Jun 20 2008
Co-Morbidities of Autism and Asperger’s
John Byrne cartoon
Co-Morbidities - what a scary word! It sounds like some sort of mass death sentence. For the layperson, however, co-morbidities are just multiple conditions that present at the same time.
At the seminar I attended last week, Dr. Ortiz discussed these conditions. He distinguishes between Asperger’s and High Functioning Autism by IQ scores, but admits that the scores are usually not true representations of intelligence, but very dependent on what kind of day the child is having when tested. What he also noticed was that the co-morbidities for Asperger’s are a little different than those for Autism.
With Asperger’s the child is more likely to present with conditions like OCD, ADHD or anxiety, to name a few. With Autism, there is a higher likelihood of conditions like gastro-intestinal disorders or epilepsy.
My son is borderline for ADHD in addition to his Asperger’s. In other words, if a score of 70 qualifies him as ADHD on the DSM IV (the diagnostic tool for all these conditions, which is very outdated, but that’s a post for another day) Gus scores a 69. The interesting thing is that sometimes it’s hard to tell with him what behaviors are caused by what condition. He’s being medicated for ADHD because he can’t focus and tends to get out of his seat and pick up things from the teacher’s desk. But that might have nothing to do with Asperger’s OR ADHD. It might just be the way he learns (kinesthetically)!
Hopefully, the DSM IV will be expanded one of these days to make these conditions a bit more clear cut. It won’t change the conditions, but it may improve public understanding of how to navigate them appropriately. Perhaps then, society will be less inclined to just write out a scrip for things that can’t actually be medicated.
