False Aspergers diagnosis

[Graphin]

Does anybody know or have personal experiences in terms of how common false positives or false negatives with high functioning autism are? How likely can high functioning people on the spectrum be missed if the suspicion isn't specifically high functioning on the spectrum?

 

[Southern Discomfort]

I can't say numbers or how common or uncommon it is only it does happen. It is quite a tricky thing to measure after all. The diagnosis of autism certainly is the zeitgeist of psychiatry at the moment, much like how ADD and ADHD was in the 1990s and 2000s.

 

[Mr Allen]

I can't say numbers or how common or uncommon it is only it does happen. It is quite a tricky thing to measure after all. The diagnosis of autism certainly is the zeitgeist of psychiatry at the moment, much like how ADD and ADHD was in the 1990s and 2000s.

Yeah, a child acts up at school, doesn't do well socially or Academically, they say "Oh he's got the Attention Deficit Disorder", they think it's a "quick fix" to explain the problems without blaming it on bad Parenting, and that in itself's wrong, because ADD/ADHD can be caused by the Parents.

 

[the_tortoise]

they think it's a "quick fix" to explain the problems without blaming it on bad Parenting, and that in itself's wrong, because ADD/ADHD can be caused by the Parents.

ADHD cannot be caused by bad parenting. It is something you are born with, same as with autism.

 

[mangodude]

it depends on the person who does the diagnosis and on the country (or eventually a region) where the person with suspicion for Aspergers/HFA lives.

unfortunately, only a little percentage of specialists are experienced and educated enough to diagnose an Aspengers/HFA.

in my country- in some regions- pediatrician wouldn't even find it unusual if a child doesn't speak properly at the age of 3 years

 

[Mary Anne]

Yeah, a child acts up at school, doesn't do well socially or Academically, they say "Oh he's got the Attention Deficit Disorder", they think it's a "quick fix" to explain the problems without blaming it on bad Parenting, and that in itself's wrong, because ADD/ADHD can be caused by the Parents.

Can you please explain how ADD and ADHD “can be caused by the parents?” I am curious why you said that. Poor nutrition has been scientifically shown to create or enhance adhd -like symptoms, and thus, maybe parents can be blamed on that, but otherwise, I don’t understand what you refer to.

 

[Progster]

An official diagnosis is the subject opinion of one or more specialists, who are fallible and can get it wrong, so a person can be diagnosed with ASD when another diagnosis may be more appropitate, or, more commonly, people are diagnosed with a different condition where an ASD diagnosis is more apporpiate. Both of these scenarios are possible, but one thing I can say after a good few years of being active on forums such as this one, is that if a person suspects they have ASD and they take the trouble to research it beyond the superfical, then join a forum like ths one because they can relate to the posts of others, usually it means that this person does have ASD and often they go on to get an official diagnosis. People who suspect they have it, and really do have it, often become totally absorbed by the idea and thoroughly research it, it becomes a 'special interest' in itself, because it is in the nature of their condition that they should do this.

 

[On the Inside]

No scientific proof, ( this is psychological after all) but I can see how bad parenting, high stress home environments could create ADD symptoms in children. High levels of fear and anxiety would certainly cause children to have trust issues ( authority issues) trouble concentrating(fear) and no structure to promote good study habits.

I didn't hear all of the show, but there was a researcher who was theorizing about how gratification has been for millenia our prime motivation, hunt and gather to eat, and that the concept of prolonged gratification ( ie. farming, investing, studying) are late developments and brings with it a different kind of stress that not all people are able to operate successfully. This researcher studies addiction, and was saying that things that push our instant gratification buttons are actually a survival mechanism, motivating us to hunt and gather, thus feel good. Their idea was that the motivation to hunt and gather things to survive and feel good is one of the mechanisms behind intractable addictions.

 

[Judge]

I'm inclined to think that such statistics that often reflect or imply manifestations of medical malpractice tend to be understated or simply disappear. Particularly in the absence of any litigation involving a doctor's professional liability.

An unfortunate aspect of the legal and medical climate found in the United States.

 

[Mary Anne]

No scientific proof, ( this is psychological after all) but I can see how bad parenting, high stress home environments could create ADD symptoms in children. High levels of fear and anxiety would certainly cause children to have trust issues ( authority issues) trouble concentrating(fear) and no structure to promote good study habits.

I didn't hear all of the show, but there was a researcher who was theorizing about how gratification has been for millenia our prime motivation, hunt and gather to eat, and that the concept of prolonged gratification ( ie. farming, investing, studying) are late developments and brings with it a different kind of stress that not all people are able to operate successfully. This researcher studies addiction, and was saying that things that push our instant gratification buttons are actually a survival mechanism, motivating us to hunt and gather, thus feel good. Their idea was that the motivation to hunt and gather things to survive and feel good is one of the mechanisms behind intractable addictions.

There is a huge difference between “instant gratification” of the hunter gatherer life style of pre-historic man and the instant gratification of today’s humans. Today, people including children want things immediately (hence the success of Amazon, Netflix, e-gaming, fast food, etc). The hunter gatherers knew something about patience, living without, and enduring extreme conditions. We have not evolved to deal with the changes of modern society post industrial society. Mankind has only been doing agriculture for the last 40,000 years. A great book about this is “Future Shock.”

Humans have always dealt with “stress.” Nothing like ice ages, hunting dangerous creatures, toughing out droughts and famines, wars, and sickness to harden homosapiens to stress! But We have not learned to cope with society as it has become something uniquely different since the invention of computers and other technologies.