| I actually went ahead and read both the ICD-11[1] and the DSM-5[2] criterion for Autism Spectrum Disorder. When you referred to Type 1, 2 or 3 Autism what I think you were talking about is actually severity levels in criterion A (social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts) and criterion B (restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities) of DSM-5. Level 1 requires less accommodations and level 3 requires very substantial support. Note that even level 1 severity requires support and states that without support an autistic person will have impaired social interactions. These severity levels do not specify intellectual impairment, only social communication impairment and restrictive and repetitive behavior. Intellectual impairment is specified as a boolean with or without. So basically—as I understand it—what was previously described as Asperger’s is basically Autism spectrum Disorder with this boolean set to false. I actually went ahead and did some further reading and it turns out that people (both psychiatrists, researchers, and autism advocates) are very happy with this arrangement. Intellectual impairment does not correlate (or correlates rather barely) with other required specifications of the disorder (including impaired social communication) and the accommodations required are vastly different. ICD-11 has 8 subcategories of Autism Spectrum Disorder, and what was previously called Asperger’s is probably 6A02.0 - without disorder of intellectual development and with mild or not impairment of functional language. (pp. 36) Note that psychiatrists and researchers alike are no fans of the ICD-11 approach, claiming things like: > As ICD-11 defines ASD in a broad constellation of symptoms or behaviors that can hardly be differentiated from other mental disorders and autism-like traits, the risk of false positive ASD diagnoses increases significantly. This will lead to further limitation of access to ASD-specific services for individuals with a true positive diagnosis of ASD and likewise disadvantages individuals with a false positive diagnosis of ASD due to delays in access to or even missing out on disorder-specific care (e.g., dialectical behavior therapy for borderline personality disorder). Further, since ICD-11 draws particular attention to high-functioning (adult) individuals with ASD, there is concern that “prototypical” as well as low-functioning cases increasingly become neglected in research and clinical practice. [3] 1: https://iris.who.int/bitstream/handle/10665/375767/978924007... 2: https://www.autismalert.org/uploads/PDF/INFO--DSM%205%20Diag... 3: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-023-02354-y |