It's Asperger Syndrome ... or Is It? Like Benjamin Nugent ("I Had Asperger Syndrome. Briefly," Op-Ed, Feb. 1), I was the "weird" kid all the way through school. But while I fit in, briefly, among my focused, intellectual peers at an Ivy League university, I did not outgrow my social deficits. My lack of awareness of social cues and appropriate behavior led to my having to leave graduate school in my 20s. Today, 30 years later, having been bullied and exploited in a succession of jobs and getting fired from several, I am a student in a graduate writing program not unlike the one Mr. Nugent directs. Without accommodation for Asperger syndrome diagnosed in adulthood, I would not be able to complete my degree or keep my current part-time job. Asperger syndrome does not prevent me from being a good writer. I have to study the patterns of social interaction that others take for granted, something that has helped me understand point of view and writing across cultures (as everything is a foreign culture to me). When Asperger syndrome is eliminated from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fewer people like me will receive the diagnosis, support and accommodation they need to succeed in school and the workplace, with the consequences of needless suffering and lost talent and productivity. The writer is the author of "Gringolandia," a young adult novel. I was moved and sobered by Benjamin Nugent's account of receiving a misdiagnosis of Asperger syndrome. As a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, I struggle daily with integrating the need for a D.S.M.-IV diagnosis (for reimbursement, for clarity, for curiosity) with the need to listen to the story my patient is discovering without the interference that a label imposes. While I hope that the D.S.M.-V will correct some of the problems inherent in a checklist, it will never surpass the value of listening. This kind of listening - closely and intently - to what someone is telling me both in content and nonverbal communication is what I believe good therapy is made of, regardless of diagnostic category. Overdiagnosis of Asperger syndrome results from a combination of factors: poor clinical observation by untrained professionals, biased application of simplified descriptions to fit the diagnostic manual, and, most significant, widespread unawareness of sensory regulatory patterns in children. Scores of children have wrongly received diagnoses of Asperger syndrome because of ignorance of sensory regulatory problems. Prevention of overdiagnosis and suffering can be achieved with training in sensory regulation and in-depth diagnostic skills. The infiltration of insurance and drug companies in defining psychiatry by relegating psychiatrists to the role of prescribers has led to a lack of comprehensive diagnosis in children by unskilled mental health professionals. Lack of timely and accurate diagnosis and research has contributed to wrongly labeling children with Asperger syndrome. Child psychiatry should be the most pertinent specialty to integrate bio-psychosocial diagnosis and treatment. The writer is a child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. As a clinician and the parent of an "Aspie" teenager, I read Benjamin Nugent's article with sadness. My preference has always been to describe my son as a "quirky kid," rather than to define him in pathological terms. While I am all too acutely aware of the many challenges he faces, I do not want my son or anyone who interacts with him to limit expectations based on a label. While the diagnostic manual has apparently led to overzealous diagnoses, the American Psychiatric Association's redefinition will restrict access to services for 24 to 84 percent of those who have autism spectrum disorder labels: people with very real neurobehavioral manifestations. Something is surely wrong with our medical system if the goal is to restrict access to care, rather than to provide services to the broadest range possible of those in need. The writer is a nurse practitioner. Briefly" makes me grateful to have grown up in 1950s Brooklyn, where nerdiness was a respectable way of being, not a "syndrome."