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Symptoms of Pervasive developmental disorders
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
- more information...»
Research symptoms & diagnosis of Pervasive developmental disorders:
- Overview -- Pervasive developmental disorders
- Diagnostic Tests for Pervasive developmental disorders
- Home Diagnostic Testing
- Doctors & Specialists
- Misdiagnosis and Alternative Diagnoses
- Hidden Causes of Pervasive developmental disorders
- Other Causes -- causes of these or similar symptoms
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
- Alternative diagnoses and misdiagnosis for Pervasive developmental disorders
- How serious is it?
- Treatments for Pervasive developmental disorders
- More about Pervasive developmental disorders
Pervasive developmental disorders: Medical Mistakes
- Concentration -- Health Mistakes
- ADHD -- Health Mistakes
- ADHD (Adults) -- Health Mistakes
- Depression -- Health Mistakes
- Bipolar -- Health Mistakes
- Sleep Disorders -- Health Mistakes
- more mistakes...»
Pervasive developmental disorders: Undiagnosed Conditions
Diseases that may be commonly undiagnosed in related medical areas:
- Brain & Neurological Disorders: Undiagnosed:
- more undiagnosed conditions...»
Home Diagnostic Testing
Home medical tests related to Pervasive developmental disorders:
- Child Behavior: Home Testing
- Child General Health: Home Testing
- Mental Health (Adults): Home Testing
- Cold & Flu: Home Testing:
- Mental Health: Home Testing:
- Brain & Neurological Disorders: Related Home Testing:
- more home tests...»
Wrongly Diagnosed with Pervasive developmental disorders?
The list of other diseases or medical conditions that may be on the differential diagnosis list of alternative diagnoses for Pervasive developmental disorders includes:
See the full list of 7 alternative diagnoses for Pervasive developmental disorders
Pervasive developmental disorders: Research Doctors & Specialists
- Baby & Newborn Health Specialists:
- Mental Health Specialists:
- Child Health Specialists (Pediatrics):
- Pediatrics (Child Health Specialist)
- Adolescent Medicine (Teen Health)
- Pediatric Allergy and Immunology (Child Allergies / Immune Diseases)
- Pediatric Cardiology (Child Heart Specialists)
- Pediatric Critical Care Medicine
- Pediatric Dentistry (Child Dental Health)
- Pediatric Dermatology (Child Skin Health)
- Pediatric Developmental Behavioral Health (Child Behavior)
- more specialists...»
Research all specialists including ratings, affiliations, and sanctions.
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.
- "The 5-Minute Pediatric Consult" (2008)
- [ read ]
Copyright notice for book excerpts: Copyright © 2008 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. All rights reserved.
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Patient Surveys for Pervasive developmental disorders
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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.
Source: Professional Guide to Diseases (Eighth Edition), 2005
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:
Source: Handbook of Diseases, 2003
Autism/Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) Spectrum:
Autism/Pervasive Developmental Disorder Spectrum - signs & symptoms
(The 5-Minute Pediatric Consult)
- Delays/impairments in language development:
- Rare cases present with “acquired epileptic aphasia” (paroxysmal electroencephalogram in sleep)
- Marked inability to initiate and sustain conversation (when speech is present)
- Cognitive delays
- Impairment in eye contact, facial expression, nonverbal social behaviors
- Impaired social interactions
- Impaired peer relationships
- Stereotypies (e.g., rocking, hand flapping)
- Restricted range of interests/activities
- Attachment to unusual objects, fascination with parts of objects
- Behavioral rigidity, distress with changes in routine
- Lack of imaginary play appropriate to developmental level
- In Rett disorder: Scoliosis, breathing problems, seizures, motor problems
Source: The 5-Minute Pediatric Consult, 2008
Article Excerpts About Symptoms of Pervasive developmental disorders:
Symptoms may include communication problems such as using and understanding language; difficulty relating to people, objects, and events; unusual play with toys and other objects; difficulty with changes in routine or familiar surroundings, and repetitive body movements or behavior patterns. (Source: excerpt from NINDS Pervasive Developmental Disorders Information Page: NINDS)
Medical articles and books on symptoms:
These general reference articles may be of interest in relation to medical signs and symptoms of disease in general:
- Diagnostic Testing for a Diagnosis of Pervasive developmental disorders
- Research Alternative Diagnoses for Pervasive developmental disorders
- How serious is Pervasive developmental disorders?
- More about Pervasive developmental disorders
- Online Diagnosis
- Self Diagnosis Pitfalls
- Pitfalls of Online Diagnosis
- Symptoms of the Silent Killer Diseases
- Lesser known silent killer diseases
- Books on signs and symptoms
Full list of premium articles on symptoms and diagnosis
About signs and symptoms of Pervasive developmental disorders:
The symptom information on this page attempts to provide a list of some possible signs and symptoms of Pervasive developmental disorders. This signs and symptoms information for Pervasive developmental disorders has been gathered from various sources, may not be fully accurate, and may not be the full list of Pervasive developmental disorders signs or Pervasive developmental disorders symptoms. Furthermore, signs and symptoms of Pervasive developmental disorders may vary on an individual basis for each patient. Only your doctor can provide adequate diagnosis of any signs or symptoms and whether they are indeed Pervasive developmental disorders symptoms.
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