Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders Has Often Excluded Children with Severe to Profound Intellectual Disability

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Autism Spectrum? Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders Has Often Excluded

Children with Severe to Profound Intellectual Disability

Health / Autism

The recent " autism " brain scan study from the UK is a notorious example of an

alarming reality in the world of autism research - the severely autistic are

excluded from autism research. In that study autistic persons with intellectual

disabilities were intentionally excluded and 16 of the 20 participants in the

study actually had Aspergers diagnoses. The study press releases should have

more accurately hyped the potential of the brain scan process involved to assist

in diagnosing Aspergers. Of course that distinction will be moot once the DSM5

reduces the Pervasive Developmental Disorders to one Autism Disorder, expands

the number of very high functioning persons who will be considered " on the

spectrum " and removes those with Autistic Disorder and Intellectual Disabilities

from the " spectrum " .

The efforts of the DSM5 committees to remove intellectual disability from

Autistic Disorder are assisted by studies like the brain scan study which

already exclude the vast majority of persons with Autistic Disorder who also

have intellectual disabilities. That study is far from unique as indicated in

the comments of well known autism researcher and DSM5 panel member

Lord Ph.D. in Social Policy Report, Autism Spectrum Disorders Diagnosis,

Prevalence, and Services for Children and Families:

" Variability, at least in terms of IQ and ASD symptoms, has not been as

significant a factor when comparing across research-recruited samples. Numerous

studies have combined samples from different research labs where distributions

were very similar. However, research in ASD has tended to use overwhelmingly

White, middle to upper middle class samples, and has often excluded children

with multiple disabilities and/or severe to profound intellectual disabilities " .

[underlining added -HLD]

Aspergers Disorder will become the New Autism Spectrum Disorder in the DSM5

which will emphasize social and communication deficits but will do away with the

implicit references to intellectual disability in the current DSM. The vast

majority of those with Autistic Disorder today, the 75-80 % of those with

Autistic Disorder who also have intellectual disabilities will, as in the

research studies which have led to the New Autism Spectrum Disorder in the DSM5,

simply be excluded.