728x90
my iParenting
From Our Sponsors
Get Pregnancy Information
e-newsletters
Sign up to receive our free weekly e-newsletters

new terms of use
new privacy policy
award-winning products
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families.
Home › Articles › Special Needs › Pervasive Development Disorder

Pervasive Development Disorder

What Parents Need to Know

By Lisamarie Sanders

Pages:  1  2  3  4  

Their son was only 11 months old when Dr. Eric London and his wife noticed something just wasn't right. "His babble wasn't progressing," says Dr. London, vice president of medical affairs at the National Alliance for Autism Research. "He wasn't making the more sophisticated sounds that are supposed to happen between 6 months and a year." Soon after, his son was diagnosed with autism.

Autism is a developmental abnormality that is classified as a pervasive developmental disorder (PDD), a relatively new title for a class of neurological disorders. According to a briefing paper put out by the National Information Center for Children and Youth with Disabilities, PDDs share the following characteristics: impairments in social interaction, imaginative activity, verbal and nonverbal communication skills and a limited number of interests and activities that tend to be repetitive.

Although PDDs are rare, the numbers have been steadily increasing since the 1970s. Previously estimated at four cases per 10,000 people, two recent studies have shown an incidence of 60 or more per 10,000. Although the difference is startling, it may be due to increased awareness and improved diagnostic measures rather than a true increased incidence of the disorder.

Five subsets of PDD have been identified: autism, Asperger's syndrome, childhood disintegrative disorder, Rett syndrome and PDDNOS (not otherwise specified).

Autism
Although autism is a term most parents have heard, the actual disorder is very rare. Dr. Robin Hilsabeck, a neuropsychologist and the director of cognitive programs at Texas Tech University Heath Services Center, estimates the incidence at approximately three or four people per 10,000. However, she fears, the disorder may be over-diagnosed.

Autism is difficult to identify because the symptoms vary greatly in type and intensity. Dr. Frank Aiello III, a developmental pediatrician at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters, in Norfolk, Va., says diagnosing autism is similar to choosing a meal at a Chinese restaurant – you need a certain number of symptoms from column A, so many from column B, etc. There is no standard presentation. "You have to have some impairments, but they are not consistent and they cover a wider, broader area than other disorders," explains Dr. Hilsabeck. For this reason, autism and the other PDDs are often referred to as "spectrum disorders."


Pages:  1  2  3  4  


Want to see more?