The DSM-V criteria are not a good description of the natural category, and most people don't actually use them. They are, at best, a vague gesture in the direction of the natural category. The ICD-11 criteria (6A02) are better, but are still contradicted by, for instance, studies evidencing the double-empathy problem. Trained psychologists know which diagnostic criteria to take literally, and which to interpret according to the understanding of the authors.

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roywiggins 20 hours ago | parent [-]

If someone doesn't have any deficits or impairments at all then they won't qualify under ICD-11 either:

"Deficits are sufficiently severe to cause impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning..."

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wizzwizz4 20 hours ago | parent [-]

Virtually none of the definitions in the ICD or DSM are entirely correct: that doesn't mean they're not useful. For example, you stop meeting the literal diagnostic criteria of many conditions if they're being treated adequately, but that doesn't mean you no longer have those conditions. Someone on antiretrovirals with no detectable HIV viral load still has HIV, and still needs to take the antiretrovirals. No competent doctor would diagnose them as "cured". Yet, they would not meet the diagnostic criteria described in the ICD-11:

> A case of HIV infection is defined as an individual with HIV infection irrespective of clinical stage including severe or stage 4 clinical disease (also known as AIDS) confirmed by laboratory criteria according to country definitions and requirements.

and rarely they may never have met these criteria. This is HN, so a computer analogy might be more helpful: ask a non-technical friend to read through some of the POSIX.1-2024 spec, then ask them to explain the signal handling, or the openat error codes. They will totally misunderstand it, because the POSIX specs are not actually clear: their purpose is to jog the memory of the expert reader, and describe the details they might have forgotten, not to provide a complete and accurate description suitable for teaching.

(Edit: pointless confrontational passage excised. Thanks for the criticism.)

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tibbar 20 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This bit:

> Are you a trained psychologist?

seems a bit confrontational, unless you yourself are a trained psychologist, in which case it would seem fitting to volunteer those credentials along with this challenge.

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rswail 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They still are an individual with HIV infection, except that it is in the stage of "remission" or "undetectable" but they have previously been diagnosed with HIV at a different clinical stage.

So the definition is perfectly correct, assuming you know what "clinical stages" there are.

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ribosometronome 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Why is someone on HIV antivirals if no test ever confirmed them to have HIV? Presumably, they were confirmed as having HIV and have reduced its load to beneath detectable levels but that doesn't erase the previous confirmation.

I think that's all an aside, though, if not the ICD (as suggested by another poster) or the DSM definition initially used, which definition is correct?

OP, I think, is clearly harkening back to a previous post on HN (article at: https://www.psychiatrymargins.com/p/autisms-confusing-cousin...) by a professional discussing that the public often misunderstands and ignores key aspects of the definition. This seems rather a bit like you pointing out laypeople might read and not understand what they got out of the POSIX.1-2024 spec. Except it seems you're suggesting instead that the layperson understanding is correct.

	▲	wizzwizz4 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Why is someone on HIV antivirals if no test ever confirmed them to have HIV? Mu. If it was confirmed, but not "confirmed by laboratory criteria according to country definitions and requirements", then they do not meet the diagnostic criteria (interpreted literally). Suppose, for instance, that there was a procedural error that might have messed up the diagnosis (so is forbidden by regulation), but in this case didn't mess up the diagnosis. I can produce as many of these literally-correct, deliberate misinterpretations as you like. They have no bearing on actual medical practice. > which definition is correct? Which definition of "carbon atom" is correct? Our definitions have, for 200 years, been sufficient to distinguish "carbon atom" from "not carbon atom", but those definitions have changed significantly in that time. Autism is that category into which autistic people fall, and into which allistic people do not fall, which is distinguished from several other categories with which it is often confused. (The ICD-11 spends way more words on distinguishing autism from OCD, Tourette's, schizophrenia, etc than on defining it directly.)