they are angels, I should clarify, PDD-NOS and 'autistic disorder' are different diagnosis, but they are both on the autism spectrum, or pervasive developmental delays. Autism, to me, is short-hand for 'autistic disorder'. High Functioning Autism is not an official diangosis. I would guess the actual diagnosis would be autistic disorder, or, the diagnostician might be using this colloquialism to mean - "some, yet to be classified PDD, but the kid's high functioning and will figure out the bucket when he's older".
It's a big, mucky morass, these labels. They convery no information, other than the kid has some developmental problems that may be mild or may be incapacitating. I'm guessing that's why this diagnostician is handing out a colloquial diagnosis rather than an actual dx. They should just call the kids developmentally delayed and diagnose them with whatever specific impairments present (semantic pragmatic language disorder, SID, social anxiety, whatever) and get on with it.
Have you informed the school system? What are they recommending for this coming school year? He'll be three, and there should be some sort of developmental preschool available. What did the doctor recommend?
My daughters didn't get much therapy, either - developmental preschool and a little bit of language therapy. But, that's actually appropriate for some kids, depending on the nature of their delays and how severe they are.
PDD-NOS and Autism are different diagnosis. Autism means that the diagnostician noted impairments in all three domains specified in the diagnostic manual (language, social, imagination). PDD-NOS means that impairments were not observed in all three domains, or only one in the first domain (which requires two), etc - just doesn't complete the picture, so to speak. PDD-NOS is not 'less severe' than autism. It can be, but there are plenty of PDD-NOS kids who are considered severely affected and plenty of full autistic kids who are considered mild on the spectrum - it's not the severity of the impairments that determines the bucket, but rather the pattern of impairments.
'High functioning autism', by the way, is a colloquial term. It's not an official diagnosis according to the diagnosistic manual (DSM-IV).
You've already been given some good advise.
Regarding the Search feature timing out, that's been happening to me too. If I hit Search a 2nd time, it pulls the information.
Fred,
Now I'm confused...I thought PDD-NOS was a subset of ASD, no?
I've heard it explained so many different ways, and I like your explanation, but I had always been told PDD-NOS was on the spectrum. My son was diagnosed as PDD-NOS but the diagnosticians (from school district) indicated delays in all 3 areas, that he had "global" delays.
Ok, now I'm worried I've been explaining it incorrectly to people...?
Ok, I'm still fairly new and I did a search, but nothing came up... it timed out. My son had an evaluation with a pediatric neurologist yesterday and gave us "high functioning autism." He had an eval with the school system about 10 months ago and they gave him "speech delay" and he'd only been receiving 2 hours a week of "therapy" (which to me was more like play group). How do I go about upping the amount of therapy now that I have a medical diagnosis? Also, I already knew they'd give me a diagnosis and no help from there on..... what should I do next? Money is pretty much non-existent so I wondered what direction everybody else took..... any help is great!
Christi
P.S. Is there really a diiference between high functioning and PDD-NOS?
Here is an explanation that Tzoya gives:
Take out a piece of paper. Draw a large circle. Label this circle Pervasive Developmental Disorders. Then draw 4 circles inside. Label them 1. Autism 2. Asperger Syndrome 3. Rett's 4. Childhood Disintegrative Disorder. Then, color all the parts of the larger circle that is OUTISIDE the smaller circles. The COLORED part of the circle is PDD-NOS. This graphic. That means the child fits into the larger dx of Pervasive Developmental Disorders (this is the MEDICAL term for Autism Spectrum Disorders), but it not in one of the SPECIFIED syndromes (the 4 labeled circles) Therefore, your child is in the Autism Ballpark but not with one of the specific disorders. AUTISM is what these disorders are all called, in EDUCATIONAL TERMS. MEDICALLY, they all have different terms applied to them based on the criteria in the DSM-IV.
Also, here is a thread that I thread that had to do with explaining PDD-NOS:
http://www.autism-pdd.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=16039&am p;KW=PDD%2DNOS