Nursery hinting my 3 year old has autism.

The traits they’ve pointed out in your son sound very similar to nursery and school reports I’ve recently read for a 15 year old I’m working with. This young person also had involvement with the speech and language service. The reports I’ve read make it very clear that other professionals have raised concerns about autism in the past. The parents have completely ignored these, sought out alternative therapies, and are repeatedly pursuing a diagnosis they find more palatable despite being told no each time they do. This young person still has no formal recognition of anything, is fed up of all the testing, and knows they are different to peers so is using poor coping strategies that could have been avoided if they were better helped to understand their differences.

Professionals don’t tell parents they think a child has autism because they dislike the child or think them badly behaved. They do it because they see things that might make the child’s life more difficult in the future and recognise that for some a diagnosis is helpful.

People on the internet can’t tell if your son has autism from the information you have provided. But it might be worth working with the nursery to understand what they have noticed rather than dismissing them completely.

Hi OP, just thought I’d offer some personal context.
You mentioned that your other child doesn’t have autism — but that doesn’t necessarily mean your 3-year-old won’t. Autism isn’t something that automatically affects all siblings.
I have a brother who was diagnosed with autism at 3 years old. At the time, his nursery were very proactive, and my parents worked closely with them, took on board all the advice and guidance, and put the right support in place. If I’m being completely honest, if they hadn’t engaged with the process or accepted the diagnosis, his life could have looked very different — and not in a positive way.
Because they did engage and access the support available, he really thrived. He has just finished his first year of university, which he moved to another country for. He is now a strong, intelligent, social, kind and independent young man, while still very much being autistic. We couldn’t be prouder of him.
So rather than pulling him from nursery or dismissing their concerns, it might be worth working with them to explore what they’re noticing and what support could be put in place. Ultimately, if concerns are ignored, the person most likely to be impacted is your child.
No one is saying your child is “naughty” or “bad” (I think you may have mentioned that in a previous post), but as a mum myself, I would personally rather someone raise concerns early so we can explore them together.
It doesn’t mean your child definitely has autism — but it may be worth taking the concerns seriously enough to ensure that if he does need support, it’s there for him.

OP, I mean this kindly, but I think it might be worth reading a bit more about what autism actually looks like in different people. Some of the things you've mentioned, like pointing don't rule autism out.

I started school at four and was top of my class. I could speak clearly and was reading and writing before I even started school. I was moved into classes above my year group for reading, writing and maths.

I went on to achieve some of the highest exam results in my high school and have a degree, a master's, a PGDE and other qualifications. Every one of my school reports were glowing.

I'm autistic. Nobody suspected it. I was diagnosed in my 40s!

My son is autistic too, and people are often surprised when they find out. He's academically very bright (he won three awards this year), sporty and sociable.

Autism isn't defined by whether someone can point, talk, make eye contact or achieve academically. It presents very differently from one person to another, which is why so many autistic people, especially those without more obvious support needs, go unrecognised for years.

Push aside the autism part for a moment, your DC has some speech delay which I imagine you'd be happy for them to benefit from support with. The support you can get through early years (before they enrol is school) is 100 times anything you will get once they are in the education system.

My point is it will do no harm for you to engage with nursery about getting your DC speech support and perhaps focus on some social skills (like joining carpet time).

I work in early years and we have children who have been diagnosed and are on the spectrum who point, talk, are non verbal, knows all their alphabet, doesn’t know any letters, knows all their numbers to 100, join in group time, don’t participate in group times. It’s called a spectrum because autism comes in all shapes and sizes.

we have had parents work with us, we’ve also had parents who have declined any help , that is your choice. If a nursery worker didn’t raise their concerns then we wouldn’t be doing our job properly. However I’d you decline any help it doesn’t go any further.

for the nursery to have raised it with you there would have been numerous incidents witnessed by all staff including management before any discussion would have been had with you.

I was in an identical situation OP. Yes those behaviours could be ASD, they could also be as a result of speech delay or part of normal development. We weren’t convinced either about ASD but when we looked into the diagnosis process it looked quite thorough and decided we wanted to know either way. They didn’t meet the criteria for a diagnosis of ASD and it was put down to speech delay which now has caught up. I don’t regret getting them assessed. I am glad we know otherwise it would have always been an unanswered question.

Many autistic children can and do point. Especially if they don't speak much, it's a way to show what they want.

It's not an insult. Its how he's presenting at the nursery. Try to work with them a bit here.

Nursery pointing this out to you doesn't mean that they don't like your child.

My son was a bit behind in speech and has autism. I also have relatives who were behind, not autistic, and have gone on to do well for themselves.

Autism is on a spectrum.

Op you seem very defensive a child with ASD doesnt always ignore their name or isnt able to point. Its a spectrum and developmentally they can progress the same as their peers.It goes much deeper into their understanding of the world around them and how they think/see and interpret language. This typically becomes more apparent as they get older and a lot of parents of ND children would have loved to know this when their child was younger rather than at an optimum point in their child's life where everything falls apart. You dont have to do anything except take the nurseries comments on board and if you dont belive they are accurate you can say that to them and do nothing.

It does seem like you have some form of stigma or negative view of autism. Autism shows so many different traits. The ones your son is showing absolutely are traits. You shouldn’t have to shout or be angry at 3 to get your child to respond to their name.

What do the nursery have to gain by sharing their concerns with you? Have you not thought they are doing this in your child’s best interests?

Now is the time to engage, get the right support in place and help make things easier for your son before he starts school (and so the right support is in place for that transition) not get annoyed and shut it down. That’s not in your sons interests.

@LostandFounded

OP you know what my indicators to my own dd having autism or a barrier to learning was.

being slow to respond to instructions,
not being an overly smiley, laughy baby and having a schema to their play - beds!

They sat during circle time, they had friends. They were toilet trained at a normal age. Speech was ok.

Yes they do sound indicative. As I had mentioned he sounds a lot like my son who was diagnosed ASD.

what do you have to lose from investigating whether there’s an issue? If he’s not autistic he won’t be diagnosed with it. Maybe he is autistic, maybe he isn’t. What nursery or you think won’t make any difference to that.

FWIW I was in denial about my son for a few years. Me telling myself he wasn’t autistic and being in denial didn’t change the fact he actually was.

Oh god she’s not going to like that

The reasons they have given is that my child doesn’t listen, doesn’t do what the other kids are doing, is always on their own agenda and doesn’t answer or turn to their name

These are unusual behaviours for a 3yo in a nursery setting, when you put them all together, so I can see why they have raised it and checked about his hearing. Of course 3yos sometimes don’t listen, do their own thing, but it sounds like routinely your child doesn’t respond to being spoken to by staff and doesn’t join in with group activities with the other children. They are right to make you aware of this.

What you do with that information is up to you but don’t let your pride get in the way of accessing help for your child if he needs it. There are lots of things other than autism that could be at play, and nursery are doing the right thing by letting you know that they are seeing something that is different from the standard spectrum of child behaviour at that age.

You’re brave asking that! 🤣

Do you think you might be autistic OP? Your posts display a few traits! Not meaning to upset you but sometimes it’s harder to spot from people who may be on the spectrum themselves.

If you are close minded to the possibility, you may find it a lot harder in the long run.

You are not willing to even entertain the POSSIBILITY. This isn't saying they definitely are autistic at this stage.

OP they could be typical but these all could be early indicators of autism too. Children shouldn’t only respond to their name when it’s shouted in anger. Why are you not engaging with the nursery on their observations, what harm could it do to discuss this with them? Theres nothing wrong with autism and the sooner you can get on waitlists in the UK, the better.

Pointing is a milestone that usually comes around 8 months as I remember my son did point late but like 14 months same with waving. He did both happily by 3. You think autistic 3 yr olds can't point? Profoundly autistic children may not.point but they're not suggesting that are they?

If your child saw an apple on a table and wanted it how would they communicate that to you?

Is your child fully toilet trained

Can your son carry on a conversation with multiple sentences and to and from speech? Even if not everyone understands that speech?

Does he appreciate safety enough.for you to be fairly confident he wouldn't run into the road?

This is so true! Conversations with parents but I used to be like that, do that…..

my own partner went through the diagnosis as he noticed himself in our daughter! Though he was diagnosed before our daughter which then helped with daughters diagnosis