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

Post Reply New Topic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood_ ... e_disorder

many of the parents I have heard talk about this say their child began being nonverbal around these ages.

Childhood disintegrative disorder is a separate PDD from Autistic Disorder. The age of onset is later than it is in autism.

but many parents of non verbal autistic children said they have seen this happen. I am not saying they are not autistic, but the reason they are non verbal is not related to autism. What I mean is their regression from being able to speak to not speaking at all.

GOD, I wish I remembered the URL, but one father says his young son(10 months old, if I remember right) has autism! The kid to ME seems pretty normal. Of course I don't have much experience with babies. Frankly, HE claims that parents just don't notice, or forget.

Anyway, CDD is NOT autism.

I believe AS has a lot of common with several other conditions because this spectrum may be the product of genes strings deletion or duplication.

What I am saying is that autistic kids (usually the severeones) that go nonverbal could just have CDD. It seems like it could be mistaken for autism so why not?. It is possible to have CDD and autism, just like ti is possible to have autism and dysgraphia. I do plan on researching this more over the summer and yes CDD is not autism, it just has some simmilarities.

Except that the fact that they are nonverbal *is* related to autism. Plenty of kids with autism were once verbal during their toddler years. If they lost their language at age 18 months, they will likely be diagnosed with autism. If they lost it at 4 years, then CDD.

Autism and CDD are both PDDs, that is Pervasive Developmental Disorders, just as AS and Rett Disorder are PDDs.



No, CDD and autism are both PDDs, so you can't have both of them. It would be like simultaneously having Rett Disorder and Autistic Disorder. You fit the criteria more closely for either one of them or the other. Dysgraphia is not a PDD, so you can have that in addition to autism.

Many kids with autism experience a regression in the toddler years. They may develop some language, and then lose it. That doesn't mean they don't have autism. CDD is diagnostically different because the age of onset is later, sometimes much later (it can even happen in the school years).

Parents of children with autism often do say that their kids were "normal" until they regressed (usually at 18-24 months), but studies involving old home videos of first birthday parties revealed that diagnosticians blind to the kids' diagnoses were able to predict which children would be later diagnosed with autism, even though their parents believed them to be "normal" at the time. Plus, other studies have been done which have found abnormal movement patterns in young babies who are later diagnosed with autism. Kanner himself noted that the parents of many kids in his study reported that as infants, their kids did not assume an "anticipatory" posture prior to being picked up.

At ten months old, you might see a lack of pointing, lack of joint attention, lack of eye contact, etc. I suspect that someone not familiar with normal infant development might not notice anything odd.

40% of individuals with Autistic Disorder don't gain speech at all, from the beginning (it's 20% over here in Oz); verbal communication difficulties are just as big a part of autism as nonverbal ones. The difference between verbal ability is the main determining factor between Asperger's Disorder and Autistic Disorder. The other 60% with Autistic Disorder who gain speech are impaired in its use compared to those with Asperger's (this is generally speaking). Autistic Disorder must manifest in the first three years of life.

Verbal communication difficulties will always be a part of Autism.

Last edited by Danielismyname on 12 May 2008, 10:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

A diagnosis is primarily there to be useful. Sometimes people/diagnosticians loose grip of that ethos.

The concept of regression isn't actually agreed upon in autism, although many parents have reported it.

CDD is interesting because of the rapid onset and the large regression. But I suspect, much like the history of PDDs, examples will be made of the more obvious cases first.

It is not only important that research is continued on individual PDDs but also the relationships between PDDs.

I didn't know you were Australian!

I wonder why that difference exists- whether it's due to differences in the autistic population itself (genetics, etc.), or whether it's due to earlier or more effective intervention. Interesting!

It doess not say that in here, it only says a delay http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism#Social_development. CDD can happen from 2-10. This is what I am talking about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_autism. Average autism is only a delay in social development.

Diagnostically, there is no such label as "regressive autism." Whether the kid developed language and lost it, or whether they never developed language, the kid will still be labeled autistic.

Here is an excerpt from the criteria for autism from the DSM-IV-TR:



Notice that if a kid meets the criteria for CDD, he is not given the label of autistic disorder.
There is also no mention of whether the kid originally had language at a young age. It doesn't matter if a kid could speak at 18 months. If prior to 3 years he meets the criteria for Autistic Disorder, then he has autism.

Here is the criteria for CDD:



Note again that a kid will not be diagnosed with CDD if he fits the criteria of another PDD better.

So technically, if a kid developed normally until 24 months, and then lost his language and other developmental skills in the next year (3 years of age) he could be diagnosed with *either* autistic disorder or CDD (but not *both*). If he regresses before age 2 years, he has autistic disorder. After 3 years, CDD. Of course, that is according to a strict reading of the diagnostic critieria.

In my experience though, working with autistic children, most kids did not appear perfectly normal before 2 years- usually parents had noticed something before that time, so probably it's pretty clear whether a kid has autism or CDD.



No, that may be true of Asperger's Disorder, but difficulty with language is necessary for a diagnosis of Autistic Disorder. Here is another excerpt from the DSM-IV-TR criteria for autism:



You *have* to have problems with communication in order to have autism.

Last edited by LostInSpace on 12 May 2008, 11:25 am, edited 1 time in total.

I got the 20% figure from Professor Attwood; he said that effective intervention was and is the key for improving the verbal ability of Autistic Individuals. ABA and speech therapy being the two forms of treatment.

Whilst I've always been relatively "mild" in verbal impairment (a two year delay; nothing too serious), my mother is certain that the speech therapy I had as soon as I started talking in sentences made my language what it is today, and without it, I wouldn't have improved. I know it helped me; I can pass as an "aspie" in a one on one environment with a professional (albeit, not a peer).

Exactly. I lost it somewhere between 12-15 months, not sure on the timing, after gaining a few words (starting a little early).

Also, it's quite common for people who lose it in that manner and at that time period to get it back, just like it's common for people who have a plain old ordinary delay to speak. Lots of verbal autistic people I know lost speech around the same time I did. And I regained it for a time too, the only reason I don't have it now is because of much slower losses from the ages of about 11ish-21ish (which are not unheard of but not the most common configuration either; I know several other people that happened to, including people who had a more ordinary speech delay early in life, and even some who had no delays or losses at all prior to that, all of whom were already dxed with autism or AS though).

Some autistic people never speak, some people gain speech and then lose it, and the vast majority, whether delayed or having lost speech at a certain point, do at some point speak later on.

rett syndrome is listed as a comorbid condition with autism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditions ... e_syndrome. If retts is comorbid why not CDD? just because medical inforamtion does not appear in the DSM does not mean it should be cast away. The DSM IV is a very controversial book. They have oppositional defiant disorder .