Brief Report: An Unusual Manifestation of Diagnostic Overshadowing of Pervasive Developmental Disorder—Not Otherwise Specified: A Five Year Longitudinal Case Study

• Published in: Journal of autism and developmental disorders Vol. 43; no. 6; pp. 1491 - 1494
• Main Authors: Meera, S. S., Kaipa, Ramesh, Thomas, Jaslin, Shivashankar, N.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston Springer US 01.06.2013; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Anxiety Disorders; Anxiety, Separation - diagnosis; Audiology; Autism; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Biological and medical sciences; Brief Report; Case reports; Child; Child and School Psychology; Child clinical studies; Child Development Disorders, Pervasive - diagnosis; Clinical Diagnosis; Communication Disorders; Communication Skills; Comorbidity; Developmental disorders; Diagnosis, Differential; Disability Identification; Exhibits; Expressive Language; Female; Females; Humans; Hyperactivity; Infantile autism; Language Acquisition; Language and communication disorders; Language Tests; Longitudinal Studies; Medical sciences; Mental Disorders; Mental Health; Mothers; Neurosciences; Nonverbal Communication; Pediatrics; Pervasive Developmental Disorders; Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; Psychiatry; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Public Health; Rating Scales; Receptive Language; Resistance to Change; Separation Anxiety; Severity (of Disability); Severity of Illness Index; Speech Language Pathology; Symptoms (Individual Disorders); Time Factors; Young Children; Pervasive developmental disorder; Diagnostic overshadowing; Separation anxiety disorder; Speech language pathologist; Follow-up; Human; Preschool age; Anxiety disorder; Developmental disorder; Language disorder; Case study; Communication disorder; Concomitant disease; School age; Follow up study; Diagnosis; Child
• ISSN: 0162-3257; 1573-3432
• DOI: 10.1007/s10803-012-1691-9

Children with communication disorders present with a range of comorbid conditions. Occasionally one of the comorbid conditions manifests so strongly that the primary condition goes unnoticed by the clinician. This tendency to overlook comorbid health problems in the presence of a disability is referred to as diagnostic overshadowing. This is a five-year follow up case study of a 9-year-old female child. The child was initially diagnosed to have Separation Anxiety Disorder (SAD), but during the course of follow up she began to exhibit features of pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS). This case report throws light on the severity of SAD which overshadowed PDD-NOS. Importance of follow-up and the need for a multidisciplinary team to be sensitive to the phenomenon of diagnostic overshadowing is discussed.