Our process of selecting an evaluator for our DD revealed that this is a highly divisive issue, even within the broader psychiatric/neuro-diversity community. What everyone seems to agree on is that: as the diagnostic net drags in more and more kids (1 in 50 this year) who qualify for an ASD diagnosis, more and more kids seem prone to "grow out of" their autism.
Some insist that this is misdiagnosis, some insist that this is the ability of higher functioning autistic kids to "pass" as neurotypical.
It's honestly kind of a Rorschach test that divides the entire psychiatric community.
Huh. Nice to know I am not imagining things completely. I am not expert. I am not doing big studies, etc. It's just my experience here in my little corner of the world. But it definitely FEELS very much like I described. And, quite honestly, it feels very scary - walking the line of trying to "get" the "right diagnosis." And my DS has plenty of "labels" and sometimes it feels the more labels they pile on the more harm is done. I feel like NO ONE really sees HIM anymore. And it does FEEL like once you got it, you can't get rid of it, which can be very, very problematic in some cases.
