PDD-NOS

I know it is considered to be on the autistic spectrum, at the high-functioning end. Matbe check out some autism websites for links?

Karen

A psychologist friend I know called pervasive devolpment disorder not otherwise specified a “garbage diagnosis” some psychs give to any child who has two of anything. In the case of your son he has a speech language delay, not in itself indicative of PDD, but also OCD. Put the two together and some psychs will come up with PDD-NOS, which tells you absolutely nothing. It is perfectly possible for a child to have a bunch of symptoms that are not explained by one dx—they may well have two co-existing conditions that are not related to one another. A child does not suddenly become PDD at age 10—behaviors pointing to this tend to be so obvious that even the most love-blind mother knows something is wrong by age two, max 4.

As you can tell I don’t have a lot of respect for this dx, which appears to have become recently fashionable. My own son had known language problems at age five, which he took language therapy for. They were most likely caused by multiple early ear infections. At age 7 and a half my incredibly sweet child became a total nightmare. We ended up at a pych who decided he showed “stereotypical behaviors” (term used for repetitive behaviors seen in autistic children) and, since he also had language problems, gave him the PDD-NOS dx.

Well the movements had come on suddenly and my search of the internet seemed to point to a dx of Tourette’s Syndrome, which often starts around age 7. I ended up going to a child neuropsychiatrist with a lot of autistic patients (plus an autistic son) who confirmed that the PDD-NOS dx was inappropriate and that my son had a combination of Tourettes and OCD. These frequently occur together. These can be related and one or the other or both can be triggered by strep infections, as can ADHD. In my son’s case this was confirmed by the National Institute of Health, which has done the pioneering work in this field. (The condition is called PANDAS.)

And yes, these poor children can seem to be ODD and suffer from anxiety—I would too if I had to suffer what they go through. There are things that can help, but the PDD-NOS dx won’t help, unless somehow it gets you more remediation services. Personally, I’d rather get these under Other Health Impaired—we still run into problems from time to time from that mistaken PDD-NOS dx—it’s really not one you want on the record if it’s inappropriate.

we knew our son was diffeent from such a youngs age.He did have a langugae delay and has recieved speech therapy since he was 4 .He too has tics and given the Touretttes dx 2 years ago.His tics do come and go but usally has at least one tic present at a given time.There has been times where he has had several motor tics and vocal tics at a time.He has seen nuelogist and 3 different psychaartist and psys too.They all have said there is alot going on and everything overlaps.He is on several meds now that help some but I am unsure about him being on meds allthe time.As he gets older his behaviors are becoming more noticable to others before it just seemed odd he never out grew things but now it is becoming apparent to others who dont know him reaalize he is different.People have come up to me asking about him all the time and stuff.He acts so differnt from his younger brothers and sister and they have pout grew these behaviors way ahead of him and he is the oldest.

I have been to websites where the professionals on that site agree with this setiment. PDD-NOS is just a garbage diagnosis to give a label to the behaviors but what does it really tell us? It is used to describe such a wide variety of children what does it tell the school system or the parents about the child. Drs seem to be afraid to give other dx’s or multiple dx’s so this is a convenient one. I have read that some Drs. are afraid to give the lablel of autism so give this one instead because it seems not to be so “door closing”. The label also allows them to avoid and alaphabet soup by allowing them to not have to list all the specific problems. My son was diagnosed PDD-NOS although according to the DSM-IV he met the criteria for Autism. He also scored high enough on the ABC and the CARS to be dx’d austic. The professionals though diagnosed him with PDD-NOS. Here were some of his symptoms when 1st evaluated-head banging, self injurious behavior, rocking, spinning, humming, lining things up, adherence to routines, NO eye contact, no speech, hand leading, no awareness of enviroment around him, lack of social recipical skills, tantruming, oversensitivity to noise, ect. Yet they said he was not austic because he did not fully meet the criteria. I think that austism is a spectrum as said and they need to come up with a better way to classify these individuals

Lisa, What you describe comes a lot closer to the autistic spectrum—head banging, hand leading, no eye contact. I didn’t pick up anything in what Debbie wrote that indicated her son had these somewhat classical autistic-type behaviors. (My son didn’t either.) TS/OCD behaviors can be definitely odd—but they do not include these syptoms. Hence my alert to take care. PDD-NOS is sometimes used as another way of dxing high functioning autism. It is a really unhelpful dx when symptoms don’t include the classic autistic spectrum symptoms but other symptoms sometimes associated with autistic spectrum exist that are perhaps better explained through two different diagnoses (e.g. receptive/expressive language problems and TS/OCD or PANDAS). Children like these need a different approach from those who really are on the autistic spectrum.