What is the difference between autism and pervasive developmental disorder (PDD)?
Autism and PDD are both behavioral conditions. At this point, there are no medical tests for autism. It is diagnosed based on the child's behavior.
Children diagnosed with PDD tend to fall into two groups:
1. Children with very mild autistic symptoms or,
2. Some autistic symptoms in a child who has other severe neurological problems.
Therefore, a child diagnosed with PDD may appear almost normal while others may have severe neurological problems such as epilepsy, microencephaly or cerebral palsy. However, autism and PDD diagnoses are NOT precise. They are based mostly on behavior only. In the future, however, using brain scans will certainly give a more precise diagnosis. But today, such brain scan is not yet available to help diagnose both PDD and autism.
