Hey, can you guys explain to me the distinction between IDD and autism? Why are we more convinced she has IDD than autism and what is the significance of that? Does she not have both? Is one so much more obvious and what does that mean? Help me out, please.
None of us are medical professionals so, we're basing this on what knowledge we do have of these conditions. I think she has both IDD and autism but she displays stronger/more traits of IDD than of autism. (some of the following is taken from websites online)
IDD refers to 'intellectual developmental delay and/or disability. In simple terms, it can mean that IDD children are much slower in hitting their developmental milestones as well as difficulty achieving them completely. Sometimes this delay is temporary and they eventually catch up. Sometimes it's permanent. Children with intellectual disability learn more slowly than a typical child. Children may take longer to learn language, develop social skills, and take care of their personal needs, such as dressing or eating. learning will take them longer, require more repetition, and skills may need to be adapted to their learning levels. An IDD child has low adaptive ability, which describes the skills needed to live in an independent manner including communication, social skills and self-help skills. IDD can mean difficulty remembering things, being able to master dressing themselves, bathing themselves, inability to connect actions with consequences, behavior problems such as explosive tantrums, difficulty with problem solving, reasoning, and logical thinking. They may have impairment with their motor skills.
ASD or autism spectrum disorder can have a wide range of characteristics and not every autistic person will have the same traits. Sometimes even if they do share the same trait, it's at different levels of severity or intensity. ASD traits can include:
Avoiding eye contact
Delayed speech and communication skills
Reliance on rules and routines
Being upset by relatively minor changes
Unexpected reactions to sounds, tastes, sights, touch and smells
Difficulty understanding other people’s emotions
Focusing on or becoming obsessed by a narrow range of interests or objects
Engaging in repetitive behavior such as flapping hands or rocking
Children not responding to their name by 12 months
Children not pointing at distant objects by 14 months
While Abbie DOES display many autistic characteristics, she displays more characteristics of IDD and more profoundly. The significance of this, why do we keep pointing this out, is that Asa and Pricilla focus almost exclusively on the autism and attribute pretty much all of her traits and behaviors to autism. This is inaccurate and misleading. They're giving the impression that this is what autism looks like when that is not the truth. I'm sure our autistic users on here can give better insights to this.
The other problem with this is that they don't seem to take her IDD into account when teaching her things or handling her behaviors, her needs etc. It's like if someone had crohn's disease and you gave them treatment for someone with diabetes. It's not the right sort of help and she's not going to get as much out of it as she could.
I'm done ranting for now... lol.. Anyone else who wants to add to this or to correct me... please go ahead.