Differential Diagnosis and Co-Mobidity in Autism Diagnosis

 Dr. Ozonoff explained the Differential Diagnosis and co-mobidity in autism diagnosis. It is important for the doctor to be aware of the person past history. If the person is on medication how well is he responding to the treatment.  Co-mobidity makes it more difficult to diagnose the individual. Sometimes a person might display many symptoms which make it harder for a specialist to pin point the right diagnosis.  Dr. Ozonoff gave an example; social withdrawal is a symptom of many disorders such as ASD and schizophrenia. One should consider Occams razon when diagnosing, which talks about considering “the simplest s solution is the best solution”. Sometimes specialist ended up doing much more than needed instead of looking at the simple solution to the problem.

According to Dr.Ozonoff many people get misdiagnose every year.  Many of the symptoms are complicated or may fall under other disorder.  Because of the misdiagnose researchers  are reviewing the DSM every five to ten years to make sure every diagnoses are accurate and up to date. These are some of the things to keep in mind when considering co-mobidity: change in function from baseline, onset of new symptoms. Is the symptom already present or getting worse? I f the person showing sad mood or sleeping all day should be a clue something else is happening other than ASD.  Many children are diagnose by the age of 3 if anything else occur after that one might think of co-mobidity. 

When conducting a functional behavior assessment for a child with co-mobidity the finding must be measurable.  Self report is another instrument specialist relies on when doing an assessment.  The specialist could ask the child directly is the person is able to respond. Sometimes the questions might be difficult or the response might not be accurate.  The little boy in the video was telling the specialist that his parents locked him in the room which was not true.  In that case self reporting will not be useful since the student is false reporting. 

I was not aware of all the complication involves when diagnosing an individual.   

After I watched the video I realized it is not as straightforward as I thought.  Because some symptoms could overlap in many disorders, specialist has difficulty making the right diagnosis.