PDD and Proper Diagnosis

PPD is the term for Pervasive Development Disorders. A child with this diagnosis means that your child falls under the umbrella of Autism. This is a vaige diagnosis as it could fall under so many things. When my daughter was diagnosed with PDD, they told me that she had mild Autism meaning she was doing some things according to their age appropriate stage of development. This left me a bit confused because in my opinion as a mother, if she was able to do some things than she would be able to eventually be "cured" and off the spectrum. They quickly corrected me by saying that she could never be "cured' of Autism but could be taught to function independently. This saddened me but it did not stop me from believing that it is possible. A great article to read on the subject could be found at http://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_whatis_PDD.

Detecting Autism

My earlier post was about signs of autism and I forgot to mention a really good website for detecting signs of autism from infancy to toddler. I gave a general idea of what to look for. This site goes into more detail.http://www.autismspectrumdisorderfoundation.org/detectingautism.html

Signs of Autism

As a mother with a child diagnosed with Autism I know how concerning this diagnosis is. Since my daughter Amani was an infant I noticed that she was lagging behind developmentally, but I thought nothing of it since she and her sister were born premature. I thought, ahh this is something that happens to all preterm twins, they'll catch up. Time went by and now family memebers were noticing the delay but when they would bring it to my husband and I attention, we would become defensive and say "she's alright shes just behind". People stated to ask me if Amani had a hearing problem because she would not respond to her name being called. This is when I started to get concerned. My sister in law referred me to an Early Intervention agency and I called immediately. Soon I had both my girls evaluated. This was the beginning of our journey.

 By the time I had them evaluated they were already two years old. If I would have accepted my fears from the beginning I could have had them receiving services much earlier. If you suspect that your child has autism or a leaning disability, get them evaluated as soon as posssible.
Some signs to watch for are , not responding to there name or sound, staring off or daydreaming excessively, infrequent eye contact, not attempting to speak or form words. These are some signs that I myself noticed in my child. If you see some of these signs setup an appointment with your child's pediatrician and voice your concerns. The earlier the better.