The change has affected me. The psychologist who assessed me in the fall said that a year before I would have been diagnosed as having Asperger's, but he wasn't sure that I met the criteria for an ASD diagnosis. His final report was even less clear, saying that I almost meet the criteria for several things and that ASD was possible. He suggested that I follow up with a psychiatrist for further testing, which I did a few weeks ago. Last week she called and said that she was going with Asperger's, so I guess she is still using DSM-IV. I'm not sure it would have had any affect on my treatment, but it didn't help give me any answers about how I fit in the world. Both said they didn't like the change in DSM5.

I've read several articles showing that there are measurable differences between individuals diagnosed with autism and Asperger's for both EEG and fMRI images. I don't think this is too surprising as they were selected by different criteria, but they were different other ways rather than just showing more of a change from the general population.

ASD as a generalization might make finding information easier to find, but I suspect that someone new being diagnosed with ASD wouldn't know to look for information about Asperger's unless they had prior knowledge or were told about it.

I've been wondering why they didn't create a unipolar depression spectrum out of MDD, dysthymia (which I've also been diagnosed with), SAD, etc., or a bipolar spectrum.