Exploratory Study of Parenting Differences for Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attachment Disorder.
DSM-V autism criteria may still miss girls and lack guidance for infants and adults—clinicians should screen beyond the manual’s current scope.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Davies et al. (2023) wrote a position paper. They say the DSM-V checklist for autism still has holes.
The authors want three fixes: add social imagination, spell out infant and adult signs, and catch more girls.
What they found
The paper finds the current criteria miss females and skip age extremes.
It offers no new data, just a call to revise the manual.
How this fits with other research
Lundin et al. (2021) backs the female gap. Their world-wide survey shows experts see autistic girls as less "classic" and better at hiding symptoms.
Mottron (2021) goes further. He says stop patching the DSM—pick only prototypical cases to cut noise. Joanna et al. name the problem; Laurent gives a method.
Levy (2021) pushes even wider. Forget autism as a box—study social-communication and repetitive traits across all kids. The 2023 paper wants to fix the box; Yonata wants to toss it.
Why it matters
If you screen with DSM-V alone, you can miss camouflaging girls, subtle infants, or adults who learned to mask. Add questions about social imagination, look for internalizing signs, and keep prototype examples in mind. A short revision to your intake form today can catch the cases the manual still overlooks.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The DSM-V-committee has recently published proposed diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorders. We examine these criteria in some detail. We believe that the DSM-committee has overlooked a number of important issues, including social imagination, diagnosis in infancy and adulthood, and the possibility that girls and women with autism may continue to go unrecognised or misdiagnosed under the new manual. We conclude that a number of changes need to be made in order that the DSM-V-criteria might be used reliably and validly in clinical practice and research.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2023 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2010.11.003