A Review of Autism Diagnostic Practices: Session 248: Whitney Ence and Elisabeth Sheridan

The Behavioral Observations Podcast with Matt Cicoria

Drs. Whitney Ence and Elisabeth Sheridan joined me to talk about the diagnosis of Autism. You might be thinking that this sounds like an impossibly broad topic... and you're right.

But in this show, we tried to narrow it down a bit to discuss the various routes in which people can acquire an Autism diagnosis, which of these routes represent best practice, the critical diagnostic features of Autism, severity levels in Autism (and the extent to which these terms are useful), the role of intense interests, specific assessment instruments and techniques, and the importance of working with interdisciplinary teams.

We also talk about how the diagnosis has changed over the years, including the retirement of terms such as Pervasive Developmental Disorder and Asperger's Syndrome. During this part of the conversation, we also discussed self-diagnosis of Autism, and how clinics sometimes triage screening for individuals seeking diagnoses.

Towards the end of the podcast, we did touch on a few terms and topics that are relatively new to the Autism discourse.

Specifically, we discussed the term Neurodiversity, the social model of disability, "Severe Autism" as a separate diagnosis, and Pathological Demand Avoidance. It's important to note that his part of the podcast should not be construed as a deep exploration of these topics, as I really wanted to initially focus on what the current state of the science has to say about the diagnosis of Autism as a condition requiring medically-necessary treatment.

I also want to draw your attention to what could be considered a companion podcast about the diagnostic characteristics of Autism. I’m in the middle of listening to a long episode from the Huberman Lab Podcast, in which Dr. Andrew Huberman interviews Dr. Karen Parker from Stanford University about the causes of, and treatments for Autism. This is from a more neuro-biological perspective, and thus far, quite interesting.

Here are links to the topics we discussed:

• Does TikTok Provide Accurate Information about Autism?
• Dr. Whitney Ence's About Page.
• Dr. Elisabeth Sheridan's About Page.
• CEU's from The Behavioral Observations Podcast (thanks for the impromptu review Whitney!).
• Diagnostic Criteria for 299.00 Autism Spectrum Disorder.
• Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network.
• Therapeutic Assessment Institute.

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