In the DSM-V by popular acclaim?

A campaign is currently on the go to include Sensory Processing Disorder, also known as Sensory Integration Dysfunction, in the DSM-V. It has been launched by the SPD Foundation and claims to currently have about 10 000 signatories. It is accompanied by a campaign to get physicians to support the diagnosis of SPD. This is an extract from the general letter from the SPD Foundation launching the campaign:

"We need your immediate help with an important effort to obtain diagnostic recognition of Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) in the upcoming revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).

The DSM committee has asked us to provide research showing that doctors would use an SPD diagnosis if it were added to the DSM-V. Showing use by international physicians is important, too, because diagnostic recognition in the DSM will lead to inclusion in comparable international manuals. In response to the DSM committee’s request, we have developed a very short online physician survey (it literally takes a doctor three minutes to complete).

WE NEED TO GET THIS SURVEY INTO THE HANDS OF PHYSICIANS WHO UNDERSTAND AND SUPPORT SPD AS A DIAGNOSIS.

You and everyone you know are crucial to this effort.

If you are a parent, please ask the pediatrician, psychiatrist, other physician (MD), or osteopathic doctor (DO) who treats your child to go online and take our survey. If you are a clinician, a teacher, or another professional, please ask any physicians you know - especially those familiar with SPD - to take survey. They will do this as a favor to you."

The physicians' survey can be found here. It has no control that I could see to ensure that only physicians take it.

Sensory Processing Disorder is strongly linked to two specific therapies, Ayres's Sensory Integration therapy (SI) and Tomatis and Berard's Auditory Integration therapy (AIT). Both of these are controversial, both because of theoretical issues and lack of evidence for effectiveness. SI gained some respectibility because it is widely practiced by occupational therapists. AIT on the other hand (especially the devices used in it), has been widely rejected by professional organisations.

Is Sensory Processing Disorder a valid diagnosis that can be reliably made and has an existence outside of the therapies mentioned? Dr. Peter Heilbroner in Quackwatch does not think so, but there should be only one question - is it supported by scientific evidence? Surely popular acclaim and pressure should not influence the decision?

In closing, I believe that a quote from Dr. Allen Francis's now well-known critique of the DSM-V process, has some relevance to my concern about SPD:

"There is also the serious, subtle, and ubiquitous problem of unintended consequences. As a rule of thumb, it is wise to assume that unintended consequences come often and in very varied and surprising flavors. For instance, a seemingly small and reasonable change can sometimes result in a different definition of caseness that may have a dramatic and totally unexpected impact on the reported rates of a disorder. Thus are false "epidemics" created. For example, although many other factors were certainly involved, the sudden increase in the diagnosis of autistic
disorder, attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and bipolar disorder may in part reflect changes made in the DSM‐IV definitions."