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Comment by zero_intp | Hacker News Reader

As a high functioning non-normative, I have found kinship with many of those diagnosed with Asperger's. The full isolation of the Autistic have generally had little parity with the challenges I have faced.

The blithe dismissal by the writers of the DSM-V of an entire developmental process has led me to dismiss the entire psychological profession as self-serving.

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Sorry, I'm having trouble understanding what you are saying. Are you concerned by the way that's Aspergers has been rolled into the autistic spectrum?

The person you're replying to may be referring to the fact that DSM-5's diagnostic criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder exclude a large number of people who would formerly have qualified as having Aspberger's Syndrome. TFA also talks about how some prefer to keep the AS label vs. ASD.

Thank you

If someone is high-functioning, why is a diagnosis necessary? Why pathologize personality? I think that was part of what the removal of Asperger's was about. It's unclear if there was any effective therapy for what many don't even regard as a disorder or disability.

There are many personality traits which might be uncomfortable in various situations, but aren't classified as medical disorders. It doesn't mean they aren't worth exploring as part of self-discovery.

With that said, there are some captured into this category who really do need help, which is what the ASD spectrum diagnosis can capture.

I'm high functioning but still have sensory processing disorder related to ASD which makes it hard to function in very sensory overwhelming environments.

I also had a lot of difficulties relating to socialization growing up related to ASD, even if they are less relevant now that I'm an adult.

Hopefully we get better at spotting sensory disorders and perhaps someday "sensory processing disorder" will be a recognized diagnosis with specific evidence-based treatment.

From the article: "field trials showed that DSM-5 ASD has improved specificity at the cost of excluding more cognitively able individuals, including up to 75% of those previously diagnosed with AS". Also from the article: "there is evidence that patients, families, education professionals, and health professionals connote AS with positive features and associate Autism with strange behavior, learning disability and family dysfunction".

Autism correlates with various things and I imagine that these would involve different therapy. For example, the number thrown around is that 1/3 are nonverbal and do not develop functional speech in adulthood (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Autism&oldid=7996...). In children, about half engage in self-harm (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2788.2003....) or physical aggression (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1750946712...).

To get to high functioning, engage in a significant amount of social counseling.

High functioning does not mean working the same as everyone else.

The diagnosis may be very important. Recent studies are showing evidence that early (age) interventions offer effective therapies that lose effectiveness if started at older ages.

The brain-shamans have done a lot of damage during the last centurie:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomie

They are kept around, so that worser pseudo science can not fill the gap.

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