In the US it might be being phased out, but not in the UK. We use the IDC here and according to the American Psychiatric Association:
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/10/icd-dsm.aspx
...it's more likely that the DSM will be phased out in favour of the IDC which is international:
Quote:
The ICD is produced by a global health agency with a constitutional public health mission, while the DSM is produced by a single national professional association.
WHO's primary focus for the mental and behavioral disorders classification is to help countries to reduce the disease burden of mental disorders. ICD's development is global, multidisciplinary and multilingual; the primary constituency of the DSM is U.S. psychiatrists.
The ICD is approved by the World Health Assembly, composed of the health ministers of all 193 WHO member countries; the DSM is approved by the assembly of the American Psychiatric Association, a group much like APA's Council of Representatives.
The ICD is distributed as broadly as possible at a very low cost, with substantial discounts to low-income countries, and available free on the Internet; the DSM generates a very substantial portion of the American Psychiatric Association's revenue, not only from sales of the book itself, but also from related products and copyright permissions for books and scientific articles.
Will the DSM be superseded by the ICD? There is little justification for maintaining the DSM as a separate diagnostic system from the ICD in the long run, particularly given the U.S. government's substantial engagement with WHO in the area of classification systems. But, said Reed, "there would still be a role for the DSM, because it contains a lot of additional information that will never be part of the ICD. In the future, it may be viewed as an important textbook of psychiatric diagnosis rather than as the diagnostic 'Bible.'"
Probably in the same way our Government in the UK behaves like puppy dog to the USA Government, some clinicians here are probably worried about diagnosing AS because of what's happening in the US with the DSM revision and being unsure as to how it affects the UK. We still use the IDC and will likely continue to do so, and unless it is revised in a similar way to the DSM, AS still stands as a diagnosis.
OP your clinician corrected himself because Asperger's is already high-functioning so you can't say "high-functioning Asperger's". When he said "very" in relation to your high-functioning status he probably meant that you have either a high IQ or very good verbal skills. AS is on a spectrum (or at least everyone has their own mix of the traits) just as much as the whole of autism is.
I don't know why he diagnosed you HFA instead of AS, as you say you had no speech delay so technically it's not the correct diagnosis. He is probably just unsure because of knowing about the DSM being updated and making assumptions because he's not bothered finding out.
You probably ought to call him and ask him to clarify. Good luck with getting your mum to recognise your ASC status.
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*Truth fears no trial*
DX AS & both daughters on the autistic spectrum
21 Feb 2013, 9:23 am
