I've always felt that getting a diagnosis is important, that putting the right name on something is helpful. Some worry that labels limit a kid, but at least with my two, I've felt that knowing what you're up against and understanding what that means -- and helping others to understand, too -- is a useful, worthwhile thing.
So it's frustrating to note how slippery names for some diagnoses are getting these days. I've felt annoyed as Sensory Integration Disorder became Dysfunction of Sensory Integration became Sensory Processing Disorder and any number of other variations, mostly in an attempt to make it eligible for inclusion in the DSM-V, the manual of psychiatric disorders. Maybe there'll be some extra room if Asperger Syndrome and PDD-NOS do indeed lose their diagnostic status; there's talk of folding them into autism spectrum disorder, a spectrum I'd have thought could do to be tightened, not made more all-encompassing.
And then there's the book I'm reading this week, Disconnected Kids, which proposes a whole new diagnosis -- Functional Disconnection Syndrome -- that encompasses not only those autism spectrum disorders but ADHD, ODD, dyslexia, Tourette syndrome, and other neurological disorders. That's a big umbrella.
Do you find the shifting of diagnostic names and categories to be a good thing -- a necessary fine-tuning of understanding -- or a bother that makes you have to research and explain a whole new set of labels? Share your thoughts in the comments.
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