These symptoms coupled with a severe impairment in speech, social skills, or repetitive stereotyped behavior qualifies one for PDD NOS in the milder situations and for the other autistic conditions in the more severe presentations.

At times, especially when diagnosed early, it may be difficult to predict what the final outcome will be. Even though PDD's are life long disorders, some children will do better than others and a small proportion may "outgrow" some of the difficulties. Subtle changes, however, persist universally, even in the best of situations throughout life, and involve mostly social interaction skills and some obsessive-compulsive behaviors.

A simplified way of understanding the diagnosis of autism is looking at the PDD assessment scale questionnaire. In order to qualify for an autism diagnosis, one needs to have some behavioral features from each one of the three subgroups listed. This, of course, must be associated with a severe speech, social, or repetitive behavior impairment. A more comprehensive understanding of the condition and its diagnostic differentiation to the five different subgroups is provided by the DSM IV criteria for the autistic disorders.