GDD and learning difficulties.

[misscutandstick]

Thought i would start a new thread (didnt want to hyjack another thread) to ask everyones thoughts.

lou stated "I'm really struggling with GDD as a term. Surely GDD means they have LD?"

DS5 is autistic and is also developementally delayed by 2yrs, bringing his physical age of 3.4y to around a development age of 12-18mth. He is non-verbal. He also has some scarring to his brain, suggesting brain injury before actual birth.

HE CAN
sign around 80 signs (mostly nouns, a few verbs)
Picture match
colour match
differentiate between sizes (his lining up of trains tells us this much)
feed himself (will only use spoon, but with unerring accuracy)
do the majority of things a 12-18mth does.

HE doesnt
Help with dressing
'get' danger (but does an average 12-=18mth old?)

Things he does and knows suggests that he does not have traditional 'learning disability', however he has a very great delay in development, is this caused by learning insufficiencies? (obviously not asking for diagnosis-by-pc here )

In YOUR opinion would you say that the delay itself IS a learning difficulty? Or could the delay be a separate issue causing the lack of learning to age related ability?

(to put in perspective, you couldnt teach an average 8y/0 degree level computer programming as they simply arent ready for that level of learning yet. perhaps its the same thing with developmentally delayed children?)

Dunno really, whats YOUR thoughts???

This thread makes so much sense to me, I have been thinking about whether there is a difference between LD and GDD so much recently.

My lovely little ds3 is in the very early stages of assessment at the local CDC, paed has said (verbally) he has GDD and is hypermobile.

Had to change physio as she was just utterly condescending, patronizing 'look mummy you just have to encourage him with different textures on his feet, sit him on a stool and he'll be walking next time we see him....' this about 23 month old ds who could hardly pull himself up to standing, dragged left leg when crawling, found cruising incredibly hard and only tiptoed only left foot and mostly with right also.

We now see head of physio who is fantastic, she assessed him fully, actually did physio with him and has said he is low tone in his trunk/shoulders with abnormal reflexes and high tone in his legs. She thinks he may have very mild cp.

DS does progress but it is so much slower than his peers, as he gets older the gap widens. He commando crawled at 14.5 months, crawled at 18 months, cruised at 20 months (but hardly does now) at 2.1 years he is nowhere near walking but can pull himself up, has a mild left sided weakness and crawls on fingertips with thumbs adducted. He is developing some speech and has begun pointing at things and trying to name them. emotionally he strops like a 2 yro! Socially he interacts but more at a 1 yro level.

DS also has skin markings that may be diagnostic of a chromosomal disorder of which up to 2/3 of sufferers (right word?) have LD. We are currently awaiting blood results for muscular dystrophy, fragile x and other chromosomes.

I think that GDD is almost used as a 'wait and see term' until a more fitting diagnosis is made usually involving LD.

It is very comforting to hear from others here about their DC, the more obvious ds' delay becomes the more detached/isolated I become/feel from friends with same age DC.

my son also has gdd ,had blood tests all is fine just waiting for one more to come back ,he only says 2 words ,he mostly babbles ,hes only just started to walk thease past 6 weels and hes 2.9 got early entry to a sn school nursey dont know why hes got gdd !

hes had tests for frag x,chromos,and md all came back fine just waiting for one more to come bk

Hi dd is 3.10 with GDD.

Assessed as 18-2 THOUGH SPEECH 9-20MNTHS

She can walk unaided except afos butis wobbly and tires easily.
Cannot dress (Willattempt to put shoes on/pull up socks but cannot differentiate between top and trousers for instance and will try to put trousers on head,bless)
Still doubly incontinent.
Will feed self with fork and spoon.
Cannot differentiate colour/size
No idea re letters/numbers
Has 8 word and 50 signs.Uses pointing/gesture mainly.
Is very loving,full of smiles and hugs.
Does get frustrated and screechy when tired
Understands simple instructions
Has no concept of "Stranger danger,or road sense or suchlike.

Hi everyone, just been reading through this,
was wondering if anyone was able to update on anything thats happened since this post.

Would be really nice to know how things are going 3 years later.

This is a really interesting thread. Today I am calling our paed because, I questioned the fact we have learning difficulties, developmental delay, speech and language delay, speech and lang difficulties, speech and lang disorder all on verious reports and asked what I should use to explain her issues eg to new holiday club. She has written a report without using ANY term at all in fact she has missed off the speech and lang altogether which, given that at nearly six D cannot even make herself understood her speech is so unclear and her language is classed as profoundly limited is a bit of a mistake!

I am interestede to know about people with scores for different ages in different area, who did the assessment? We havent had one like that since dd was three and I would like to look at progress.

I also use the age thing to explain to friends the difficulty with managing dd's behaviour or similar that she has the body of an 8 year old with hormones which are way above that but the understanding of a three year old (neurologist thinks around that) but of course it is not that simple because in some areas which don't involve language her understanding is perfect.