Can you even imagine how you’d react if someone changed your name?
This happened to over one million American adults (and even more children) with Asperger’s Syndrome.
The American Psychiatric Association eliminated the diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome in its latest revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical manual.
A primary reason is that researchers weren’t been able to distinguish differences between individuals with high functioning autism and Asperger’s Syndrome. So the new diagnosis is Autism Spectrum Disorder and individuals might be classified as low or high functioning on this continuum.
This change created potential problems for the already diagnosed population of Asperger’s Syndrome individuals. Much of their identity was based on this title. They’ve called themselves “Aspies”. They have community support groups and many more on web communities. Books and website are titled with the word “Aspergers”. Hopefully, these people as well as others in society will learn the new nomenclature and life will go on as usual for these folks.