It’s likely that my DD (17 months) might have autism. Will she be able to lead a somewhat normal life?

You're aware of your partner and sister's experiences and don't want to repeat them. Their parents didn't have those advantages and that's, well, enough.

If your DD does get an autism diagnosis, you'll find that autism, or at least, your extended families' personal brand of autism is poorly understood and, by knowing your family members, you'll do a better job than any professional.

It is enough to know, to care, and to do your best :)

It’s sounds like joint attention is present - she is bringing things to show you and starting to point using an open hand. If she sees something of interest outside, what does she do? Plus, she is starting to talk and pretend play is evident. Does she follow understand/follow simple instructions such as ‘ find your shoes’ , ‘where’s teddy?’ At this age children’s attention skills are very variable and single channelled. They need help to stop what they are doing and shift their attention to what you are saying. Absolutely normal. Does she have any obsessions or repetitive behaviours? If not , I wouldn’t worry at the moment.

I suppose, with so many autistic loved ones and family members, my first question is: why are you asking us? 🙂

You already know what your child might grow up like. You've always known. You knew at the point where you looked at your dear partner and decided to have a child together.

It would be weirder if you had a child with an autistic partner and there was a 100% chance of them being neurotypical because that would mean they somehow didn't take after your partner, at all.

Genuinely, if your partner is autistic and you have an autistic sister, you already know. You've always known. You will get a child who you, or your partner, know exactly how to parent, they will seem both 'perfect' and 'perfectly normal', and every problem you have will be with the rest of the world.

I feel like this hugely minimises what parents of children with severe disabilities go through to be honest.

It was the health visitor that said the Ops child would likely get a diagnosis though ,which i think is way over stepping the mark and incredibly un professional

Absolutely. Which is why it’s always best to ignore people who are mad. I found most HV’s a bit odd tbh, and I put in professional complaints about two. Twats who way overstepped their knowledge base and were downright dangerous.

It was the health visitor that said the Ops child would likely get a diagnosis though ,which i think is way over stepping the mark and incredibly un professional.

However when it comes to autism threads there is an awful lot of minimising and some people fail to take into account the vastness of the spectrum

Fine, but that has absolutely nothing to do with someone obsessing over a 17mo and their future life WITH autism. There’s something very unusual about that that throws up more red flags than a communist army.

I agree 17 months is far to young for an autism diagnosis
However when it comes to autism threads there is an awful lot of minimising and some people fail to take into account the vastness of the spectrum

I feel like there’s a lot of minimising on these threads

No, just plain common sense. There’s a reason 17mo’s can’t be diagnosed with autism. Just as there is a reason toddlers can’t be diagnosed with ADHD or every typical toddler would ramp it in for the diagnosis. Obsessively looking for signs is not normal and people who don’t indulge this are not minimising, just pointing out the absurdity of it. I say this as a mum of a child with every ND letter under the sun.

You don't seem to get that everyone is different either ,17 months is very young and nobody can say wether the Op.s child is autistic
If she is nobody can say how it will impact her either
Again it's a MASSIVE spectrum and it's unhelpful to minimise it.

It's not even that...

People assume social communication difficulties are actually problems with socialising or communicating, but this is misleading. It's literally a technical term for a disability in the act of social communication even if it doesn't cause real-life problems with social communication.

What I've learned from DS5 is that, if you have a sufficiently inclusive school with loads of disabled kids already, young children are remarkably tolerant of a playmate with full-body tics who moves like a rubber windsock, provided he can make it hilariously funny. So, if you've got an extrovert DS who can work out how to make his disability/disabilities magnetically fascinating to classmates, you end up living with a super-popular puppet clown with a medically-accurate autism diagnosis.

It's made me skeptical, let's say, about autism as a concept.

Just something to note (may already have been but I haven't read every post): autism (as with, say, dyslexia) is a learning difficulty, but not a learning disability. It makes some things harder, particularly social and communication things, but it's unlike a learning disability where no matter how hard someone may try, they're not going to be able to understand beyond a certain level. Autism may come with a learning disability, it may not. There are plenty of us who don't have the learning disability and so accidentally learned to mask because we knew we weren't fitting in, even if we didn't know why. Nowadays, we know why (and so can say bollocks to the masking, which is very freeing).

Waiting lists!! Just no she’ll more than Likely be the same as everyone else by the time school comes around. Please just stop! I probaly just don’t understand why you can’t just your baby? W hwy does it even matter at 17 months? Every baby is beautiful and different,

sorry if that doesn’t make sense, but it’s starting to really upsets me that people don’t get that everyone is different!

That's what I meant :) Within the 'normal' range for cognitive milestones, suggesting that she doesn't have Global Development Delay (GDD) or a learning disability.

You must remember that although autism is seen as a social communication disorder, you don't actually need to have difficulties with social communication to get a diagnosis. Having atypical body language, for example, meets the diagnostic criteria, even if it doesn't cause any real-life problems with social communication.

I recently wrote a blogpost based on a scientific book that summarises all the evidence surrounding autism diagnoses (I have two diagnosed autistic DS). Put simply, 'autism' is diagnosed from a set of largely unrelated behaviours and 'autistic behaviours' can be due to potentially thousands of different neurodevelopmental conditions.

Thus, you likely won't know if your DD is autistic right now (neither of my DS had anything detected even at 2 1/2 year checks) and, even if she is, you're unfortunately going to know very little about what that means for the future.

The thing I would say is that prognoses are usually far better for DCs who don't have GDD (Global Development Delay) or other significant delays at 17 months because, then, the 'autism' is often a sign of probably mild familial traits and not the tip of a massive neurodevelopmental iceberg. The scientific book I read pointed out that 'autism' rarely occurs on its own, DCs usually have speech & language delays or epilepsy or dyspraxia or motor abnormalities, and - obviously - those things probably aren't going to be an big deal if they're quirks shared with your clumsy uncle (or whatever), but they are if they're the consequence of a genetic disease.

Thus, I'd be focusing not on whether DD is pointing (or whatever), but more whether she's meeting milestones in other areas. You probably want to focus on whether she's simply displaying some autistic behaviours, or whether she has lots of delays.

Your DD is definitely pointing in the pic, but I do understand how worrying it is - when I was told that DS might never talk / communicate it was awful, but your DD is communicating and has words. As I said before my entirely NT daughter only pointed once as a toddler, my DS didn't have a single word until 3.5 and didn't point until 2.5 neither have autism and there are many kinds of speech and language disorders as well as delays but people jump to autism. I think if you want to know for sure then you might have to wait until she's 2 or 2.5 and then if you're still concerned ask your NHS Paediatrician for a MDA and Ados test.

very nearly 20 months - good point! I guess I've assumed they're the same thing? it's like a gesture and a half hearted reach rather than a point? I guess we you were to point at something enthusiastically our bodies would reach towards it in a way!
They have developed a lot in the last couple of weeks too which has reassured me that although slower than others might be, it's going in the right driection

I've commented further upthread but honestly she sounds so, so similar to mine. We had a chat with a health visitor recently regarding lack of speech and pointing and they just weren't worried yet. He's only just started pointng this week with 1 finger- and only just before that was using an open hand gesture. Still doesn't have many words at all but has come out with the most random ones ocassionally, still no 'mummy' or 'daddy' though