The diagnosis of autism is exclusive of a diagnosis of ADHD.

Diagnosis criteria for ADHD:

http://www.turnertoys.com/ADHD/APA_diagCriteria.htm

“E. The symptoms do not occur exclusively during the course of a pervasive developmental disorder, schizophrenia, or other psychotic disorder and are not better accounted for by another mental disorder (eg, mood disorder, anxiety disorder, dissociative disorder, or personality disorder).”

Many people have the two diagnosis, but this is beucause the therapists don’t follow the DSM

I query how readily those who have been diagnosed with, or have children previously diagnosed with Aspergers will abandon the nomenclature. We have aspergers in our family, and I suspect it will be a good while before we do away with our ‘Aspergers support groups’. My teenage cousin has adopted the nickname of being an ‘Aspie’ as do many of his peer group, and I doubt the collective will quickly revert to calling themselves ‘mild auties’.

I have had more teens with Asperger-like attributes in the last four years than in the previous sixteen combined!

In addition, there’s a fairly arbitrary split between people diagnosed “Asperger” and high-functioning people diagnosed “Autism”. The big difference between these two categories is that the people with Asperger’s had speech before three (though it was probably unusual speech), and the people categorized Autism usually did not. In the high-functioning group, they almost universally catch on to speech by age five–after which they are, especially in the teen and adult years, functionally identical to Asperger’s.

The problem is that this difference in speech acquisition isn’t the only difference that you can find among people with HFA/Asperger’s. It’s just the only difference that people split the two groups apart by. There are other differences–significant ones–that do not fall along the lines of the HFA/Asperger’s split. For example, interest in socializing ranges from clumsy, insistent interaction to complete indifference within both categories. IQ ranges from borderline to genius in both groups. Adult prognosis ranges from “needs constant supervision” to “raising a family and holding a highly-paid job”. And while people diagnosed Autism tend to be lower-functioning on average, this could just be because stereotypes prompt Asperger’s as a diagnosis in an individual who fulfills Autism criteria–because the individual seems intelligent. (Asperger’s is stereotypically associated with intelligence.)

It’s about time we got rid of the confusing Autism Spectrum, as it now is. When there’s enough diagnostic confusion that most people diagnosed Asperger’s could be diagnosed Autism, and when fully half the Pervasive Developmental Disorder diagnoses are PDD-NOS, something has to be done.

We’re just going to have to face it: Autism is a diagnosis with huge variations from individual to individual, and while knowing “autism” about somebody might tell you some things about them, you’re going to have to look at their specific case. Standardized treatment according to the diagnosis doesn’t cut it now, and it won’t be any more useful once they merge the spectrum; but at least we may be forced to consider each case individually, as we should’ve been doing all along.

A couple of months ago my 2 and have year old son was diagnosed with Asperger’s. I have now join a team that has been trained by a lady that has triplets with autism… My question is to all… if this is a chemical imbalance in their diets what do you feed them?… What can i give my son that is save and will help him clean his system?