On the 19th of November (16.30 to 19.00 at London South Bank University (LSBU)) I am hosting (with collaborators) a workshop on subtyping autism. Below are some reasons why I am interested in this topic and more details on the event (note that these are reasons why I, rather than my collaborators or the presenters, am interested in the topic of subtyping).

My main academic interest is showing that psychiatric diagnoses are in principle scientifically legitimate. I argue that some (though not all) psychiatric diagnoses can be used in a similar way to how models are used in more respectable sciences. They cannot do everything a typical model can do in other sciences. Also, what they can do is usually done with less precision than occurs in other sciences. However, what level of similarity that they do have means that they have significant scientific worth (and this is true even though they typically cover a heterogeneous symptom picture and are causally heterogeneous).

Of course, psychiatric diagnoses can vary significantly in their scientific worth. Various ways of formulating them can impact this. The main diagnosis I am interested in is autism and one alternative way of formulating it is to add subtypes. This could alter its scientific worth as well as having many practical impacts outside of the scientific domain. This workshop will hopefully generate interesting discussion about these issues. Also, many speakers and attendees have a diagnosis of autism (or are in the process of being assessed) so lived experience might contribute some insight to both scientific and practical consequences of subtyping. Below is the initial abstract that was part of the call for papers and then the list of speakers.

This was the initial call for papers: Prior to and after the publication of the 2013 DSM there was much controversy over whether Asperger’s syndrome should be removed from the diagnostic manual. Members of the neurodiversity movement made contributions to this debate, drawing upon their lived experience of being autistic and their knowledge of the ways in which being diagnosed can be (or is not) beneficial. This conference aims to consider the question of autism and subtypes more broadly. What benefits or disadvantages are there for autistic people in adding substantive subtypes to autism? It is commonly stated that autistic people can present in many different ways. Might subtypes help add accuracy and nuance to clinical pictures? On the other hand, the boundaries between subtypes are typically vague and they can be placed in multiple places. This raises the danger that they are arbitrary impositions which do not reflect autistic experience. This conference draws upon the experience of autistic people to help resolve these issues. Possible areas for discussion include whether self-understanding for those diagnosed would be increased through being diagnosed with a more specific subtype or if this would unhelpfully impose unnatural constraints? Would the non-autistic be better able to understand different ways autism can manifest if there are significant subtypes, or would it help perpetuate unhelpful stereotypes based on an imposed limited number of ways autism would be proposed to manifest? Would the neurodiversity movement benefit from the subtypes bringing greater focus upon different ways autism can manifest or would this lead to unhelpful fracturing of the autistic community?

These are the papers that are being presented:

Autistic observable and unobservable experiences, and erroneous subtyping: Introducing the Internal and External Autistic Space (Chloe Farahar & Annette Foster )

Exploring an autistic derived classification of autism (Mary Doherty)

Online discourse on autism does not need autism subtyping (Dafne Zuleima Morgado Ramirez)

An historical overview of subtyping (Sam Fellowes)

Demand Avoidance Phenomena: The circularity, integrity and validity of PDA: a commentary on the PDA Conference held by the National Autistic Society (2018) (Richard Woods)