So…. Lachlan attended the SEDU in 2004 and 2005. He repeated a 2nd year at pre-school.  

Also in this time, we were seeing many different specialist’s through the public health system. Speech assessments, hearing tests, blood tests etc.   I knew Lachlan

Near the end of 2005, it was decided that Lachlan would need extra help at school, but diagnosing him would be hard. He did not have a certain number of characteristics, of just 1 thing. A decision by the public health system would be to let him go to main stream schooling and see where it went from there.

Mid year 2006, Year 1, I would have to get a letter from his teacher, and certain questionnaires filled out about how Lachlan was doing.   Well his learning was no going so well, and the Guidance Officer was involved. This was such a long process, my husband and I had been dealing with this since early 2004! And finally we were hoping to get some answers.

Thanks to a FANTASTIC teacher and a WONDERFUL guidance officer, we finally came to a diagnosis which was Pervasive Developmental Disorder.  

PDD is a term referring to a couple of disorders characterized by: impairments in social interaction, impairment in verbal and nonverbal communication, and a restrictive, stereotypic pattern of behaviors. There is a large amount of differences in symptoms among people with PDD and again a large amount of differences in how severe these symptoms are. There are a few disorders that fall into this category these are Autism, Asperger's Syndrome, Rett's Syndrome, etc.   Symptoms of PDD can include communication problems such as:

• Trouble using and understanding language
• Having trouble with relating to people, objects, and events
• Playing unusually with toys and other objects
• Finding changes in routine or familiar surroundings hard
• Repeating body movements and/or behaving the sameover and over again

Kids with PDD have a diverse range of abilities, intelligence and behaviors. Some kids do not speak , some will speak a small amount , and some kids have fairly normal language development. Kids with this usually have repetitive play and social skills which are obvious.   This can be diagnosed the best way with a multi disciplinary assessment. This involves your child having tests with a number of professionals, who will then give you the information you need to decide about programs and treatments that are best for you to use for you own child..    

Treating PDD Early intervention is important in treating a PDD. Even though there is not a cure, there is definitely hope for Kids with these disorders. Identifying and starting work with these kids early is the key to helping with this. The main thing aimed for is to maximize communication with kids with an autistic spectrum disorder. Therapy for children with PDD should be done individually as each child's disorder is different and has different needs. Some kids with these disorders do well in small classes with lots of one-on-one attention. Others do well in standard classrooms with some kind of support. The thing that is aimed for with treatment is to get kids with PDDs to a point where they can be placed back in a mainstream classroom into a regular classroom. They may also require special programs and support services, including speech and language therapy.

Helping Your Child Once you learn your child has a PDD, it's important to get help. Because the needs of children with these disorders are different, you may want to set up an individualized education plan (IEP) for your child. You'll want to incorporate social skills and communication into the program, and most experts agree it should be highly structured. Maximized speech and language intervention is important, as is the use of behavior modification and rewards to try to stop problem behaviors and to encourage all types of communication. Encourage your child with hugs and praise, as well as rewards that stimulate social interaction (like a trip to the park). If your child is in school, talk with your child's teacher and try using some of the same rewards and behavior modification techniques at home. That way, your child will get a consistent message at home and at school.

Some information I have used was provided by:

http://www.kidshealth.org/parent/medical/learning/pervasive_develop_disorders_p2.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pervasive_developmental_disorder