Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) Screening Assessment

Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) Screening Assessment

Pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) now known as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) refers to a group of conditions that affect average development. It may appear as a delay in development of social and communication skills. Signs of this condition usually become noticeable around the age of 3 years, but can appear from early infancy.


Social and


1. Little interest or pleasure in doing things
2. Feeling down, depressed, or hopeless
3. Trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much
4. Feeling tired or having little energy
5. Poor appetite or overeating
6. Feeling bad about yourself – or that you are a failure or have let yourself or your family down
7. Trouble concentrating on things, such as reading the newspaper or watching television
8. Moving or speaking so slowly that other people could have noticed? Or the opposite – being so fidgety or restless that you have been moving around a lot more than usual
9. Thoughts that you would be better off dead or of hurting yourself in some way
If you checked off any problems, how difficult have these problems made it for you to do your work, take care of things at home, or get along with other people?

Behavioral


1. Little interest or pleasure in doing things
2. The child displays an obsessive interest in narrow or atypical topics (is ritualistic)
3. The child is rule bound (sees things in black and white)
4. The child displays unusual eating habits
5. The child engages in perseverative behaviors
6. The child’s behavior is rigid (has difficulty with changes and transitions, needs sameness, needs order)
7. The child is a perfectionist (cannot tolerate mistakes, resists learning new tasks)
8. The child appears anxious

Speech and Language


1. The child uses words in a peculiar manner
2. The child does not ask for the meaning of words
3. The child does not ask for help
4. The child does not make jokes and has difficulty understanding joking and teasing
5. The child does not initiate conversation
6. The child has difficulty maintaining conversation in a reciprocal format (conversational give-and-take)
7. The child does not inquire about others
8. The child “sounds” like an adult
9. The child says things that embarrasses others (comments on physical characteristics, asks probing questions)
10. The child engages in obsessive questioning
11. The child engages in obsessive talking about specific topics
12. The child does not maintain another’s topic when it does not pertain to his or her own special interest
13. The child has a large vocabulary consisting primarily of nouns and verbs
14. The child does not use language socially (focuses conversations on facts or special interests)
15. The child confuses “he” and “she”
16. The child displays unusual intonation, pitch, and/or loudness
17. The child uses “language scripts” when conversing (language consists of scripts or parts of scripts from movies/TV/books)
18. The child interprets language on a literal level
19. The child misses the point or main idea of a conversation
20. The child insists upon verbal rituals (repeats scripts from movies/TV/books, shares too many details)
21. The child does not exhibit gestural communication
22. The child has difficulty maintaining the topic in a conversation

Cognition


1. The child has difficulty understanding abstract concepts (such as guessing, wishing, time sequence)
2. The child displays strong memory skills
3. The child has difficulty with fine motor skills
4. The child interprets the behavior of others on a literal level
5. The child does not generalize learning from one situation to another
6. The child is easily distracted
7. The child has difficulty sustaining attention

Sensory


1. The child displays unusual sensitivity to noises
2. The child displays unusual sensitivity to smells
3. The child displays unusual sensitivity to tastes
4. The child displays unusual sensitivity to textures
5. The child displays unusual sensitivity to being touched
6. The child engages in repetitive or stereotypic movements
7. The child displays difficulty with motor functioning/planning (tying shoes, riding a bike)