PDD

Last night I was checking out the Autism forums that moms sometimes post on and there was a link to a test for PDD (Pervasive Developmental Disorder) levels. I took it for Nikko and he scored a 125, which according to the test results, is severe PDD. I googled PDD to get a better meaning of the word and I discovered that PDD and autism are often used interchangeably, but that's not really the case. PDD is the big blanket term for developmental disorders, and autism is the most recognizable of the bunch. There is also PDD-NOS (Not Otherwise Specified). This is another type of autism, where Aspergers falls on this spectrum. I wondered if Nikko would apply to any of this, and wikipedia says that PDD is often used for children under 3 or 4 who don't have a formal autism diagnosis. Some people believe that autism is not properly diagnosed when the child is younger than 3.

Cyndi came over early today and saw that both kids were being Velcro Men. We were in the kitchen for the first half and then moved to the living room for the second half. Audrey went down for a nap in the middle of it all, and Ronin was being very anti-social toward her. Cyndi gave me a checklist called the Hawaii Early Learning Profile (HELP). It shows skills/behavior, speech and motor skills milestones from birth to age three. I'm glad she gave this to me so I can see where my kids fall on this checklist and also see what Nikko can be working on. Great tool.

Today Nikko was fine, he didn't do anything extraordinary. Sorry to say. I hope to get more out of him tomorrow.