With anything that changes, especially an important reference manual, people are going to be confused about what those changes actually mean. Nowhere is this more evident than in the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).
As we noted yesterday, the final revision was approved for publication. The DSM-5 is how clinicians and researchers diagnose mental disorders in the United States. A common language is especially important when conducting research, to ensure treatments are actually working for the symptoms people have.
One of the changes getting a lot of attention is the “doing away” of Asperger’s Syndrome. But to be clear — Asperger’s isn’t being dropped from the DSM-5. It’s simply being merged and renamed, to better reflect a consensus of our scientific knowledge on the disorder as one form of the new “autism spectrum disorder” diagnosis.
So while the term, “Asperger’s” is going away, the actual diagnosis — you know, the thing that actually matters — is not.
But you wouldn’t know it reading some of the mainstream media’s reporting on this concern.
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I disagree with this statement from the article: “People who are currently receiving treatment and care for this disorder will continue to do so, and insurance companies, Medicaid and others will continue to cover the costs of treating it.”
I do not know about Medicaid, but our insurance does not cover anything having to do with the treatment of Asperger’s, or with Autism, for that matter. For IDEA, Asperger’s falls under the Autism category, so it does allow for school services, but it does NOT mean insurance will pay a single dollar for any therapy.
Does the new term for Asperger Syndrome can still protect and applies in the same manner to these individuals when going through the Department of Justice for criminal or civil action?
Here in the UK having been assessed for what is here a disability insurance that provides benefit for those unable to work through illness or disorder, i found that my diagnosis of Aspergers Syndrome had been transformed by Atos the healthcare assessing company into high functioning aspergers for the purposes of the report which withheld the benefit from me.I appealed an won, at least in part on the basis that there is no diagnostic catergory of high functioning aspergers and the assessor, who had no knowledge of autism, certainly could not have the decades of experience to differentiate between functional differences in autism.This merging will enable such nefarious companies to more easily refuse me access to financial benefits that i have paid into schemes to recieve by misrepresenting the levels of my difficulties.Already here we are seeing plans to limit educational assistance to only those with low functioning autism, no aspergers level, nor dyslexic or able to hear but registered deaf child will be eligible for educational support.This merging will go some ways to reinforcing that removal of support and for me, it is going to be the start of disability denial for many autistic children and adults.If Aspergers is still there as a diagnosis why the hell remove it?