Please help me understand ND/ autism

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Posting for traffic. I’d be grateful
if anyone could please share their experiences of what their children were like when they were younger/ toddlers, if they have then gone onto be diagnosed with autism. A few people have suggested the difficult behaviours of my DD 2.5 might be due to ND, however she is such a social child and thrives off playing with other children. She smiles/ eye contact will actively seek them out and try to engage in play, imaginary play and hold their hand etc (in an appropriate way, she’s not over aggressive or persistent either). I sort of perhaps wrongly assumed most children with autism aren’t as social, don’t want to interact or engage? Apologies im
not meaning to cause offence I’m just trying to understand, also because she is so young.

Most ND children are social. Some struggle with being social appropriately or knowing how to connect well.

Autism is a massive spectrum, no two people are the same.
Some of us are overally sociable, some not at all. Girls are better at masking, I think would hold off and see where you're at with her in 6 months or so if you're not sure.

Autism presents differently in girls than boys and it's boys who are the most documented when it comes to ASD. The whole thing needs an overhaul really.

What are her difficulties?

It might be better to start with what people are highlighting that they think is flagging up autism? It is quite young, but some children are showing signs by 2. However, on the internet in general, there is rather a large and sometimes predatory movement towards identifying every little thing as "signs of autism", many of which are totally normal toddler behaviours - often this is linked to trying to sell you OT services (in the US, but because online, gets leaked all over the English speaking world) or supplements (even more dubious and some quite alarming) or even further down the supplement/alternative health pipeline simply just seed anxiety about generalised "autism", "gut health" or "immune disorders" designed to create fear around the topics of vaccination, antibiotics, medicine (or as they call it "mainstream medicine") in general.

I'm not saying that everyone online talking about autism is trying to con you, but some are and some are well-meaning but have got sucked into a narrative that is ultimately harmful.

But - it would be useful to hear what specific behaviours you are concerned about.

M-chat is a screening questionnaire for autism in toddlers. You can try filling this out and see what comes out. Girls do present very differently to boys though and often these things are more geared towards the male presentation. Most of the young girls I know who are autistic are social, or at least appear to be. Often there are subtle signs in their interactions such as being very rigid about rules of games, not wanting to change the game halfway through etc.

Go talk on the snchat board. It's really good.

It might be easier if you say why people think she might be autistic and who those people are ie random strangers or nursery workers for example. At just 2.5 though she's still very young.