What's The Difference Between Asperger's , Autism and PDD-NOS?

After we received our son's diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome, I spent a fair bit of time trying to figure out the difference between Asperger's Syndrome, Autism and PDD-NOS, wondering if my child had the correct diagnosis. Whenever a parent with an Asperger's child was in the #autism chatroom, I drove them crazy with questions about how to tell the difference, just so I could understand it better.

The professionals who diagnose these conditions use the diagnostic criteria in the American Psychiatric DSMV book, but I think that even they have some difficulty in getting a child into the right category because each child is very different. One child may have all the symptoms of Autism but because the child is verbal, he may be diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. Another child has very few symptoms of Autism but may be diagnosed with PDD-NOS. PDD-NOS means Pervasive Development Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified. This means that the child didn't neatly fit into the other categories but may have mild autism.

When you are looking for information about Asperger's Syndrome, it helps to read about PDD-NOS and Autism as well because it gives you a well rounded picture of the Autism Spectrum. At one end of the spectrum are children with PDD-NOS or Asperger's Syndrome (and even then there can be children with "mild" Asperger's Syndrome or "severe") and at the other end of the spectrum are the children with Autism (ranging from "mild" to "severe"). High Functioning Autism is very much like Asperger's Syndrome except that the professionals seem to apply that diagnosis to children who were non-verbal when they were younger.

I found that the difference between these three conditions would appear to be in how the child behaves, what symptoms the child has and behaviours that occur, or what difficulties the child has with social communication. There is an excellent article outlining the difference between these disorders at: http://web1.tch.harvard.edu/ici/publicat... and it is well worth your time to read through. The author "Karen Levine" has gone to extensive lengths to explain the difference in plain english and answers many questions that parents have.

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