Autism diagnosis criteria: explained (DSM-5)

The autism diagnosis criteria are written for professional use and are therefore shrouded in mysterious and somewhat opaque language. In this video, I'm attempting to explain the DSM criteria for autism diagnosis (under the umbrella of Autism Spectrum Disorder) which is used in North America and parts of Europe (the ICD-11 is a more international version, but it is largely the same for the purposes of autism diagnosis)

To read the DSM-5 criteria for yourself:

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[YoSamdySam]

Someone please tell me how to save my plant!

[oboebuddy]

whenever I force myself to make eye contact, I forget to listen

[justjess]

Can't we all just agree that small talk is pointless

[xayah]

when you mentioned young autistic girls "fluttering" from group to group peering from the outside i felt that so hard i’m not diagnosed yet but i so strongly believe i'm autistic and its not just with traits now its been my whole life. up until 6th grade i'd spend every recess following whatever group i could until they quite literally told me they hate me. happened with one group in specific, they told me they hated me for talking about kpop too much (def a special interest of mine) LITERALLY. at a certain point in 6th grade i just gave up and started sitting on the bench every recess. thankfully there was a very nice teacher who'd sit with me most of the time and talk to me. at the time i may have wanted her to leave me alone but ever since i’ve felt very grateful for her keeping me from being lonely.

[laureneonunkwo]

About social difficulty: I literally either talk too much (and no one wants to hear that) or talk too little. Even with close friends, my conversations are very conscious and intentional with efforts. In high school, I didn't talk easily

[marshaalexander]

I was 59 when I was diagnosed. Initially it was overwhelming to be told how disordered/bad I was. But later it became freeing to finally understand why life was so hard and exhausting. I am now more comfortable with my own special/quirky self. Life is still exhausting but I am gentler with myself.

[marijakovacevic]

Me: “Oh, i’m not autistic, but i’ll watch this because i feel like educating myself about autism is important and it even might be interesting”

*relates extremely hard to every single thing mentioned in this video*

[junenovae]

I thought I was the only weirdo to smile whenever I express an emotion. An adult was grounding me? I would smile. I share the death of my dear dog to my friend, I smile. Someone telling me about their awful abused experience? I, yet again, smile...Put me through very difficult situations

[blpao]

Autism is my current Special Interest <3

[paulaOyeah]

Psych major, here. I’m 44 and being diagnosed now.
The reason the DSM discusses conditions in such a way is because they are looking for disordered behavior. If Autism doesn’t cause any issues, it is no longer a valid diagnosis.

It’s complete bullshit, but I’m here to fix things. #research4life 😂👍

[HD-hhdb]

At 17 years old and after being called weird my whole life, I finally got up the courage to ask my dad to get me an autism evaluation. It was the second most terrifying thing I've done in my life, only after a big presentation I did in 9th grade. I've been so scared that, even after my extensive research, I'm wrong and that I won't be diagnosed as autistic. After watching video, I see it'll be a breeze! XD

Unfortunately, my parents aren't supportive. My dad is "supportive" in the way you are supportive to a child who says they met Santa, and I asked him not to tell my mom for fear she wouldn't allow me to get evaluated at all. Now, after a week, it seems like my dad still hasn't made an effort to get me an evaluation. But the hard part is done, so I'm going to keep pushing. ✊

Thank you for this video. It has cleared up so much of my anxiety. :)

Update: just so I don't receive any more personal sympathy or advice on getting an evaluation, I want to mention that I have since been diagnosed:)

[alexrose]

social interaction
person: hi how are you?
me: good
...
👁️ _ 👁️

[dimpsthealien]

I'm in the process of being diagnosed...at 50! I connect with most everything you so brilliantly described. I also believe I struggle with ADHD. Ugh. I will feel somewhat overjoyed to be diagnosed. That might sound strange to most, but when you have lived so long and suffered so much and felt you were broken and bad and lazy and worthless and, the list goes on...to know there's a reason, and that you aren't a bad person, THAT would be a relief. Sorry, long sentence. Anyway, thank you.

[tiiaj]

I just went through all my symptoms with my mom over the phone today (got them typed out for my -bu bu buuuummm!- appointment with my GP. Ugh!!!!) at the end she was in tears and angry. “THIS is what Tiffani (my sister) had.” The anger and frustration of all the years of misdiagnosis, actual abuse from therapists and doctors culminating in suicide my sister went through because of the ignorance in diagnosing autism is difficult to come to terms with.

[mayalua]

I Just realized I don't know how to answer what friendship mean to me...

[pyritethefool]

Honestly, the smiling when you are not supposed to really hit home. When I was in high school, I was taking a pre-med class where we dabbled in different health related things. I had a friend in this class that I was always partners with. We were doing a self defense week witch meant we were pretending to fight one another. At one point, I accidentally hit my friend's ear where she had just gotten a new piercing and so it was more sensitive. I felt really bad about it, but for some reasons, I couldn’t stop from smiling. She got mad at me and after that class, she never spoke to me again. I always look back at that with embarrassment and feeling really bad. Wondering why I could only smile at hurting someone? I hate hurting anything. I don’t find it fun in anyway. So knowing it might have been a system of Autism helps me feel a bit better, like it wasn’t my fault.

[julesnjazz]

oh my god the “butterfly” thing of switching between groups and never really sticking to one and feeling like you belong is so me that everything makes sense now. I have friends, but not super close ones? I’m in a few different friend groups but I tend to be the odd one out of all of them if that makes sense. That isn’t the only thing I relate to either. I really need to discuss the possibility of me being autistic with my therapist.

[bitterapple]

I find it really difficult to handle when I speak about something in a group (something which seems to me as an interesting subject and normal conversation about stuff) when suddenly I notice that people just start ignoring me and are starting to have a different conversation in the middle of my sentence. In the past I would get offended and leave or fall silent mid-sentence and become sad. But now I am working on my self love so I simply finish the thought and tell myself that it is not important to me that they like or respect me, it is important that I give myself the right to speak. This is really humiliating though. I am either really bad at social interactions or my friends are not friends at all.

[gabybeckman]

I've always struggled with keeping conversations going, and the part about abruptly ending conversations with one word answers resonates with me so hard

[whitetiger]

Special interests are pathologized when they interfere with other activities or day to day living. We can be so obsessed that we will work on it and not eat all day. Or not take care of other responsibilities.