US vs UK diagnosis system

Post Reply New Topic

has anyone ever noticed that diagnostic criteria/definition of certain ASDs are different in the US compared with the UK?


For the record, I have Asperger's Sydrome and live in the UK.

I've noticed that UK members have to jump through more hoops compared to some of those from the US/elsewhere.

What criteria does the UK use?

It's kind of hard to explain the criteria but I will use an example to illustrate some of the differences. My brother has autism and a PDD. In the US autism is a PDD.

"PDD-NOS" and "NVLD" seem to only exist in the US - or, at least, i've never encountered anyone from the UK with either of those diagnoses - most people with the former would be diagnosed either with autism or some sort of generalised "learning disability" label, and most with the latter would be either dyspraxic or maybe in a few cases AS with dyspraxia as a co-morbidity.

I think HFA is a commoner diagnosis in the US as well (or at least distinguishing between AS and HFA is, whereas in the UK those terms would be used pretty much synonymously).

In general, the UK seems to embrace the "spectrum" concept more, whereas the US seems to have more of a desire to classify everyone into an <i>exact</i> classification of what "species" of neurodiversity they are...

Most countries use either the DSM-IV-TR or the ICD-10. What is called PDD-NOS in the DSM-IV-TR is called Pervasive developmental disorder, unspecified in the ICD-10:

http://www.who.int/classifications/apps ... 0.htm+f845

My psychologist says I was diagnosed under Gilliberg and Gilliberg (did I spell that right? Sorry if not)... if that helps.