In the forefront of medical coding news, the diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome is about to be dropped from the DSM IV listings and rolled up into the categoryof 'autism spectrum disorder." Well, Asperger's is an autism spectrum disorder! The feeling is the diagnosis is misleading and invalid. Maybe all of these diagnoses, which essentially describe what the patient is like but not WHY they are that way, should be dropped. What is PDD-NOS anyway?? Most of these terms are merely descriptions of behaviors without getting to the root of the problem. This is where investigation into mitochondrial function, central nervous system and immune system functions need to be investigated.
As the author says about her daughter, diagnosed at age 3 years, "we no longer need the diagnosis of Asperger's disorder to reduce stigma And my daughter does not need the term Asperger's to bolster her self-esteem. Just last week, she introduced herself to a new teacher in her high school health class. "My name is Isabel," she said, "and my strength is that I have autism."