Greetings Earthlings! 🙂
Today’s post is going to be short and sweet exploring two of the lesser known ASD’s:
- Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS)
- Childhood disintegrative disorder (or Heller’s syndrome)
I know… these are a bit of a mouthful, but once you get past the names they’re not that difficult to understand 🙂
Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS):
As discussed in my Intro to the Spectrum, a pervasive developmental disorder impairs normal growth and development of the brain resulting in a wide range of effects (i.e. autism). PDD-NOS is basically a catch all term to describe individuals who are on the spectrum, but do not fit the criteria for specific ASD’s.
So if you had some of the traits of Asperger’s syndrome for example, but didn’t fully fit the bill, you may be given a diagnosis of PDD-NOS.
This is often referred to as atypical autism.
Childhood disintegrative disorder/Heller’s syndrome:
Childhood disintegrative disorder (CDD) is a rare ASD, estimated to be 60 times less prevalent than classic autism. In comparison to other ASD’s, this low functioning form of autism is quite unusual in it’s late onset.
Children with CDD appear to develop normally before suddenly showing signs of developmental delay around 3-4 years of age. In some cases, there are even reversals in development with loss of speech, motor skills and social function- as if someone hit the rewind button in your brain.
This is known as regressive autism.
Discovered 35 years prior to autism, to this day, doctors remain baffled as to the cause of this condition.
So there we have it- not quite as complicated as the names suggest 😉
As this is a little more clinical than some of my other posts, I’d like to end on an encouraging note.
Last year, some of you may have come across this viral interview with actor Channing Tatum:
In the video, Channing is interviewed by Carly Fleischmann- a remarkable young woman with non-verbal autism. As a child, Carly was diagnosed with autism, cognitive delay and oral-motor apraxia (the inability to properly coordinate oral movements for speech). At first, such a diagnosis appears devastating, but in this video, Carly proves an ASD diagnosis is not the end of the world.
Through years of persistent therapy and hard work, Carly found ways to communicate by typing with one finger. Although still confronted with the serious challenges of autism, in this video, Carly achieves her dream of becoming the world’s first autistic, non-verbal chat show host! 😀
When a diagnosis of autism is given, it can be difficult to remain positive. Unlike Dante in Inferno however, we need not abandon hope.
It very much exists.
Whatever your spectrum diagnosis may be, Carly’s story shows that we can succeed in spite of our difficulties 🙂
Aoife
Abbreviations: ASD- Autism spectrum disorder
A Is For Aoife Not Autism 