To think my baby has autism?

She speads and wiggles her toes and twirls her ankles at the same time. It's one if those things if I tried to move my feet like that it would be impossible.

If she's not making eye contact have you got her eyes tested? I've got a condition which makes eye contact difficult partly because I can't look ahead.

It's possible but imo it's just too early to tell.
It's never too early to identify areas to work on though!

My elder son was clearly (looking back) stereotypically autistic from birth. No eye contact, not interested in me, went rigid when I cuddled him, all sorts of stuff. Diagnosed at 2.5

my younger son couldn't have been more different. Eye contact, great snuggler, interactive...

he was DX at 3 after a classic 'regression'.

It is never the right thing to do to ignore concerns. i think there are always things that you will want to take a look at and areas that you realise you need to put extra effort in but I don't think you can get anywhere close to DX level with a 1 year old unless they have the most severe presentation.

We had a very quick diagnosis too, with my son he was diagnosed a three and a half but he also has severe autism and learning disabillities ,hes 12 now and completley ,non verbal.

thats very narrow minded. Its not all part of normal. My son has autism severe and requires 1:1 support at all times and at least 2:1 support to access the community. He can’t wash or dress himself. He is non verbal and has very little understanding. He regularly harms himself and has challenging behaviour and can be a danger to others. He developed grand mal epilepsy at puberty which is very common with autism. Watching him have seizures and the after affects is absolutely heartbreaking. It’s a lifelong profound disability for some. I’d give absolutely anything to make his life easier. You should know it’s a huge spectrum if indeed you do have autism in your family.

I started noticing things when my son was about 10/11 months. I didn’t think autism but knew something was going on. He was very advanced with gross motor skills. He never crawled but just got up one day and walked when he was 10 months, he wasn’t even wobbly. He then started jumping about a month later and spent the next few months jumping everywhere. The hv pointed out that he shouldn’t yet be able to jump with both feet off the ground. He was very “good”, rarely cried, ate everything that was put in front of him, never demanded our attention., he was content ALL the time. Everyone said how lucky we were 🙄 By 14 months I just knew. I don’t remember if he responded to his name or not but he never ever made eye contact. He started assessments at 18 months starting with a hearing test, then he saw a SALT and a consultant paediatrician. The wait between each appointment was hell! Lastly he attended an assessment centre for 11 weeks. He was observed by a team including EP, OT, SALT etc then we had A multi disciplinary meeting after the 11 weeks and he was diagnosed just before his 3rd birthday. He’s an adult now and has severe autism and severe learning disabilities.

Absolutely this. I remember going to an information night held locally for parents run by one of the early intervention services and my god some of the poor parents were under so much stress. Some of the stories were heartbreaking.

It is worth remembering that not all autistics can speak, feed themselves, wash or live independently. The “visible to the public” autistics are the tip of the iceberg.

For some buts lets not minimise the fact its a huge spectrum ,shall we?
For some people like my child its massivly disabling ,
Op elevan months 7s very young ,its something to consider ,my son was diagnosed with autism and learning disabillities at three and a half ,but i didnt reallly notice anything untill he wss around 18 months.

OP my 7 year old son is autistic and I just knew something was wrong (really not sure that's the right word to use) from before he was one. He met all milestones but there was just something different about him. You do notice it if you attend parent and baby groups or are around other child of the same age.

A friend whose child has a diagnosis said she knew very early because her baby didn’t automatically recognize different emotions in others voices or faces

No one else could see this but as a mother, she knew. This lead to her obtaining very early intervention for her child and that’s been instrumental. This is a happy, healthy child who just needed extra support and educational services.

Trust yourself and don’t worry about what others say.

You wouldn't need to go through the NHS pathway to give your dd some extra attention/awareness. If you are aware of the symptoms of autism, you can just look out for them and adopt parenting strategies for raising autistic children, tailored to your dc needs, whether that's routine, more quiet, extra preparation for any changes, not forcing eye contact or cuddles/kisses if she doesn't like it ... I am sure it will reduce much stress for everyone. You could always take her to a private child psychiatrist for a private diagnosis once she is older. It shouldn't be much more than 300 pounds for 2 meetings and it helps to have years of detailed observations documented in advance, so you could start a diary where you write down every observation of a-typical behaviour, and also add health visitors observations. If you have a private diagnosis when she starts school/early primary school age, it should be enough for the Senco to take note and for the school to make reasonable accommodations of her needs, if there is something she needs at all. If you feel she needs more help, having a private diagnosis and years of documented behaviour will make it easier to get a NHS diagnosis. The NHS will only start the process via your GP if they information from nursery or school.

@U2Hastheedge you should be looking for pointing (as a means of demonstrating shared attention) by 18 months. It's quite normal for a child of 12 months not to point.

Incidentally ds2 met all his early milestones, made good eye contact pointed etc as a baby/toddler and was still diagnosed with autism as a teen. Looking back we should have picked it up earlier (around 7/8) but before that the signs (other than the gross motor stereotypy) were really subtle

We are on the conveyor belt a bit further on and I completely understand the stress and uncertainty about it all.

Adding to my stress was the fact that HV, doctors were so dismissive. Tbh we didn't immediately think autism as gross and fine motor and odd tone were the original points of concern but as my child has got older even the professionals have suggested asd. Of course, the stress of it all caused me to have a breakdown and lose my own ability to mask. I had no idea I was autistic but agree with others knowing that would have made a lot of things easier and might have led to better outcomes. I'm so hf that people would have scoffed or assigned me to the superpower pile, but looking back my autism has caused every single one of my professional and personal problems and not having a diagnosis has left my husband to pick up the pieces at the point in our lives when everything should be slotting into place and meant I had zero support or understanding elsewhere, so I would encourage you to pursue it even when others try to 'reassure' you.

Of course you love your child. The fact that you are worried and have noticed confirms this.

My 3yo son was recently confirmed to have glue ear. So, although he passed his hearing tests, his ability to hear can fluctuate. I didn't even consider that he had any hearing issues as he seems to hear the quietest noises at times. He has been assessed for autism but that's inconclusive just now.

He's having grommets inserted next week so it'll be interesting to see if it makes a difference.

I had similar concerns about my child at this age. It was hearing. Despite passing all the hearing tests and being able to hear a key in the door. He had glue ear and just wasn't picking up the speech frequency.

I can almost pinpoint exactly when it has cleared and come back as his speech and response similarly spike and ebb.

Get the hearing test.

Also completely normal for all babies to flap their hands. It's how they learn about their body. Be aware but dont torture yourself looking for things that aren't an issue.

No one has done that. No one suggested they wouldn't, or don't love their child for who they are.

My autistic husband who was not diagnosed until the age of 45 is significantly impacted by the difficulties he faces. It has not been at all easy for my son either.

Does she bring you toys or books ? Does she try to get your attention by looking at you ? Does she react to you coming into or leaving the room ? Does she ever point to try to get your attention?

My Grandson doesn't point. He has just turned 1. I have lots of children myself, but I can't remember when any of them pointed. When would you typically expect them to be doing that?

I have a very ND family. My autistic kids all responded to their name and looked at me. They all achieved milestones early (super early in some cases) and no alarm bells went off. Hence diagnosis was late coming but they are autistic without question. The only label we got early on was 'gifted'.

Autism isn't awful. I know lots of autistic people who are doing quite well for themselves. It is, however, full of struggles, even though it has its own strengths it brings. On balance, it would be much easier for my children not to be autistic. They have harder lives because of it but they are still amazing and interesting people living full lives their own way. (And none of them have ever had a meltdown over their socks).

@Mamai90 what is she does with her feet?

Tbh lack of eye contact and not responding to name are pretty often telltale signs. Look out also for lack of babbling and pointing. Also, lining toys up rather than actually playing with them.

Don't upset yourself because you "missed" signs. It took till I was 20 and sought my own diagnosis for my self before my mum realised I was autistic! Although, credit to her, she's also undiagnosed autistic so just thought "I do that so it's normal" 🤣

@LabiaMinoraPissusFlapus you are incredibly naive. Especially if there are ND people in the family.

Of course OP is still going to love her baby no matter what. And yes it is part of who they are (they’re not unwell).

But surely you must realise that life is harder for ND people? That if the child is autistic they will need additional support to be able to thrive in a world not built for people who think like they do. And the earlier the better.

My 6 year old is still on the path to diagnosis (maybe ASD, maybe ADHD, maybe just a bit further up the sleeve than the average bear). She is getting some support already based on what we do know and it is making a huge difference. But she is still a very stressed, often angry and anxious child who seems to be working 3 times as hard as everyone else to get the same results. And that is just not sustainable.

We don’t want to change who she is but we do want to make it possible for her to not be permanently stressed and anxious.

OP I third (10th?) getting hearing checked. My other kid aced their newborn test and has ongoing hearing issues - which are hard to detect because she can hear some sounds as clearly as you or me and some
not at all.

Hi op you are doing the right thing keeping it in mind and following it up. If nothing else you are prepared to get everything in place for her asap should she need it.
Our experience. You could see with my nephew from very early, as he never tracked faces as a small babe in arms or even looked at his fingers and tried to bring them to his mouth. His newborn stage seemed to last for much longer and he was the only baby I knew who would be happy to be just put down and left.
He was only formally diagnosed at the end of reception which was hugely frustrating. As soon as he changed schools to one with a unit specialising in ASD he flourished in every single way.

@CanStopWillStop I'm in a very similar situation with my 11 month old DD.

She's doing great in so many ways but since she's been 3 months old her eye contact hasn't been great and it's always been a concern, she will not hold it and will not give any eye contact close up. Now as she's almost one she's still not saying mama or dada or any words. She stims a lot, the most concerning is the movement of her feet and toes as she does it frequently and I've never seen it before in other babies. She does babble but she was late to start at 9 months. She scratches EVERYTHING it's excessive, and is still mouthing everything. She's just less engaged than other babies so for instance in the bath she'll swivel her body away from me so I'm facing the back of her head. She rarely copies but will mimic a cough but no other sounds even if she can babble them. She can't follow a point and often won't even look as we can't get her to look round as her name response is at around 50%. She was late to crawl, just a week before she turned 11 months and she's still not pulling up to stand though she is trying.

On a positive note she's always been a very smiley baby, will laugh a lot, lifts everything she gets her hands on to show me and will try and feed me. She loves other children and is interested in people.

It's hard to describe everything, even when it's written I don't feel it gives the full picture, there is just something different going on. My DH basically shuts down every discussion, he doesn't want to even go there and I find it incredibly frustrating. It's hard to know where to turn and I do feel unsupported and anxious without an outlet so I understand where you're coming from.