DIAGNOSTIC RULES FOR CHILDREN WITH PDD-NOS AND MULTIPLE COMPLEX DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDER

This study was designed to examine the classification performance of d iagnostic rules for pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise spe cified (PDD-NOS) and multiple complex developmental disorder(McDD), wi th clinical diagnosis as the gold standard. McDD is an heuristic conce pt of a developmental disorder characterised by social impairments, af fective dysregulation, and thought disturbance. Detailed information o n the symptoms, reliably extracted from the charts of 103 children wit h PDD-NOS and McDD, 32 with autistic disorder, and 96 with non-PDD dis orders, was used to determine the presence of the DSM-IV criteria of a utistic disorder and the criteria of McDD. A scoring rule for PDD-NOS based on a short set of seven DSM-IV criteria with a cut-off point of three items and one social interaction item set as mandatory had the b est balance between high sensitivity and high specificity. The most ef fective and simple rule based on McDD criteria had a cut-off of three items, out of six items of anxieties and thought disturbance.