of the Autistics who call themselves aspies while kicking out the non-autistics who call themselves 'aspies'.

If by that you mean that we'll get better specificity... yes, I hope so. There are some kids who are being diagnosed Asperger's who don't need it because they don't actually need assistance; and some adults who are being diagnosed Asperger's who have some other issue instead.

Still, I don't think AS is overdiagnosed all that much. In the older population, it's heavily underdiagnosed.

What I hope most from this new set of criteria is that it won't be so limited to children only. The current set seem to assume that you'd only make this diagnosis in childhood; the new set seems to be more of an evaluation of where you are, and what you can do, right now as opposed to when you were three.

I think we'll have a general benefit with adult diagnosis. Now all that remains is to move it out of the "Childhood Disorders" category and put it in Axis 2 with the other long-term background conditions.

I also have a major problem with that "merge". Back when I first went to college, I had an autism diagnosis(they did not have Asperger's yet). As a result, I was put into remedial classes, even though I had extremely high placement scores and was told I could not do my medical career. This depressed me. Even though I finally got diagnosed with Asperger's, but I already left and was on disability. For 10 years I was put into a program with autistic people who were mentally ret*d and I was treated by the heads of this program like I was a stupid because I had an disability on the autism spectrum disorder list (Asperger's). I was socially isolated because I was the only one who had Asperger's. Even the people who were the higher functioning classic autistic had trouble talking with me because they did not have the understanding of the type of conversations that I would want. I always socialized with the staff because I could have such mature conversations with them and they understood them. I was put into jobs that were very below my capability. I wanted something in the medical and I was told they could not provide that because the "type" of clientele they typically serve do not possess that capability. So I got stuck in jobs picking up trash and recyclables at a local college, working in a factory putting things in bags, and yet, these jobs were like 2 cents a piece, not minimum wage or a real paycheck. Yet, because I was the "highest" functioning one, the only one without retardation, I was penalized if I told staff when another client would bully or harass me. I felt ashamed and still do because of my Asperger's because of what I had to be put up with. Now that they finally differenced Asperger's from autism, I was able to have my medical career and go back to school. Now, since I left and go to college, people are starting to see Asperger's as a gift and so am I. This Asperger's being somewhat different from Autism had made my teachers and the staff at my program wake up and see that I should have never been in such a program and because of that I am able to better my life. Now, with this "merger" many people with Asperger's would get put into such horrible programs. I know people may like this merger, but don't be fooled. You too will get treated like crap.

I personally don't have any sense of 'Aspie identity'. I am who I am, and each person with Aspergers is different, as is each person with classic autism. I describe myself as 'on the autistic spectrum' just as often as I describe myself as having Aspergers. The particular 'Aspie' traits I have don't seem to me to be specific to Aspergers - they seem to stem from particular neurological differences that all people on the autistic spectrum have in common, and which manifest in different ways in different people. When I read Temple Grandin's books, or Donna Williams' books, they seem very similar to me, even though their classification is 'autism' and mine is 'Aspergers'.

I don't like the 'them and us' mentality that the Asperger label can foster. And from what I understand, its distinguishing factors from classsic autism are tenuous and not even agreed upon. Some say that it's about whether there's language delay or not - but then, when you're an adult, the age at which you developed language becomes irrelevant. Besides, language development can depend on all kinds of environmental factors. Others say the difference is in IQ, but then you can argue that some people on the spectrum could have a very high IQ but simply not understand the context of the IQ test, or why they have to do it. And the IQ test is no longer seen as the definitive way of determining intelligence anyway.

I'm reading Temple Grandin's book The Way I See It at the moment, and she talks about how when autistic people are non-verbal, it's generally not an issue of intelligence, but an issue of sensory integration, particularly with visual and auditory perception.