Has the definition of autism become too broad to be useful?

Good question! I tend to agree! The definition has become wishy washy!

What is a spectrum? Anything under the sun? Just kidding!

How about the great danger of overdiagnosis? It is very real!

Had I been born 20 years later or so maybe I would have been diagnosed with autism.

Google Search provides following short timeline of milestones:

"Autism became formally categorized as a spectrum in 1994 with the DSM-IV, and was unified into a single Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) category in 2013 by the DSM-5. ...

1980 (DSM-III): Separated autism from schizophrenia for the first time as a distinct developmental disorder. ...

1994 (DSM-IV): Introduced the concept of a broader spectrum by adding subcategories like Asperger's disorder and PDD-NOS under an umbrella framework. ..."

"The definition of autism may have become so broad that it risks confusion and even misdiagnosis, according to a new editorial by UCL professor Dame Uta Frith, whose pioneering research in the 1960s and '70s laid the foundations for how we understand autism.

Autism is currently diagnosed as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a single condition that includes a huge range of people, from those needing round-the-clock care to those who live independently.

In Frith's editorial, published in Psychological Medicine, she argues that this "spectrum" may now be too broad to be useful. ..."

"... “Autism wasn’t always defined this way – a sort of catch-all diagnosis for a huge variety of conditions,” she said.

“When it was first identified in the 1940s, it referred to a small group of children with severe difficulties in social interaction, communication and behaviour. ...

The number of people diagnosed with autism has increased dramatically. In the 1960s, in the UK, about 4 in 10,000 children were diagnosed. Today, it’s around 1 in 57 schoolchildren in the UK - a more than 40-fold increase. ..."

From the abstract of the editorial:

"Abstract

Background

Since the 1940s, the concept of autism has undergone marked changes, and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a wildly heterogenous condition. At the same time, the prevalence of ASD has increased massively.

Methods

This essay considers possible reasons for the changes and their consequences.

Results

Among drivers for the increase in prevalence are cultural changes, such as the desire for inclusion, harm avoidance, reliance on self-report, and the acceptance of masking. These have all led to a lowering of the diagnostic threshold. Furthermore, the popularity of the concept of autism boosted numbers via self-diagnosis and a search for identity.

Conclusions

Marked differences now exist between those first diagnosed in childhood and others first diagnosed in adolescence or adulthood. The time has come to examine reasons for these conceptual changes and the consequences for clinical practice and research."

Has the definition of autism become too broad to be useful?

Has autism become too broad to be useful? (original news article) "The definition of autism may have become so wide that it risks confusion and even misdiagnosis, according to a new editorial by UCL Professor Dame Uta Frith, whose pioneering research in the 1960s and 70s lay the foundations for how we understand autism."

Autism spectrum disorder: has it lost its meaning and is it leading to misdiagnosis? (editorial, open access)

Utah Frith (Source)