On Thu, 12 Aug 2010, Mizter T wrote:

On Aug 12, 6:08*pm, Graeme wrote:

1506 wrote:
[snip]
Decent people do not mock the afflicted. *In point of fact asperger's
is a gift as much as it=92s an affliction. *The ability to focus in a
very narrow to the exclusion of outside data can at times be very
useful.

Aspergers is not Autism, though they are in the same spectrum of mental
conditions.

You haven't come across the recent debate about a proposed change in a
new edition some very influential American medical or mental health
text book

Presumably DSM-5:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnos...al_Disord ers

- AIUI the notion is that Asperger's would no longer be separately
classified, instead it would just be at one end of the autism spectrum.

It's been thought of that way for many years, so a change in exactly what
the Dewey decimal number or whatever for it is doesn't seem like a hugely
controversial change.

Interesting debate ensues - one school of thought in the medico-mental
health world seem to consider this to be logical, honest and in line
with the evidence that it's all just a spectrum of the same thing,
whilst others - some campaigners and the like - were/are wary of
reclassification, the thinking being that the term Asperger's has
broadly been successfully de-stigmatised in the mind of society at large
(which in turn has encouraged people to seek help who otherwise wouldn't
have done so), and that 'abolishing' Asperger's and lumping it all in
with autism would be a backward step in this. At least, that's my
understanding of the debate.

Until you put it like that! People in the US seem to have an amazing
talent to get phenomenally wound up about things.

tom

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