could non verbal autism be caused by.....

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Yup, one kid I work with was completely nonverbal as of last summer (he's 7 now), and he now communicates well in one-word phrases, and can be prompted to use a small number of two-word phrases. By this time next year, I bet he'll be speaking in sentences.

Also, it's very exciting that one little girl I work with (6 years old) has started to occasionally intermingle words with her babble (she actually does babble rather than just make noises- just like a ten month old- which is a good sign that she's headed for some language development). Last week I was reading her "Polar Bear, Polar Bear," and when we got to "roaring like a lion," she suddenly said "lion." With repeated prompting, you can also sometimes entice words out of her. Plus, on Friday, I was playing this "rowing" game with her (rocking her backwards and forwards while singing "Row, row, row your boat"), and when we stopped, she actually *requested* that we do it again by saying "row, row, row!" That's the first time I ever heard her use language to request something. It was super exciting, and she did it several more times during the session.

Working with kids with autism can be frustrating because sometimes you wonder if you are doing them any good, and then they have a spurt in development and surprise you!

Umm, no it's not. Are you sure you are not confusing it with Tourette's Syndrome? That is something completely different. Rett Syndrome is mentioned nowhere on that page. I think you need to do some more research if you are not even familiar with the different PDDs.

Also, I might point out that you criticize the DSM-IV, but you are using wikipedia!

It

I will do some more research. It is seeming more compliocated than I thought. If I could prove regression is not related to autism, it would help many people. I am only using wikipedia as a palce to find acutal information. I am not citing it. Whaat I posted had cited information from credible sources . I only use wikipedia for basic information.

It wouldn't help me any, given that what gets called regression is related to autism for me.

Rett's syndrome, to save you a bit of time, is a condition that can cause autism, and also causes a lack of head growth during a certain age bracket, and loss of purposeful hand movement, replaced by things like hand-wringing often. There is a known gene for it.

I know several people who have the Rett's gene who were previously diagnosed with autism, AS, or PDD-NOS. Until they either got tested, or had a child with severe Rett's and got tested. And then it was found they had a milder variant of Rett's. So Rett's in milder forms can look so much like other forms of autism that you can't always tell the difference without a genetic test.

It's best not to start out by wanting to prove something, and then gathering data with the intent of proving it. That leads to skewing your information only towards what you want to see.

In the DSM, at any rate, they do mention that some autistic children lose language at a certain time (definitely prior to 2 years old). Not in the main criteria, but in the expanded discussion.

And losing language at that age does not, according to studies, affect adult outcome, which presumably includes speech outcome.

Even the genetic test is only conclusive in a certain number of cases (75%? 80%? I can't remember). One of the kids I work with is suspected of having an atypical form of Rett's, because of her poor hand control and repetitive hand mannerisms. She doesn't have a small head though. I don't know if her parents actually had her tested (I know it was under discussion at one point but I don't know if they pursued it). She is currently diagnosed with autism, but it is possible she has a mild form of Rett's.

well here is a more official version of what CDD is. http://childstudycenter.yale.edu/autism/cdd.html. It does say there are some simmilarites with autism. I am not saying CDD is autism.

Yeah, in the cases of the people I know, they've all got Rett's traits, but milder than usual, and it was just seen as "regressive autism".