Severe PDD-NOS or LFA/HFA, Whats the difference?

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[quote="psychedelic"]As science progresses, what seemed obvious or likely can become wrong once new evidence or perspectives become available.

If I'm not mistaken, modern psychology as a real science is not that old. It's about a century old if I remember correctly.

quote]

THANK YOU!

I was talking about PDD-NOS with my sister in a bookstore and I pretty much questioned whether it is fair or accurate to consider it "mild" autism. I also wondered if IQ was the only thing that defines Asperger's from Classic Autism as it mentioned in the DSM-IV that Asperger's isn't usually accompanied with mental retardation (not that Mental Retardation is absent in all aspies, but that it's not usually there, suggesting that there are people out there with AS with intellectual problems). That's not to say that I fully believe this- I was simply curious (and I don't think i've ever met an aspie who was mentally ret*d). I think I also mentioned an arguement I had with someone over spectrum separation and how some people don't think AS shouldn't even be considered autism (which is false because autism is a spectrum).

Then some self-righteous woman trying to be some crusader against ignorance (in other words, "an hero") decided that she would corner me and say (with a warm smile) "You talk a lot of s**t" and confidentally left the room, leaving me to feel sort of harrassed. She didn't even explain how I was wrong- she just insulted me and left. I would have liked to hear what she had to say as it would have probably been an opinion based on a much deeper and insightful knowledge of the subject. Perhaps she had some dogmatic beliefs or perhaps I did infact come across as trying to sound knowledgable, like I thought I actually had an education in this. I don't and whenever I talk about ASD, I try to make it clear that it's an opinion based on personal expierience (and limited knowledge which I desire to expand).

There's so many nice people in the world, eh?

Elsewhere, there's a diagnosis called atypical autism which is often given when a child is obviously autistic but also has a so severe degree of mental retardation that nobody cyan figure out whether some autistic looking symptoms actually come from MR or from autism.

PDD-NOS covers a much wider spectrum of course, but from the sounds of it, severe/profound MR+any degree of autism is diagnosed

Seems reasonable to me too!

I hate to see professionals diagnosis severely/profoundly MR+autism as classical autism. How do they know? They don't! For all they know, the child can have 2 autistic symptoms and the rest comes from MR.

Doesn't exactly help with differentiating severe/profound MR+autism from LFA.

There should of course be services for anyone with PDD-NOS as much as there are ones for those with the classical label.

I admit I don't buy into the group of parents who say their kid is severely/profoundly MR and classically autistic.

That's wrong, usually.

PDD-NOS would be accurate because symptoms that come from MR do not count into classical autism.

Same as symptoms of anxiety, depression, borderline PD or schizoid PD do not count into AS, classical or any type of autism.

Gosh, I guess this is one of the things that annoys me the most.

There are more kids who's not severely/profoundly MR+autism of course but come under the same label/expression of 'severe PDD-NOS'.

The kids I talked about are just 1 group out of several more.

You just can't tell with little kids. You can have two kids who have pretty similar characteristics. One becomes verbal, gets a job, etc. Another is never verbal, is in a day center, etc. Why is that? We don't know that much. That's why I have never trusted any of those "therapies" which claim to treat autism (I'm not going to dignify the
"cure" term).

There are kids who are obviously ret*d and autistic. But I have heard of enough cases of kids who were dxed ret*d at 6 and high IQ at 12.

I think that's interesting about the "not going to procreate idea. But it won't work.

BTW, I think these things can change. I don't mean to "cure", but someone could be lfa at 3 and hfa at 12. I just don't know if it is anything anyone does or not. The one thing that wouldn't change is AS. That presupposes normal language development.

--des

Symptoms of severe to profound forms of Autism and other profound developmental disorders may include:





1. Intellectual disability (an IQ of 69 or below).

2. Impaired social communications or interactions, bizarre behavior, and lack of social or

emotional reciprocity

3. Delusional interests and bizarre behaviors

4. Sleep problems, aggressiveness, and self-injurious behavior are also possible frequent

occurrences

5. Lack of eye contact, inadequate body language and a lack of emotional or physical

response to others' behaviors and emotions

6. lack of communication (both oral communication – i.e. nonverbal autism – and body

language), Repetitive use of words or phrases, and lack of imaginative play skills.

7. Respond only to very direct external social interaction from others

8. severe deficits in communication skills (verbal and nonverbal), inflexibility of behavior, extreme difficulty coping with change, and extreme difficulty

with shifting focus and attention. Individuals with level 3 autism would initiate very limited amounts of social interactions and would respond only to

direct social approaches from others.











Wikipedia states that it is common for individuals with PDD-NOS to have more intact social skills and a lower level of intellectual deficit than individuals with other PDDs.







Characteristics of many individuals with PDD-NOS or anyone like me are:







● Communication difficulties (e.g., using and understanding language)[6]

● Difficulty with social behavior

● Difficulty with changes in routines or environments

● Uneven skill development (strengths in some areas and delays in others

● Unusual play with toys and other objects

● Repetitive body movements or behavior patterns

● Preoccupation with fantasy, such as imaginary friends in childhood











Other symptoms of Autism includes:



● Making little or inconsistent eye contact

● Tending not to look at or listen to people

● Rarely sharing enjoyment of objects or activities by pointing or showing things to

others

● Failing to, or being slow to, respond to someone calling their name or to other

verbal attempts to gain attention

● Having difficulties with the back and forth of conversation

● Often talking at length about a favorite subject without noticing that others are not

interested or without giving others a chance to respond

● Having facial expressions, movements, and gestures that do not match what is

being said

● Having an unusual tone of voice that may sound sing-song or flat and robot-like

● Having trouble understanding another person’s point of view or being unable to

predict or understand other people’s actions











Asperger's Syndrome is multifaceted, with varying degrees of severity in the key symptoms:



● Difficulty in social interaction, often due to issues with nonverbal communication

● Specific subjects of interest, often manifesting as a borderline obsession with a few

areas and/or hobbies

● IQ can vary, but is generally higher than average

● Surpressed and/or difficulty expressing emotions







I used to have profound developmental disorders from my early childhood.



It got milder, because I had IEP plans and meetings.







When I was 0-8 years old, I had some symptoms of Profound Developmental Disorder.



When I was 9-10 years old, I had some symptoms of PDD-NOS.



When I was 11-19 years old, I had some symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome







Now I feel like I have Learning Disorders, with Broad Autism Phenotype.





Now as an adult, I am very good at reading and understanding emotions, facial cues and body languages.