Autism and regression of skills

[Poppywood]

Hi mumsnetters

This is a questions to parents of children with an autism diagnosis. My daughter has a condition called West Syndrome, or Epileptic spasms the underlying cause of which is a brain injury she incurred at birth. 80-90% of children with west syndrome also end up being diagnosed with autism.

My daughter also has other complications from her brain injury like cerebral palsy and vision impairment. So it's difficult to determine what signs / symptoms might be linked to autism or something else.

But I wanted to ask if your child never learnt to do certain things linked to autism or if they learnt skills but then they disappeared and if so what and when. So for example did they appear to develop completely typically but then hit a certain age and stopped babbling, smiling, crawling ect.

My daughter is now 2, she can crawl (no walking due to cerebral palsy), she laughs and smiles a lot especially when other people are laughing. She also has very good speech, approaching the 3 year level with 6/7 word sentences. She's delayed in almost all motor skills and cognitively in terms of how she plays (e.g she can't stack cups, use a shape sorter etc) but we think that is mostly linked to her cerebral palsy and vision issues as well as having 9 months of seizures and then very strong medication during which time she didn't develop at all.

She does have some autistic traits I would say - she hates change, so for example I put a bath bomb in her bath the other day to turn the water pink and she had a huge meltdown. She doesn't like doors being open, if something is spilt she will cry and tell me to clear it up and cry until it's all clear. There are just lots of little things, but at the moment I don't think they are enough to actually constitute an autism diagnosis, but I appreciate this could change as she's still very young and most aren't diagnosed until 3 or 4.

But I can't help but worry if she does have autism is she going to loose some of what she has learnt like her speech? Or socialisation skills, or laughing and smiling.

I know all children with autism are different and some are very smiley and cuddly and many talk just fine, but I just wonder whether at her age now do I need to worry about her regressing?

Thanks to anyone whose read all of this! Xxx