Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD)
'different...not less' Temple Grandin
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV-TR) of the American Psychiatric Association uses the term 'pervasive developmental disorders' to categorize five seemingly related disorders:
- autism disorder
- Asperger's disorder
- childhood disintegrative disorders - Rett's disorder
- pervasive developmental disorder - not otherwise specified
- childhood psychoses including childhood schizophrenia
The TRIAD of Impairments
Social Understanding and Social Behaviour
relationships and boundaries, cooperation, sense of self, cause and effect
Social Communication
processing and retaining verbal & nonverbal informationdifficulty with jokes, irony, social language, body language, facial expressions, gestures, also hyper-sensitive to all 5 senses
Rigidity of Thinking
difficulty with changes in routine, empathy, time and generalization 
pervasive = long lasting
developmental = significant delays in all or most domains
disorder = condition, syndrome, ailment
Did you know?
Pervasive developmental disorders appear before the age of
22?
Pervasive developmental disorders interfere with daily
living in all areas?
Pervasive developmental disorders are long lasting (usually
a lifetime)?
Pervasive developmental disorders require special services
and treatments?
Prevalence of
Pervasive Developmental Disorders
Autism Spectrum Disorders
|
Childhood Psychoses (specifically
childhood schizophrenia)
|
1 in every 200 children born in Canada
|
Onset before age 6 is rare; onset before age 13 is also
rare – inattention, flat affect, apathy, lack of interest in relationships, chronic
progression of symptoms after onset
|
4 times more likely to appear in boys than girls
|
Onset between ages 13 and 18 is more common and called
early onset – rapid regression in development after onset
|
Numbers of children diagnosed has increased rapidly over
the past 50 years
|
1 in 10,000 children are diagnosed with childhood
schizophrenia
|
The category ASD has been expended to include all cases
from mild to severe
|
Twice as many boys than girls initially; by adolescence
the same number of boys and girls have symptoms
|
Research to date cannot explain the growing incidence of
ASD
|
1/6th as common as adult onset schizophrenia
|
Autism Spectrum Disorders: There are now over 20 reports in the literature of individuals with both autism and idic15. Two studies that included a total of 226 patients with autism found Dup15q in approximately 3-5% of the patients.5, 6 Chromosome 15q11–13 duplications are the most frequently identified chromosome problem in individuals with autism.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this Michele. You certainly surprised me when I learned that you were the author of this post! It is fascinating to know that there has been such important progress made in the chromosomal connection to autism. This is a big step forward from the earlier hypothesis that autism was caused by over-protective mothers!
ReplyDeleteI was at a assessment for ASD a while ago for a liitle boy who got a DX of aspergers syndrome , the developmental pediatrician stated that they are soon going to stop classifying aspergers , pdd-nos, and all DX will just be autism mild, moderate, and severe.
ReplyDeleteMichele, what does DX stand for?
ReplyDeleteAlso, just as another point of interest, the DSM-IV is the classification system currently under review. I would guess that this is what the pediatrician was making reference to. It is a very heated debate as to what to keep in the diagnostic tool and what to add and/or eliminate. It will be fascinating to see what happens to PDD and all of its sub-categories.
DX = diagnosis sorry I did not explain:)
ReplyDelete