Symptoms of Pervasive developmental disorders

List of symptoms of Pervasive developmental disorders:

The list of signs and symptoms mentioned in various sources for Pervasive developmental disorders includes the 8 symptoms listed below:

• Communication problems
• Language difficulty
• Impaired social interaction
• Difficulty relating to people
• Unusual play
• Difficulty adapting to changes
• Repetitive body movements
• Repetitive behavior patterns

Note that Pervasive developmental disorders symptoms usually refers to various symptoms known to a patient, but the phrase Pervasive developmental disorders signs may refer to those signs only noticable by a doctor.

More ways to research these symptoms: To research other symptoms use the symptom center, or to research causes of more than one symptom in combination, try our multi-symptom search.

Research More About Pervasive developmental disorders

Do I have Pervasive developmental disorders?

• Pervasive developmental disorders: Introduction
• Pervasive developmental disorders: Diagnostic Testing to confirm diagnosis
• Home Diagnostic Testing
• How serious is it?
• Treatments for Pervasive developmental disorders
• More about Pervasive developmental disorders

Home Diagnostic Testing

Home medical tests related to Pervasive developmental disorders:

• Cold & Flu: Home Testing:
  • Home Fever Tests
  • Home Ear Infection Tests
  • Home Flu Tests
• Mental Health: Home Testing:
  • Home Emotional Stress Tests

More about symptoms of Pervasive developmental disorders:

More information about symptoms of Pervasive developmental disorders and related conditions:

• Other diseases with similar symptoms and common misdiagnoses
• Tests to determine if these are the symptoms of Pervasive developmental disorders
• Risk factors for Pervasive developmental disorders

Other Possible Causes of these Symptoms

Click on any of the symptoms below to see a full list of other causes including diseases, medical conditions, toxins, drug interactions, or drug side effect causes of that symptom.

• Communication problems - see all causes of Developmental problems
• Difficulty adapting to changes - see all causes of Society problems
• Difficulty relating to people - see all causes of Social problems
• Impaired social interaction - see all causes of Social problems
• Language difficulty - see all causes of Language problems
• Repetitive behavior patterns - see all causes of Behavioral symptoms
• Repetitive body movements - see all causes of Movement symptoms
• Unusual play - see all causes of Society problems

Medical Books Online about Pervasive developmental disorders

Medical Books Excerpts Excerpts of published medical book chapters related to Pervasive developmental disorders are available from published medical books for more detailed information about Pervasive developmental disorders.

Copyright notice for book excerpts: Copyright © 2008 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. All rights reserved.

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Symptoms of Pervasive developmental disorders: Online Medical Books

16 MEDICAL BOOKS ONLINE! Review excerpts from medical books online, free, without registration, for more information about the symptoms of Pervasive developmental disorders.

Autistic disorder: Signs and symptoms
(Professional Guide to Diseases (Eighth Edition))

A primary characteristic of infantile autistic disorder is unresponsiveness to people. Infants with this disorder won’t cuddle, avoid eye contact and facial expressions, and are indifferent to affection and physical contact. Parents may report that the child becomes rigid or flaccid when held, cries when touched, and shows little or no interest in human contact.

As the infant grows older, his smiling response is delayed or absent. He doesn’t lift his arms in anticipation of being picked up or form an attachment to a specific caregiver. Furthermore, he doesn’t show the anxiety about strangers that’s typical in the 8-month-old infant.

A child who’s autistic fails to learn the usual socialization games (peek-a-boo, pat-a-cake, or bye-bye). He’s likely to relate to others only to fill a physical need and then without eye contact or speech. The end result may be mutual withdrawal between parents and child.

Severe language impairment and lack of imaginative play are characteristic. The child may be mute or may use immature speech patterns. For example, he may use a single word to express a series of activities; he may say “ground” when referring to any step in using a playground slide.

His speech commonly shows echolalia (meaningless repetition of words or phrases addressed to him) and pronoun reversal (“you go walk” when he means, “I want to go for a walk”). When answering a question, he may simply repeat the question to mean yes and remain silent to mean no.

He shows little imagination, seldom acting out adult roles or engaging in fantasy play. In fact, he may insist on lining up an exact number of toys in the same manner over and over or repetitively mimic the actions of someone else.

A child who’s autistic shows characteristically bizarre behavior patterns, such as screaming fits, rituals, rhythmic rocking, arm flapping, crying without tears, and disturbed sleeping and eating patterns. His behavior may be self-destructive (hand biting, eye gouging, hair pulling, or head banging) or self-stimulating (playing with his own saliva, feces, and urine). His bizarre responses to his environment include an extreme compulsion for sameness.

In response to sensory stimuli, he may underreact or overreact and he may ignore objects — dropping those he’s given or not looking at them — or he may become excessively absorbed in them — continually watching the objects or the movement of his own fingers over the objects. He commonly responds to stimuli by head banging, rocking, whirling, and hand flapping. He tends to avoid using sight and hearing to interact with the environment.

A child who’s autistic may exhibit additional behavioral abnormalities, such as:

❑ cognitive impairment (most have an IQ of 35 to 49)

❑ eating, drinking, and sleeping problems, for example, limiting his diet to just a few foods, excessive drinking, or repeatedly waking during the night and rocking

❑ mood disorders, including labile mood, giggling or crying without reason, lack of emotional responses, no fear of real danger but excessive fear of harmless objects, and generalized anxiety.

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Autistic disorder: Signs and symptoms
(Handbook of Diseases)

Typical features of infantile autistic disorder include unresponsiveness to people, language impairment, lack of imaginative play, bizarre behavior patterns, and abnormal reactions to sensory stimuli.

Unresponsiveness to people

Infants with this disorder avoid eye contact, have little or no facial expression, and are indifferent to affection and physical contact. Parents may report that the child becomes rigid or flaccid when held, cries when touched, and shows little or no interest in human contact.

As the infant grows older, his smiling response is delayed or absent. He doesn’t lift his arms in anticipation of being picked up or form an attachment to a specific caregiver. Nor does he show the anxiety about strangers that’s typical in the 8-month-old infant.

The autistic child fails to learn the usual socialization games (peek-a-boo, pat-a-cake, or bye-bye). He’s likely to relate to others only to fill a physical need and then without eye contact or speech. The end result may be mutual withdrawal between parents and child.

Severe language impairment

The child may be mute or may use immature speech patterns. For example, he may use a single word to express a series of activities; he may say “ground” when referring to any step in using a playground slide.

His speech commonly shows echolalia (meaningless repetition of words or phrases addressed to him) and pronoun reversal (“you go walk” when he means “I want to go for a walk”). When answering a question, he may simply repeat the question to mean yes and remain silent to mean no.

Lack of imaginative play

The child shows little imagination, seldom acting out adult roles or engaging in fantasy play. In fact, he may insist on lining up an exact number of toys in the same manner over and over or repetitively mimic the actions of someone else.

Bizarre behavior

The autistic child shows characteristically bizarre behavior patterns, such as screaming fits, rituals, rhythmic rocking, arm flapping, crying without tears, and disturbed sleeping and eating patterns. His behavior may be self-destructive (hand biting, eye gouging, hair pulling, or head banging) or self-stimulating (playing with his own saliva, stool, and urine).

His bizarre responses to his environment include an extreme compulsion for sameness.

Abnormal response
to sensory stimuli

The autistic child may underreact or overreact to sensory stimuli; he may ignore objects — dropping those he’s given or not looking at them — or he may become excessively absorbed in them — continually watching the objects or the movement of his own fingers over the objects. He commonly responds to stimuli by head banging, rocking, whirling, and hand flapping. He tends to avoid using sight and hearing to interact with the environment.

Other behavioral abnormalities

Other characteristics of an autistic child include: