Criteria: DSM-5 for Diagnosing ASD
The criteria in the DSM-5 for diagnosing ASD include 3 listed deficits in social communication and social interactions. Clinicians must be sure that these characteristics are not due to developmental delay alone. To be diagnosed with ASD, an individual must meet all three of the following criteria:
Difficulties in social emotional reciprocity, including trouble with social approach, back and forth conversation, sharing interests with others, and expressing/understanding emotions.
Difficulties in nonverbal communication used for social interaction including abnormal eye-contact and body language and difficulty with understanding the use of nonverbal communication like facial expressions or gestures for communication.
Deficits in developing and maintaining relationships with other people (other than with caregivers), including lack of interest in others, difficulties responding to different social contexts, and difficulties in sharing imaginative play with others.
The criteria in the DSM-5 also include demonstrating at least 2 of the following 4 restricted and repetitive behavior, interests, or activities:
Stereotyped speech, repetitive motor movements, echolalia (repeating words or phrases, sometimes from television shows or from other people), and repetitive use of objects or abnormal phrases.
Rigid adherence to routines, ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behaviors, and extreme resistance to change (such as insistence on taking the same route to school, eating the same food because of color or texture, repeating the same questions); the individual may become greatly distressed at small changes in these routines.
Highly restricted interests with abnormal intensity or focus, such as a strong attachment to unusual objects or obsessions with certain interests, such as train schedules.
Increased or decreased reactivity to sensory input or unusual interest in sensory aspects of the environment, such as not reacting to pain, strong dislike to specific sounds, excessive touching or smelling objects, or fascination with spinning objects.
Under DSM-5, ASD is now diagnosed by symptoms based on both the current functioning and past functioning of an individual. This new observational criteria will allow clinicians to diagnose people who may have shown some signs early in development, but whose symptoms didn’t become clear until adolescence or adulthood.
SOURCE: CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: