Apparently there are a lot more parents and children living in Diagnostic Ambiguity than we could have ever imagined. According to Saturday's New York Times, Section 1, page 1, above the fold, multiple and conflicting diagnoses are part and parcel of child psychiatry.So we're not alone, although we have certainly felt that way many a day. Perhaps all of us living in Diagnostic Ambguity should get together, elect our leaders, and establish our own system of governance.
5 comments:
I think that the diagnosticians felt that having PDD NOS in the spectrum would plug the holes in the diagnostic criteria. Someone needs to re-write the book.
Not such an exclusive club afterall!
Yes, was thinking of the "edges" of autism when I wrote this).
Yes, the DSM is up for an overhaul in about 5 years, but I'm not holding my breath that they'll get any of this sorted out before then.
And thanks Kristina, I just checked out your post about the Times article.
It's true that as I'm complaining about diagnostic ambiguity, I also have to be grateful that it is the relative mildness of Sweet M's symptoms that create this ambiguity.
Living amidst diagnostic ambiguity makes some things easier and some things harder, just as having a clear Dx (and all that means) makes some things easier and some harder.
This is something I wrestle with almost daily. And yet, just as you say in your above comment, I'm grateful for the mildness--and therefore diagnostic obfuscation--of my own daughter's symptoms. Many of my own writing's touch on this. Yesterday's, as a matter of fact!
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