Childhood Disintegrative Disorder
Children with Childhood disintegrative disorder (CDD) appear to develop normally for the first two years of life, but then lose skills in areas such as language, play, and bowel control and manifest impaired social interaction and communication associated with restrictive, repetitive, stereotyped behaviors. This disease and autism are among several developmental disorders known as pervasive developmental disorders or autism spectrum disorders. Childhood disintegrative disorder is also known as Heller's syndrome after the Viennese educator, Theodor Heller, who first described the condition. Childhood disintegrative disorder is perhaps 10 times less common than more strictly defined autism. It is a rare serious disorder in which a child older than age 3 stops developing normally and regresses to a much lower level of functioning, typically following a serious illness, such as an infection of the brain and nervous system. Childhood disintegrative disorder cann...