what does GDD mean in your house?

[lac13ma1]

This might sound like a silly question but i was just wondering if any ones lo have been diagnosed with GDD and apart from not hitting milestones are there any other behaviours/traits that your dc has that may some how be related to the GDD.
It's just that my dd has GDD and really i know so little about it.

Thank you in advance.

Every child with GDD is different, it is not a real diagnosis, that's the problem. You have kids who are verbal, kids who are not, kids who walk and kids who have troubles walking for a long time...We went to Gosh two days ago and all the tests have been inconclusive, so ds is also stuck with GDD... I'm trying to be realistic and from what I understand most kids with GDD go on to have a learning disability and do not catch up really - hope I don't upset you, it's just my opinion based on my own research and my own husband doesn't agree with it :)

I totally understand what your saying. I like to try and be quite realistic as well. Some people take it as being too negative, but whats the point in buttering things up just to create false hopes.

I'm just interested to know in how widely they use GDD. and any other things that might be incorperated into it. If that makes sense.

I think at some point later on they do asses for IQ and social skills and give another label - but I do know of teenagers still having GDD, so no constistency really I'm afraid :( If I understood it correctly, if there was no birth/ preagnancy trauma/ infection there is an underlying genetic cause, but they just don't know it yet. Neurologist said in the next 5-10 years many more genetic conditions will be 'discovered' , apparently in the past 70 percent of GDD kids were undiagnosed, now it is 50 percent. Ds is taling part in the Gosh study. How is your little one doing?

But to answer your question I think many difficulties with behaviour come from impaired communication skills- just like with Asd kids. And lots of GDD kids have got autistic traits...

Where did you find out all of this? Not even any of the doctors ive seen have been able to tell me anything like that. It's always "well I'm afraid I'm not in a position to say that right now" ...... REALLY??
Must say I'm impressed though. Every one I've ever spoken to is just the same as me in knowing Absolutley nothing.

What is the GOSH study?

My dd is 4 she did like a little mini iQ thing in school the other day. With the e/p there was 4 sections
On one she scores just above the average (non verbal reasoning, picture similarities)
On two she was just under the lower average range score (verbal comprehension and naming vocabulary)
And th other she didn't do too well (block building) but she can do this but she likes to do two blocks and then knock them down and then thinks she's hillarious. The e/p said she had her own agenda for this task so the scor was unfair really.
But she wouldn't have scored as highly in September when she first started nursery. So she has made progress Definatley.

How old is you ds

Lack your dd doesn't sound so far behind! My ds will be 3 in November, started walking recently and talking as well ( about 20 words). His mental age is about 15 months. Look up Swan UK - charity for gdd kids with unknown underlying cause, I think they explain about the study as well. Doctors tend to be vague, we were lucky with neurologist, I asked her to be frank with us. My poor husband is always asking if ds will catch up and they all said something non commital, just the neurologist told him straight that ds will probably never catch up. I do feel, however, from friend's experiences that some kids in UK are labelled GDD wrongly as the diagnostics for example for developmental language disorders ate quite poor here. Altough this does not apply to my ds, he is behind in everything except for fine motor skills.

you might find this a useful read if you haven't already seen it.

GDD is only really a label while they try to figure out what a diagnosis may be. My dd3 originally had the GDD label, she's now been diagnosed with a genetic syndrome so the GDD label has been removed.