Co-Morbid Disorders

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My son was originally diagnosed with Nonverbal Learning Disability, ADHD, Developmental Coordination Disorder and a General Anxiety Disorder.

He was just diagnosed with Aspergers last week, by 2 new doctors. I was told that with Aspergers, multiple diagnoses (such as ADHD etc.) aren't made in addition to, but are rather a part of the whole diagnostic picture.

Is that true? Have any of you with Aspergers been diagnosed with any of the underlying disorders SEPARATELY, or were you told any ADHD/OCD symptoms you may have are co-morbid with this diagnosis?

I have some of these symptoms your son has. I'm now on an medication for depression, anxiety and seizures. I read a book called Asperger Syndrome (A Guide For Educators and Parents 2nd edition), by Myles and Simpson. I'm not a doctor but I read that a lot of that can be a part of the Autism Spectrum. It's taken some time but I'm now a lot more better than I was in the past. You might, if you haven't already, check into some of the books that relates to this. As for coordination problems, I have it but not real bad.

im not sure i understand what your asking but ill take a shot. for me i was diagnosed ADD, ADHD, seperation anxiety,(raised by grandmother partents not huge part of my life), bipolar, and probily a few others that i cant remember. before i was diagnosed aspergers. from what i understand, alot of aspergers people are diagnosed as stuff like that because aspergers is such a underknown/underdiagnosed disorder. it doesnt mean that the child has that but just that alot of all those kind of disorders overlap. if i remember right my diagnosis now is aspergers/bipolar without any of the other stuff. hope this helps:)

I had been diagnosed with ADD before AS, but when a different doctor got a clue and saw the AS, he nulled the ADD. So, yeah, probably happened to your son too.

My son was originally diagnosed classically autistic. Then he started talking, which through that out of the picture (in 1994). Then they said sensory integration disorder. Then we carried around an articulation disorder for a long time. In 5th grade it become severe ADD. In 6th grade we started looking at the autistic tendencies again. By 9th grade we had an AS diagnosis.

Most of my kids on the HFA and AS dx scales have followed similar patterns. Lots of co morbid things until it was enough to add up to a spectrum disorder. Our problem was that I had made him pretty functioning within the scope of the autism, so it added to making it difficult to be diagnosed.

Well i've been diagnosed with depression and generalized anxiety disorder as well as Aspergers...but i'm not sure I quite get what your asking but i'll have a go at answering it.
I KNOW that my depression is separate disorder. I became depressed because of lonliness, confusion about the world and self hatred. I was lonely BECAUSE I couldn't make friends, there for confused and hated myself...so I guess i'm depressed because of AS, but was not told it is a co-morbid.
When Diagnosed with GAD though, I was told that people on the spectrum often have issues with anxiety because of their unawareness of social cues, how to interact etc. So I guess this could count as a co-morbid?

Sorry If I didn't answer your question...I think i've confused myself as well as everyone else!
>_<

Sorry to have confused everybody, and thank you for the replies. Simply put, my question was did your doctors renig any multiple diagnoses you previously had, and just lump the all under your final ASD diagnosis?

Yes, the doctor has thrown out the ADD and said that it's such a common co-morbid feature that she doesn't really understand why they don't include it in the AS diagnosis.

NLVD and AS are arguably the same thing anyway.... there is MUCH overlap and controversy on distinguishing between them.

so i've read..

translatingautism.com has a pretty good report on a study of how doctors arrive at diagnoses of autism and co-morbid disorders. It really doesn't seem so much descriptive as functional...meaning they'll give you the labels which will get you the help you need.

thanks! i'll check it out.

Sometimes the co-morbid conditions appear separate to aspergers (and sometimes they actually are) - more often though, I think that they're simply facets of aspergers. Remember, that no two aspies are quite the same.

Trying to get all your psychiatrists to say the same thing is like trying to get democratic and republican candidates to make out during a debate.
Very unlikely. It doesn't mean that your son has all of them, it means that the psychiatrists disagree.

I kept getting more and more things tacked on as time went by before I got diagnosed with Aspergers.

I had Non verbal learning disorder, something called Processing deficit, ADD, and Social phobia.

I keep getting things tacked on even after I've been diagnosed with Asperger's. Today it was "Bipolar NOS", which is a mild version of bipolar, apparently. It's all quite confusing to me, but I just have to accept that I'm me, regardless of the terms others use to describe me.