very confused - lost diagnosis or mistake?

[zumbaleena]

We have a 3 yr old dd who was diagnosed as pdd back in our home country. we have since then done solid ABA, GFCF diet and supplements. for the purpose of statementing and follow up, we went to see a very good dev ped Dr Denise Challis today. She administered the griffith's mental test assessment and 3di interview for us and she thinks dd is NOT autistic. Blimey! My world has changed and I am in a spin....My ABA consultant with whom we had our first workshop last weekend - DF - said the same thing to me - that he would be willing to stick his neck out and bet that dd will not get an autism diagnosis now. I am very confused - is this a case of having lost a diagnosis or was she never on the spectrum in the first place? or have we all just made a big mistake?

It's tricky when children are very young. Speech and language delays can mimic ASD, as can hearing issues, and sensory processing issues...etc.

pdd-nos or atypical autism is a dx given in USA and maybe elsewhere. In effect it means a child meets only 2 out of 3 of the requirements for asd.
So language impairment - social impairment - repetitive behaviours
So if only ticks 2 out of 3 boxes would not get asd dx in UK as must have all 3.
Which does not mean cannot have significant difficulties in 2 areas, just that does not meet criteria for the third.
There are lots of other conditions which mimic autism / share traits eg many dyspraxic children, SLI etc but don't have the full bundle
Many people think all these conditions overlap and perhaps in future MRI scans will be the norm for dx and will produce more guidance as to parts of the brain are different and affect which skills.