New autism definition may exclude many, study suggests

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   Stacie Lposted 12 years ago

   New autism definition may exclude many, study suggests
   Only 45 percent of the highest functioning autistic people in the study would meet proposed criteria for diagnosis
   
   The study results, presented on Thursday at a meeting of the Icelandic Medical Association, are still preliminary, but they offer the latest and most dramatic estimate of how tightening the criteria for autism could affect the rate of diagnosis. Rates of autism and related disorders like Asperger syndrome have taken off since the early 1980s, to prevalence rates as high as one in 100 children in some places. Many researchers suspect that these numbers are inflated because of vagueness in the current criteria.
   
   The proposed changes would put an end to the autism epidemic, said Dr. Fred R. Volkmar, director of the Child Study Center at Yale University School of Medicine and an author of the new analysis. We would nip it in the bud think of it that way.
   http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46060802/ns … xiXQ4HvbT4
   I know this is going to upset many parents of autistic children.

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      MelissaBarrettposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Wow, end autism by changing the definition.  That's awesome.
      
      Watch me cure cancer:
      
      It's not cancer, its rapidly reproducing abnormal cell disease.
      
      There!  Hand over the Nobel prize.

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         Stacie Lposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         you know it's all about money...
         ever go to a doctor and find out you are cured when the insurance runs out?

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   psycheskinnerposted 12 years ago

   The things is, autism is on a spectrum and currently has no defintive method of diagnosis.  Saying someone is not autistic does not cure them, it just means you call their condition something else, like Aspergers or idiopathic autism-like syndrome.  It is purely a matter of semantics.  Definitions change, normally for pretty good clinical reasons. Borderline cases get shifted from my label to another--and often to their benefit (that being the reason for these changes, to improve and target treatments).

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