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It’s become almost trendy to say your child has Asperger’s, or ASD, certainly more trendy than saying your kid is lazy, mean, or a brat...when I was learning this stuff fifty or so years ago at places like Walter Reed, I don't recall there even being an Asperger's diagnosis, and autism was pretty much a footnote at the bottom of the page of childhood psychiatric diagnoses, which emphasized Childhood Schizophrenia and behavioral and personality disorders such as social withdrawal and oppositional tendencies. I've been out of the field for going on a dozen years so most of what I get is second hand and anecdotal, but my impression is that there's a lot of overdiagnosis of autism these days, probably because there's been such success in gaining funding for this particular disorder - practioners follow the money and such. It will be interesting to find out as the investigation continues when and how Mr. Lanza was diagnosed with Asperger's, and what was or wasn't done about it......

A Psychiatrist (Lorna Wing) popularized the term, “Asperger’s Syndrome” in 1981. It was named after Hans Asperger (1906 - 1980), an Austrian Psychiatrist and Pediatrician who is said to have exhibited many of the features of Asperger’s as a child. The proliferation of diagnoses of Autism and Asperger’s over the past 20 years has catapulted the disorder, and related disorders into prominence. Autism and Asperger’s has, indeed, become trendy.

They’re calling it a spectrum of disorders now, with Aspergers being on the milder side, and autism on the more serious side. That may be true, but I think they open up the possibility for more misdiagnoses just because, with a spectrum, there is no limit to the number of gradations you can dream up. If a child displays only one or two of the symptoms of Aspergers, but not enough to meet all the diagnostic requirements, they can just place the child a little bit lower on the spectrum, whether that is an accurate assessment of the child’s condition or not.