THOUGH FEW PEOPLE OUTSIDE the APA knew it at the time, the DSM-III had a dark secret. For a document created by DOPs, much of the data behind it was sketchy and provisional. Allen Frances later admitted that “there was very little scientific evidence available to guide” the decision making of Spitzer’s committees. Nowhere was that more evident than in the description of the pervasive developmental disorders, with its weird hodgepodge of vagueness (“music of all kinds may hold a special interest for the child”) and overspecificity (the arbitrary cutoff point between infantile autism and COPDD).
