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Every year the National
Information Center for Children and Youth with
Disabilities (NICHCY) receives thousands of
requests for information about the diagnosis,
educational programming, and special needs of
children and youth with Pervasive Developmental
Disorders (PDD). Over the past few years, PDD has
become a subject of increased attention among
parents, professionals, and policymakers across the
country.
NICHCY developed this
Briefing Paper in response to the growing concern
about, and interest in, this disability. This
publication is designed to answer some of the most
commonly asked questions regarding PDD and to
provide concerned individuals with other resources
for information and support.
The term Pervasive
Developmental Disorders was first used in the 1980s
to describe a class of disorders. This class of
disorders has in common 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.
The manual used by physicians
and mental health professionals as a guide to
diagnosing disorders is the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The
DSM was last revised in 1994. In this latest
revision, known as the DSM-IV, five disorders are
identified under the category of Pervasive
Developmental Disorders: (1) Autistic Disorder, (2)
Rett's Disorder, (3) Childhood Disintegrative
Disorder, (4) Asperger's Disorder, and (5)
Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise
Specified, or PDDNOS.
Many of the questions parents
and education professionals ask NICHCY have to do
with children who have been diagnosed with "PDD."
Doctors are divided on the use of the term PDD.
Many professionals use the term PDD as a short way
of saying PDDNOS. Some doctors, however, are
hesitant to diagnose very young children with a
specific type of PDD, such as Autistic Disorder,
and therefore only use the general category label
of PDD. This approach contributes to the confusion
about the term, because the term PDD actually
refers to a category of disorders and is not a
diagnostic label. The appropriate diagnostic label
to be used is PDDNOS--Pervasive Developmental
Disorder Not Otherwise Specified--not PDD (the
umbrella category under which PDDNOS is
found).
Accordingly, this Briefing
Paper will use the term PDD to refer to the overall
category of Pervasive Developmental Disorders and
the term PDDNOS to refer to the specific disorder,
Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise
Specified. The majority of this Briefing Paper will
focus on PDDNOS.
All of the disorders that
fall under the category of PDD share, to some
extent, similar characteristics. To understand how
the disorders differ and how they are alike, it's
useful to look at the definition of each disorder.
Therefore, before we begin our discussion of
PDDNOS, let us look first at the definition of the
general category PDD and its specific
disorders.
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