How early did you know your child had autism?

[TheLoneWolfDies]

Ds is 6 months, I have always been concerned, since I got pregnant, that he may have ASD as my brother has it and so does my uncle.

He makes eye contact, babbles, responds to his name most of the time, cries for me and DP if an unknown person holds him, is smiling since 3 weeks and laughing since hust before 3 months. He can roll and sit independantly.

However, when in his highchair or on my lap he bangs his head back quite a lot, he hand flaps and pulls his hair and I'm just mildly concerned incase these are early signs.

So when did you know and what were the first things you noticed?

Ds was 15 months.

Lack of gestures, no response to his name, lost all his words, didn’t engage with us when playing - just went and sat by himself. Couldn’t get or keep his attention. Didn’t like people, whether strangers or family. His sogs test was above average for all aspects except social and comprehension skills.
Still going through the process of diagnosis but it’s a given he is on the spectrum - just lots of boxes to tick and things to rule out first. He’s my third child and I just knew something was different.

The things you’re describing though - all 3 of mine did those at around the same age and it’s only the youngest there are concerns about. It doesn’t necessarily mean your dc has asd but maybe if it’s something you’re looking for signs of anyway you’ll attribute everything he does to a ‘red flag’. Maybe speak to your HV

Lying here beside my 3rd dc. She's 6mths too. She's just learning to roll but not quite mastered it yet. Not able to sit unaided. Doing everything else you describe. Loves throwing the head back when I'm sitting behind her and laughing up at me. Pulls her hair (and mine!) all the time. Bit clumsy with her hands and has just learned to clap which she keeps practicing..doesn't always work out and can be a bit flappy. She's delighted with the praise she gets.

I'm not a bit worried about her. Doesn't seem any different from my other 2 although I can't fully remember when they did what.

My friend has a son with autism. She's a nurse and assesses children development as part of her job. I think she didn't notice any signs in her son until at least 2 if not later and he was nearly 4 when they got a diagnosis.

Well I think I realised when he was about 8. Although there had been signs earlier. He is now nearly 15 years old and currently being assessed. Looking back now it's obvious but he did cope just about until secondary school. The teenage years are an awful time to go through assessment and diagnosis though.

My twins both have ASD. For one I knew something was wrong from about 18 months when he had a huge skills regression. The other, I didn’t realise until he was about 2 - he gradually stopped interacting, making eye contact etc.

There probably were signs earlier on - they never mimicked anything for example.

The thing is, if you’d met my DS prior to 12 months you’d think he had it.
Smiled late - maybe 10 weeks. Never ever smiled at anyone that was not me or his Dad. If someone else made eye contact he’d start screaming hysterically , even people that saw him regularly. Rolled over at 6 months, so a little late.

Then was a really early talker, had loads of words before 12/13 months and suddenly changed, it was like once he could express himself he was ok. Is 3 and very bright now. Doesn’t love other children but likes the company of adults. No signs at all.

I do believe you can know early but things change from that first year too.

About 2, she didn't talk until she was 3.5

DS2 is 7yo and currently being assessed. I remember first thinking there was something slightly different about him at 2 months, but put it down to hormones/sleep deprivation. I never had the same thought about DS1 so I do wonder what exactly I was picking up on....

About 3

In the kindest possible way though you need to try and relax. Enjoy your baby as he is now don’t let worries about what may or may not be stop you enjoying him being a baby.

Around. 2, all his early milestones were missed. I mentioned my concerns to or health visitor and was told he was spirited! He had speech delay and didn’t speak until he was four. .

Just before 3rd birthday. I also have a 11 month old who I’m watching like a hawk for signs, he does similar to yours (hand flapping, banging head) but I’m not concerned about those as they are normal for babies and should outgrow it. Is your baby responding to their name? I wouldn’t worry about it, just enjoy your baby. If they have got asd there’s nothing you can do to change it and worrying is only going to ruin your enjoyment of your baby.

My DS is 13 months and I feel a little he's a little different.

Socially he can't cope with strangers, he learnt to wave, peepo, dance and has now regressed and won't do this.

Nursery have mentioned on occasions how much he can't cope with other children too close to him. Flappy arms etc.

I've not mentioned it to anybody yet so we will see

when in his highchair or on my lap he bangs his head back quite a lot, he hand flaps and pulls his hair and I'm just mildly concerned incase these are early signs.

This really just sounds like a 6 month old. Please enjoy your baby and stop looking for things that may not even be there. You will tie yourself in knots and miss the precious moments.

noticed a difference from 1 yr. from actual assessments age 2 +. official ASD age 4 or 5. it was nursery that noticed the difference/ red flags from 1 yr.

Just to add the only things I can pinpoint about my daughter as a baby which were deifferent from my other two were, she smiled but you had to work for it, she would lay on her play mat watching the lights for ages and wouldn’t get bored, never developed her stranger danger and would go to anyone, but that’s it, she hit all her other milestones including speech but it was picked up at 2 and half as she didn’t have as many words as she should have had. The repetitive behaviour kicked in about 3.

About 15 months.

He reached his milestones perfectly fine, but he was soooo quiet, so quiet you would forget he was in the room. If I was really busy with our other kids and people milling about, I had to remind myself not to forget about DC3. At the same time, he would run and run and run and run when we were out with the dog. I've always had 'runners' for toddlers but he would just be off and he wouldn't come back or respond to his name. And that's when it really began to hit home- when he was 18 months and I really noticed he never responded to his name. I would be out with the dog, calling for DC3 (who would be engrossed in the wild flowers or a blade of grass), saying his name, clapping, trying so hard to get his attention and the dog would respond to DC3's name rather than DC himself, and come bounding over.

Over a year at least. I do agree with a previous poster. Enjoy your baby! You can’t make a judgement at such a young age. Sounds like he is developing as expected!

In the process of getting DS assessed on his teachers advice.
To be honest, I'm still not really seeing it.
I just see a bright, quirky little guy who enjoys his own company.
The signs that school have noticed are: eating paper, chewing things, wriggling, unable to sequence tasks (particularly practical tasks like getting dressed for PE) and not really noticing what the other kids are up to.
The incident that caused her most concern was when he went to wait for the school bus at lunch time instead of following the other kids into the cafeteria.

Thanks so much for the replies, I meant to respond a while ago but DS had needles yesterday and has been up since 5.30am 😂

I know I definatly need to relax, I don't worry all the time and to be honest its not even really worry I just want to know early on if he did have it to try to help him as much as I can.

Hes my first so i wasnt sure if the head banging etc, was normal, I mentioned it to MIL yesterday whos had 4 kids and she looked at me funny and said hers didnt do that. I suppose all babies are different and she may have forgotten by now also.

Oh and yes he responds to his name most of the time, if hes too interested in a toy he might ignore us but for the most part he will turn his head. Honestly I don't even know why I'm concerned everything seems to be going fine but I think maybe MILs response yesterday threw me off.

And even if he did have it, that would be just the way he is and I would love him just the same for it. I will definatly try not to think about it, your all right, he wont be a baby forever and I'll regret it when hes older.

Officially she was just shy of 3, but looking back she was different from birth but being my first child I didn't realise

The thing is there’s really no way to tell. My two didn’t miss any milestones but then they regressed. Some kids do miss milestones but then are fine.

It can’t hurt to look at some early intervention information and employ some of the strategies in terms of encouraging social interactions and communication. If I’d known sooner this is what I would have done. But you do also need to enjoy them because it goes so fast!

Mine was a very easy baby - ridiculously so, which I thought was a godsend since his brother was very demanding! When he hit 18mo the terrible twos started and he became a complete handful. Wouldn’t respond to his name, constantly running off, getting into all sorts of bother. He hasn’t grown out of it and he’s 5 now.

His speech was excellent at 2, eye contact limited and very much on his terms. His meltdowns started then and he still has them regularly so I’d say at about 2 we started realising there was something going on but we were dismissed by HCP as his speech was so good

Nursery flagged up the same concerns we had at 3yo, and they (along with a new HV) got us referred on and we are still in the assessment process.

I 'knew' from 18 months. He was diagnosed two months before his third birthday.

Didn't point. Didn't babble or mimic. Repetitive behaviours eg spinning wheels on toys for hours on end. Didn't crawl until over 12m and didn't walk until 18m. Made eye contact, however. Didn't engage in any kind of imaginary play - he was and is always in his own little bubble. He missed almost all of the milestones on the ASQs. Had no sense of fear and is a bolter. Cannot feed himself. Now he can speak, he uses repetitive phrases (echolalia) rather than functional speech.

It can be a really worrying and confusing time. ASD behaviours can, at an early age, be easily attributed to other things; for example, DS cannot wait for ANYTHING. Results in an instant meltdown. This could be an ASD symptom or simply being a three year old. That's why diagnosis can be a challenging path.

We had a few niggles about DS1 from when he was a toddler, but his first nursery said all his behaviour was within normal ranges for his age, so we just put it down to being a slow developer.

It wasn’t until DS2 (2 years younger than DS1) was about 2 that we really started to think something wasn’t quite normal. When DS2 was nearly 2, we noticed a big leap in his social skills, and all of a sudden he’d overtaken DS1 in most areas of social / emotional / behavioural development listed in those EYFS progress charts nurseries use. And we thought it seemed odd for a nearly 2 yr old’s development to be more advanced than his 4 yr old brothers. DS1 started a new pre-school nursery about then, and his teacher there raised concerns about his development very soon after he started.

But looking back there were earlier signs that we hadn’t picked up on as being unusual behaviour for a baby, e.g. like the way DS1 hated having anyone trying to hold or cuddle him when he was sleepy as a baby.

Started to have behavioural concerns at 12 months.

Massive meltdowns, over nothing, could last for hours.
Bolter
No fear
Poor eye contact
Little response to his name, totally ignored you.
Not interested in pretend play.
Late speech

Now almost 10 and was diagnosed last month.