INTRODUCTION 

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) was created by the American Psychiatric Association as a way to classify mental health conditions. The manual is over 800 pages long which can be overwhelming and confusing for those trying to read it.

In this blog series, I will be breaking down the classifications of mental health conditions and describing what the symptoms are of each disorder. 

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If you wish to follow along in this series, you can purchase your own copy of the DSM here. Just exercise caution when looking at the manual. Do not try to use the DSM as a replacement for getting a professional diagnosis. 

Neurodevelopmental Disorders

The DSM classification of Neurodevelopmental Disorders is broken down into 7 categories: Intellectual Disabilities, Communication Disorders, Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD, Specific Learning Disorder, Motor Disorders and Other Neurodevelopmental Disorders. 

I have a separate post written about ADHD here. 

There are three intellectual disabilities written in the DSM-5: intellectual disability (intellectual developmental disorder), global developmental delay and unspecified intellectual disability. 

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Intellectual disability is described as beginning during the developmental period of one’s life. For someone to be diagnosed with this disorder the following needs to be happening:

• Deficits in areas such as reasoning, problem solving, planning, abstract thinking and more.
• The deficits result in struggles to function in one or more activities of daily life such as communication and social participation, across multiple areas like home, school and the community.

The DSM also specifies severity of the intellectual disability: mild, moderate, severe and profound. This is determined by the above criteria and NOT by IQ. 

Global Developmental Delay is used for children under age 5 who cannot undergo standardized assessment to determine a diagnosis of intellectual disability. 

Unspecified Intellectual Disability is only used for children over 5 who cannot be assessed due to difficulties such as sensory or physical impairments. This diagnosis requires reassessment after a period of time. 

Communication Disorders

There are five communication disorders listed under this classification: Language Disorder, Speech Sound Disorder, Childhood-Onset Fluency Disorder, Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorder and Unspecified Communication Disorder. 

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Language Disorder is characterized by the following:

• Reduced vocabulary
• Limited sentence structure
• Impairments in ability to explain or describe a topic

These issues must be substantially below expected skill for age and not be due to a physical impairment or other medical condition. 

Speech Sound Disorder interferes with speech intelligibility or prevents verbal communication. Just like with Language Disorder, this must not be attributable to another condition and must start in the early developmental period. 

Childhood-Onset Fluency Disorder, also known as stuttering, is described as “disturbances in the normal fluency and time patterning of speech.” With stuttering you could see one or more of the following:

• Sound and syllable repetitions
• Prolongation of sound
• Pauses within a word
• Filled or unfilled pauses in speech

Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorder is about difficulties communicating in social context. Such as, taking turns in conversation, speaking differently to a child than an adult and difficulty understanding humor or metaphors. 

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CONCLUSION

As you can see, there are several similarities between each intellectual disability and communication disorder. Sometimes, all that separates a disorder from another, is one or two differences. 

There are four other disorders in the Neurodevelopmental classification that I will write about in another post so that this one does not get terribly long.  

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Common Diagnoses, Is It ADHD?, Does My Kid need Therapy?