Early autism signs or late developer / personality?

[Lou0712]

I’m worried about my son....
Someone I know who has an autistic child commented that he twirls his hands like her son did & since they said that I cannot stop googling & seeing signs! He is almost 8 months old & is a very happy boy but the following concern me :

1. Eye contact is very much on his terms. Sometimes he will give me a fleeting glance & smile then look away, sometimes post-feed I can get a lot & other times he will turn his head to look everywhere but at me!
2. the hand twirling - he does it a lot like he’s conducting an orchestra
3. he doesn’t enjoy peekaboo....in fact other than me making funny noises at him or tickling him, he gets the most enjoyment out of solo play (he does bash toys together, plays in a normal way and mouths them etc). He’s quite happy being left to play & doesn’t cry when I leave the room or look for me. He also has no stranger danger & doesn’t always greet me with a smile when I’ve been out for a while
4. sometimes he’ll look where I point & when I call his name, other times he’s too fixated in something else.
5. he doesn’t babble. He can say ga, boo, huh but never together ie gaga & he doesn’t do it socially, just to himself & not much. He makes a noise blowing out of his nose like an elephant instead haha
6. doesn’t mimic faces or sounds. He does sometimes frown if I do & then smiles when I do but not always.

He does respond to noises, looks for the cat when I ask where he is, rolls both ways, loves standing aided, reaches for toys, loves his food & can drink from his sippy cup....hasn’t attempted crawling but he seems to be pretty on track with physical stuff it’s just the social side I’m worried about. It’s hard with it being lockdown! He does smile at my mum on FaceTime & he smiled at 2 strangers today on a walk...generally he is fairly easy to get a smile out of!
He communicates to me when he wants something by making a frustrated sound but hasn’t grasped that he should look at me if he wants something.

Does any of this stuff sound like normal perhaps slightly quirky baby behaviour or is he ticking a lot of autism boxes? I know he is young but they diagnose it much earlier in America and I’ve heard you can do early intervention so I’d love to know if I’m just panicking for no reason or should perhaps see someone....

Any advice would be great. I know I should just enjoy him but I just really want to give him the best chances in life & if that means worrying but getting early intervention I will deal with the stress!

Thanks

Re early signs - DD was a velcro baby. Could not put her down. Screamed every baby group down, she did the hand thing too (but also my DC2 who does not have ASD), did not sleep. not much babbling, did not enjoy peekaboo kind of things. But in my circle (with lots of mums who have children with ASD), this seems to be more unusual. Most of them had extremely easy going babies, little attachment. they would have been happy all day on their own. My friends often tell me they though they were really lucky as the DC were so extremely easy as babies. None of them though anything was different at that age.

Physical delays eg could not sit up til 9 months. Had low muscle tone. Eye contact poor. Mixture of different things. Hard to explain. Take some videos of him playing interacting etc short videos. Save by date. Take similar in a month . You will see if he progressing and changing as most babies do. Just keep interacting with him follow his lead. Use signs to supplement language (mr tumble makaton) . Wont do any harm. You could send video to gp or hv for advice or to ask if needs a referral. Mist likely they will say watch and wait. So keep recording every month. Not to your friends! They are not professionals...

Thanks. He doesn’t try to use my hand as a tool but he doesn’t always look at me when I wave either. If he wants something he’ll reach for it & make a frustrated noise, doesn’t look at me to ask for it - he’ll just give up!

My son is autistic and I had no clue at 8 months. I was worried by 18 months when he hadn’t started talking. Still worried at 3 but he still wasn’t obviously autistic (still speech delayed though). It was only when he turned 4 that I knew for sure - by then he was able to verbalise his rigid thinking, oh and he’d taught himself to read. Then I knew.

It s about joint attention. Will he look at a book with you?
Try getting to his level and talking or singing to him with your eyes closed.
If he doesnt notice or doesnt poke you in the eye then he may not have that joint attention skill

Hmm seems like they can have such varying signs then which makes it tricky!
I wouldn’t say he’s easy or difficult....it depends on the day.
But taking videos to see how he’s developing is a great idea. I’ve looked back at last month and he’s come on a long way but not with communication side of things...
However as of today he has started to take his fingers out of his mouth and open his arms when I offer my arms to be picked up.

@Embracelife yes he does look at books with me. I pretend to be asleep in the morning & then shout good morning & he finds it funny sometimes but won’t try to poke my eye or anything...

I've known my son was autistic from a young age.

He never cried when I left the room as a baby, didn't like being comforted when he hurt himself, lost his speech, screamed when the hoover was on, etc.

I spoke to the health visitor many many times and i was ignored.

He could read when he was 4 and sounded like a uni professor when he spoke about physics when he was 4.

He was diagnosed with autism at 8.

Read the book with your eyes closed. Swe if he notices.
But for now dont tie yourself in knots. Record videos each month
And speak to hv at 12 months or earlier if you concerned.

I've "read" many a book with my eyes closed when the dc were little and never got a reaction. They're all nt.

I can still do The Very Hungry Catapillar from memory.

@Witchend thanks for letting me know as he definitely didn’t notice when I tried this morning!

@FergusSingsTheBlues Please accept that we don’t all have the same experiences dealing with this. Well yes, but realistically if your trust are breaking the law perhaps it’s you who needs to understand that we don’t all live or work in such areas?

An Ehcp is based on “need” and you don’t have to have a diagnosis to get one, and certainly not a diagnosis of autism. Melatonin is a drug that helps people fall asleep and is used by many parents who struggle to cope with their child’s wakefulness. Drs prescribe drugs to treat patients, and what you would need is to have a significant difficulty falling asleep NOT a diagnosis of autism. As you work in the area it will probably be fairly straightforward to ask questions of people you trust to corroborate this information, OR info on EHC is available on line.

OP my young MN is fairly severely disabled, and certainly won’t be able to live independently and can’t access mainstream education. (Totally fabulous though, but perhaps not what we were expecting!). He has always been loving and cuddly and would definitely have noticed if I’d read books with my eyes closed, some of his non autistic sibling might not.

Sorry that should read “my young man”

@Witchend thanks for letting me know as he definitely didn’t notice when I tried this morning!

OP, I think it may be better to step away from Google and this thread. He is 8 months - I doubt most 8 months old would notice. Internet is curse and cure when it comes to most conditions and ASD is certainly one of them (It helped me hugely to preserve for referrals and to fight for support for DD who is severely disabled, just HVs and GPs didn't wanna see it) but it can also put parents of children with perfectly normal development into a frenzy over nothing.

He is 8 months. Nobody here can tell you if he has Asd or not. Nobody in the medical world would be able to answer this question either as he is far too young for dx (and I say that as a mum of a child with an 'early' ASD diagnosis at 3).

Just keep an eye on things. and if you still have worries by 18 months, then get going.

Here s a better description
teachmetotalk.com/2017/03/02/joint-attention-toddlers-why-its-important-for-language-development/

A baby toddler may look up at you to see if you sharing. Book example not scientific. But when you reading looking at book baby or toddler will often look up at you to see if you sharing

Forexample, the child looks at something and then looks back at you as if to say, “That's what I want you to notice!”

This also says emerges from 9 months so early days yet..but mentions eye contact. Ds didn't fixate on my face when feeding unlike dd .dd would lick eyes from early on. Specifically I noticed when ds was having ASD assessment as dd was then 4 months.

babysparks.com/2019/05/20/joint-attention-why-tuning-in-to-your-child-is-so-important/

Lock eyes

Not lick!

There s lots online about joint attention

Please take everything your NCT friends tell you with a giant pinch of salt. Comparing babies only leads to madness and frantic googling and general misery!!
Happily people on their second and third babies know this, but it is a thing first time mothers usually learn the hard way. Babies are all different because, y'know, people are different and babies are small people.
Your baby sounds gorgeous btw. Dairyfairy has great advice IMHO.

Thanks, I will see how he gets on with the joint attention in a couple of months and just keep an eye on him.
He used to lock eyes with me when I fed him as a baby but hasn’t since around 5 months when he got more interested in other things. He mainly has his eyes closed now.
Whilst I know it’s best to avoid google, this thread has been very reassuring, helpful & given a great insight.

@Lou0712
When you're sleep deprived then being able to read a book with your eyes closed is definitely a superpower.

@Witchend haha it was more of a close my eyes and talk nonsense kind of thing....which is how I spend most of the day anyway!

Please take everything your NCT friends tell you with a giant pinch of salt. Comparing babies only leads to madness and frantic googling and general misery!!

This is why I hate the NCT, it just encourages neurosis and one-upmanship! Comparison is the thief of joy.