Child acting crazy - 8 yr old Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)-not otherwise specified girl

meameame12

New Member
Hello,

Our girl was recently diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)-not otherwise specified on the ADOS test. Total score, for what its worth, was a 36. Daughter was awesome before, very compliant, hardly ever any outburts, no tantrums, etc. She was though, known as the defiant child. Now, however, she is acting extremely crazy when she gets angry--biting, hitting HARD (siblings and myself), screaming in public when she gets aggravated, and simply DOES NOT CARE.

Her philosophy is: you hit me, I hit you. you yell at me, i yell at you. i give the orders. i run the house.

And..she is not joking.

Of course, this has spilled over into our marriage (my wife and i fight a lot now). we have 4 kids. She is eldest. Other ages are 7,3, and 2. Only 2 yr old is a boy, all rest are girls.

Our daughter was again the most compliant person ever. But we saw radical changes this past year.

We went through 6 doctors before she was diagnosed. Every doctor said, no Autism, we were nuts. But we persevered with the ADOS test at Childrens Specialized Hospital!

Dr also said she has high anxiety. We just get strattera. Not sure if it will work, so far it has not.

Ive no idea what to do at this point.
 

fun fam

New Member
That is really interesting that she has changed so much so quickly....did anything happen recently to add to her anxiety? Is there bipolar in your family?
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Hi there. For what it's worth, most doctors don't know how to diagnose autism. But you can't diagnose it just by the ADOS either. Did you see a neuropsychologist? If not, I'd run to one fast, although there is usually a long waiting list. Even many psychiatrists don't know how to diagnose any form of autism. It could very well be that she has Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)-not otherwise specified and something happened to kick up the symptoms, but it could also be a misdiagnosis.

You don't give us much background on her. Did she have any speech delays and trouble understanding how to interact with her same age peers? Late pottying? Obsessive interests? Any strange quriks like head banging or hand flapping or lip smacking or making odd throat noises? Does she talk about unrelated things during a conversation? Does she know how to transition well from one activity to another? How is she in school? My son was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)-not otherwise specified and as far as I know you have symptoms from the beginning...you know something is "off."

Most importantly, get him to a neuropsychologist. They know how to test for autistic spectrum disorder. It will take 6-10 hours and you will fill out a lot of forms and it is far more comprehensive than the ADOS.

Good luck.
 

meameame12

New Member
So a little background: our daughter was born slightly early, via c-section, at 38.5 weeks, due to low amniotic fluid. She had issues latching to mom, for about 2 months. Finally, she latched. However, mom returned to work about a mth later, and daughter had issues readjusting again to the nipple. At age of 4, we realized she had a eating problem--she would never take any solids. At all. So, we had to mush everything up for her to eat. We took her to a eating/food specialist, at a rehab center, and they worked with her for about 4 months. They told us her issue was basically mental, based on the food feels in her mouth. At this while, she still was "afraid" to defecate in the toilet. She urinated with no issue, but defecated in diapers til around the age of 5.

Her teachers reported her isolating herself with imaginary play, would not join groups, and would simply do her own thing. It got so severe, I withdrew her from K. She then repeated K, with issues of a new teacher saying she "patrols the actions of others." 1st grade teacher said she has severe focusing problems, hums a lot in class to herself. 2nd grade teacher told us he suspected Aspergers with her. Mind you, I never told him about her previous issues, as we had moved to a new school district. He even reported her "crawling" outside of the doorway, to go to the bathroom. Obviously, I was shocked at this.
Oddly though, she does have a lot of headaches--almost, daily.
She has extremely fast speech, is very smart, and is super quick to learn concepts. Just socially...is oblivious.

In any case, that is some background info.

Going to bipolarity, my wifes dad has it extreme--he has not worked in 30 plus years, and has been on lithium ever since. But that is it for bipolarity.

What is a neuropsy? Is that a neuro psychiatrist? Or a psychologist? We did see a clinical neurologist, who looked at her for 10 minutes, asked a few questions, and said, she doesnt have Aspergers. He did order an MRI, which showed everything is normal.

What do you think?
 

justour2boys

Momto2Boys
I can't comment on the test or diagnosis, but I do have experience with Strattera. My oldest is using it and it can takes weeks to "start working". Meaning it can take days to weeks for the body/brain to start responding to the medication. For us the improvement was gradual, not "sudden", each day became better that the day before. So I would encourage you to give the Strattera some time before you give up.
 
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