"I Had Asperger Syndrome. Briefly."

Writes Benjamin Nugent:

As I came into my adult personality, it became clear to me and my mother that I didn’t have Asperger syndrome....

I wonder: If I had been born five years later and given the diagnosis at the more impressionable age of 12, what would have happened?...

The authors of the next edition of the diagnostic manual, the D.S.M.-5, are considering a narrower definition of the autism spectrum. This may reverse the drastic increase in Asperger diagnoses that has taken place over the last 10 to 15 years....

The definition should be narrowed. I don’t want a kid with mild autism to go untreated. But I don’t want a school psychologist to give a clumsy, lonely teenager a description of his mind that isn’t true.

I see that Nugent has a book called "American Nerd: The Story of My People." Great title. I'm going to download it right now.