Introduction
Communication and social impairments displayed by individuals with Asperger's disorder (AD) pose unique challenges to speech-language pathologists who oftentimes traverse unchartered territory in hopes of finding the most efficacious treatments to remediate these deficits. Asperger's disorder (AD), also called Asperger's syndrome, is a neurobiological condition on the autism spectrum and, according to Baron-Cohen (2005) is thought to affect approximately 75% of individuals diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. Although AD is considered to be the mildest expression of autism, there are many complex factors that come into play as speech-language pathologists seek an appropriate course of treatment for this condition. This article deals with one of these challenges, the presence of co-occurring psychiatric disorders.
It has been estimated, but not confirmed, that approximately 40% of individuals referred for an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) evaluation, a group which includes a high proportion of individuals with AD, also evidenced some symptoms of a psychiatric disorder (Munesue, Ono, Mutoh, Shimoda, & Nakatani, 2008). Proper assessment and treatment of AD can be problematic because of an "overlap" in symptomatology with other psychiatric disorders. For example, restricted interests and obsessive behaviors are hallmarks of AD, but they are also key behaviors noted in obsessive-compulsive disorder. This article deals with the importance of recognizing the comorbidity (i.e., co-occurrence) of AD with other disorders and the effect comorbidity has on intervention and treatment outcomes. The coexistence of AD and bipolar disorder (BD) will be highlighted since an increase in the comorbidity of these two conditions has been noted in recent years (Gutkovich, Carlson, Carlson, Coffey, & Wieland 2007).
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Open Captioned
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