whats the difference between asperger and autism?

IntenseWorld said:

Yes for the time being I believe this is so, however I have also heard that in this country we tend to follow the Americans with diagnostic stuff and this might have had an influence on why there is a pending revision to the ICD.

As I understand it, the ICD is reviewed every 10 years, and revised every year, as a matter of course anyway.

And whilst ICD-11 may be more in line with DSM-5 than ICD-10, it almost certainly won't, as DSM-5 also does not, excluse those that would currently be diagnosed as having Asperger's.

All that DSM-5 does is bring all the Autistic sub-types under the single umbrella term of Autism.

Is that a bad thing? I don't know. It certainly helps with questions like this - there are no more multiple confusing sub-types, there's just the one 'autism' category. And it shifts the emphasis away from a 'what box do you fit into' and onto more of a 'how does your autism affect you' focus.

I agree about the labels, but the labels matter very much for other purposes that may be to do with support, legal entitlements, indication of severity etc., even if they don't matter to the person themselves from a practical POV.

Well, from the point of view of legal entitlements, the question is moot because Asperger's is a type of Autism - and legal entitlements would apply to the whole spectrum equally.

And, from the point of view of support, and stuff like benefits, the label is irrelevent anyway because those things are not based on what diagnosis you have, but on how the condition affects you personally.

IntenseWorld said:

Yes for the time being I believe this is so, however I have also heard that in this country we tend to follow the Americans with diagnostic stuff and this might have had an influence on why there is a pending revision to the ICD.

As I understand it, the ICD is reviewed every 10 years, and revised every year, as a matter of course anyway.

And whilst ICD-11 may be more in line with DSM-5 than ICD-10, it almost certainly won't, as DSM-5 also does not, excluse those that would currently be diagnosed as having Asperger's.

All that DSM-5 does is bring all the Autistic sub-types under the single umbrella term of Autism.

Is that a bad thing? I don't know. It certainly helps with questions like this - there are no more multiple confusing sub-types, there's just the one 'autism' category. And it shifts the emphasis away from a 'what box do you fit into' and onto more of a 'how does your autism affect you' focus.

I agree about the labels, but the labels matter very much for other purposes that may be to do with support, legal entitlements, indication of severity etc., even if they don't matter to the person themselves from a practical POV.

Well, from the point of view of legal entitlements, the question is moot because Asperger's is a type of Autism - and legal entitlements would apply to the whole spectrum equally.

And, from the point of view of support, and stuff like benefits, the label is irrelevent anyway because those things are not based on what diagnosis you have, but on how the condition affects you personally.