Medical vs. educational diagnosis

Physicians use criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to diagnose autism, while school officials use criteria from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Here's a look at how the two sets of criteria compare.

DSM criteriaA child must exhibit at least six of the following symptoms:

Marked impairment in the use of eye contact, facial expression, body posture, gestures

Failure to develop peer relationships

Doesn't seek to share enjoyment, interests or achievements with other people

A lack of social or emotional reciprocity

A delay in or total lack of spoken language

Impairment in ability to initiate or sustain a conversation

Repetitive use of language

Lack of make-believe play or social imitation play

Preoccupied with one or more restricted pattern of interest that is abnormally intense or focused

Inflexible to routines or rituals

Repetitive motor mannerism, such as hand flapping or twisting

Preoccupied with parts of objects

A child must exhibit delays in at least one of these areas prior to age 3:

Social interaction

Language

Symbolic or imaginative play

School district criteria

A child must exhibit disturbance in one or more of these areas:

Abnormalities that extend beyond speech to many aspects of communication

Absence of communicative language

Characteristics involving both deviance and delay

Deficits in the capacity to use language for social communication

A child must exhibit disturbance in one or more of these areas:

Abnormalities relating to people, events or objects

Capacity to form relationships with people

Absent or delayed use of objects in age-appropriate way

Rigid about routines

Source: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Retardation and the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education