Possible autism in almost 18 month old.

[MsJayx]

Hiya Mummies,

I’m new to this so I hope this is the right place to post.

My son is almost 18 months old & his nursery have recently expressed some concerns regarding his behaviour. For example:

• repetitive play - he plays with cars everyday rolling them back & fourth, often laying on the floor to do this.
• he doesn’t always respond when a caregiver calls his name
• he doesn’t point when attempting to communicate
• he doesn’t engage in play with other children but will with adults he’s comfortable with. he’s happy to play alongside other children but will not attempt to play with them.

I have had my concerns for a while that he was behind in his social development (he hit most of his physical milestones when expected) but had not considered autism until the nursery manager brought it up.

Obviously being the paranoid mum that I am, I took to Google... not a good idea as there is a lot of conflicting information out there.

Basically I just want to know from any parents who have an autistic child or know someone who does, are the behaviours I listed above consistent with autism? If so, how do I go about being seen by a GP when he’s so young & is there anything I could be doing to best support him?

Thanks x

[AngelicaM]

Sorry to hear you're worried about your son. I would suggest contacting your Health Visitor first, your GP will just send you to them anyway, they will no doubt say he's young etc but it's good to raise things early I think as then in three months time or so, if you still have concerns the ball is more likely to get rolling. They will often refer you for audiology tests as a starting point and all this takes time. It would be good to be firm to the HV that nursery have raised concerns as it will make sure they take you seriously.

Each area works differently, our town has children centres that had a session a week for drop ins if you have concerns about development, good to pop in to these as again it just keeps you on the radar.

In the meantime, I would say just lots of play, maybe introduce some Makaton signs ( lots of Mr Tumble) and try not to worry too much, if you want to do more you might want to look at the Hanen books, not the cheapest but a really nice starting point for supporting young children with communication. Sending lots of love x

[MsJayx]

Thank you so much for your help, I will get on to my HV. I’ve struggled to find a starting point & most comments on forums on Google seemed as though I couldn’t do anything until he was 3 & all I want to do is help him. Thank you again x

[AngelicaM]

The age 3 thing is true in terms of really getting any diagnosis, but I think it's key to get the ball rolling now, so then if it turns out you still have these concerns and no progress has been made, you're in the loop and on all the waiting lists, and and you've got nursery as back up which will help. This is what I did and then when things didn't progress for him we'd had all the hearing tests etc and saw the Paed when he was exactly 3, if I'd waited, it would've been another year. They are never too young for you to start supporting and encouraging communication. I'll find the link to the Hanen book too.

[Aunaturalmama]

I had to push for services for my son who is now 3 years old. I got him evaluated at 19 months old, but they said he was hitting milestones on par and maybe was lacking social skills. They told me to work on social skills and sent us on our way his he “seemed fine”. At 2 years old I pushed for speech therapy. It took about 2 months to get him in. At 3 years old I paid for a private evaluation from a child psychologist specializing in pediatric autism working with high functioning toddlers. Finally getting answers. With high functioning kiddos- they easily fall through the cracks until school starts. My cousin was told he was fine, maybe hyper active, until about age 9. He has high functioning autism as well. My advice is if you think anything is different, push push push for services. I WISH we started speech therapy when he only had few words at 18 months old.
He also did repetitive play a bit at this age, liked to play with adult versus children, looks at you when you call half the time only, plays alongside children versus playing with them, Etc but hit ALL milestones early or on par with peers. Speech and social skills were the only things that were on the low end of normal.

Does he walk on tip toes? Easily frustrated when he can’t do things like a puzzle not fitting right the first time? Plays with the same toys all day at home? Says hi and bye when people come in/out a room?
Actually there’s a great test online that I used to get an appointment with the psychologist

[Aunaturalmama]

www.autismspeaks.org/screen-your-child