Inlaws think my 3yr old has ASD

[TheGreatBobinsky]

My inlaws keep insisting I get my DD(3) assessed for autism. They will not drop the subject despite me stating my many reasons against it. AIBU to be angry they won't leave it now.

My reasons are:

1. She's only just turned 3 years old. Even if she was showing traits, she wouldn't be assessed this young anyway.
2. She has met almost all of her milestones* and even surpassed many of them - her speech is brilliant, she's mostly potty trained, she knows her numbers up to 10, she has a fantastic imagination and role plays constantly, she can take turns and share, she is showing interest in playing with her peers, she has the emotional intelligence expected of a year old.
3. She hasn't got any of the traits listed on the diagnostic criteria.
4. Even if she did have traits, it's really unfair for them to keep saying it in front of her, especially when they are phrasing it as if there's something wrong with her which is insulting to people who are autistic.

The reasons they have given me for thinking this are:

1. She doesn't like certain members of the family. She refuses to talk much to these people.
2. She is very shy - she was only 6m old when lockdowns began, she's getting alot better with socialising but I don't think its surprising that she is shy.
3. She has a limited diet - she is extremely fussy and this is a concern but this alone doesn't scream ASD to me.
4. She's obsessed with her hands. She's not!
5. She can't jump with two feet off the ground. *this is the one milestone she hasn't reached.
6. She has accidents around one member of the family - who apparently tells her off if she has an accident 🙄

None of my health visitors, GPs, nursery staff (although they've only seen her at show around admittedly) or my own family - including two teachers (one of whom works in a SEN setting) think she shows any traits. I've tried being polite and shutting down this conversation but that's clearly not working.

The way things are said are implying that their is something wrong with her that needs to be fixed - she doesn't need fixing and even if she did have ASD she still wouldn't need fixing! What would you do in this situation?

I havent RTFT and I have put YABU. I agree it doesn't sound like she has ASD, and there isn't a lot you can do at her age, but my DD met all her milestones and most of them early. Her speech was perfect by the age of 18 months, walking before she was 1 etc but couldn't jump with 2 feet off the floor by the time she was 3 (that was my first sign), this just like your DD was the first milestone she didn't hit. She has since been diagnosed with Developmental coordination disorder ( DCD also know as dyspraxia) she also qualified for an ASD assessment (still awaiting the results) and is still waiting for an ADHD assessment. So don't just blow off their concerns, tell them you are listening to them, but there isn't a lot you can do yet as she is still too young, you will keep monitoring her for now and see what happens when she starts school.
They won't refer for most things until the child is 6, but please don't just write everything off as age, my DF did that with my DD and just wouldn't listen to me, everytime I raised my concerns it was "its just her age" "she is the youngest in her year" etc.

I'm so glad you see your little one and her needs! So many of us want to use labels, not to understand and help children, but to bludgeon them into "right thinking people" of whatever type makes us most comfortable.

I should add that doesn't mean you in laws are right and as I said it isn't necessarily ASD. I only said what I said because the earliest sign with my DD was that she couldn't jump with 2 feet off the floor, the big problem was that she struggled at school and because she struggled and couldn't do things her peers could she believed she was stupid. Even though her school was absolutely amazing with her I watched my beautiful confident girl loose all her confidence in herself and become despondent at school, hiding in the toilets to get out of lessons, it is only just starting to get better since she has had her DCD diagnosis and understands herself a little better. I still remember the conversation I had with her at the start of all the assessments where I told her that there was something going on with her that is making things more difficult for her, that me and the doctors were going to sort that out and for her not to worry, but it does mean she has to work harder than her peers to achieve things that she IS capable off, her response "So I'm not stupid then?" It completely broke my heart.

All I meant was don't completely ignore the idea just because the majority of reasons your in laws have given are complete bs.

@Snaketime oh I'm not writing off as a possibility, I think maybe my first post came across as quite defensive but I do know that meeting her milestones etc. Doesn't mean that she hasn't got ASD, just that the things my in laws state don't mean that she does. I think I'm more upset that they seem so anxious for a diagnosis, they don't understand the process for a referral either - one of them thinks if they ring and speak to the doctor she'll be able to somehow jump the list 🙄 despite other children needing an assessment far more urgently. The way it's spoken about by them is that a diagnosis will somehow 'fix her' but as I have told them even if they are correct she will still be the same lovely little girl, a diagnosis wouldn't change a single thing and I wouldn't want it too. Obviously if she does show more traits as she gets older and is struggling then I will take the appropriate steps to get her any support she needs, but for now she is perfectly happy and so are we (her parents) and so right now nothing needs to be done.

I think itsa pil problem. Mine love to constantly compare in a negative way. Best bet tune it out but pull them up if mentioned in front of your child

its not uncommon for women with Autism/ADHD to be misdiagnosed with BPD, so it may be that your dr is entirely wrong about you not having ASD.

That being said, your In-laws need to butt out, and if they can't shut up and respect your desire to wait and see, then i'd stop spending time with them.

There’s no medication for autism anyway

I would not be so quick to shut them down. It is a mistake to think that she cannot be assessed at 3 years old. My youngest daughter was assessed at 4, and she did not show many of the characteristic traits that people think are "typical" of autism.

One trait my daughter is very well known for is her absolute charm. When the doctor assessed her, she said "this is easily the most charming child I have met in 17 years of practice." Then she looked at me sideways and said "you know that's not normal, right?"

She was tested, then the test results were sent to a second specialist, then she was tested again with an occupational therapist.

The results were conclusive. She is autistic, even though she dazzles people with her wit and brilliance, and socializes like there's no tomorrow.

As long as she is in a tightly controlled environment, she glitters and shines like she's on the red carpet at the oscars. However, put her in a normal situation and after about a half an hour, the people she's talking to start to look at her sideways and then make excuses to leave. They know something's wrong, but they cannot figure it out. It's because she cannot maintain the train of the conversation. Her responses begin to diverge more and more widely. Eventually, she will be exhausted and she'll go climb under a table or behind a clothing rack, or lock herself in the bathroom.

The idea that there is a defining set of characteristics is wrong, wrong, wrong! Like the saying goes, if you meet somebody with cystic fibrosis, then you know about cystic fibrosis. If you meet an autistic person, then you've met an autistic person.

If there is at all a history of autism in your family, or if the father was over 40, then really do keep at least half an eye on her. This really is one condition you want to get a hold of as fast as possible.

Max was speaking at 9 months. She had over a dozen words, including door ("dowah"), finger (doe-doe), toe (feet doe-doe, which sounded like "peep doe-doe"), buh! ("Bird" but really meant "something flying overhead"), water (badow), out, up, yes, no, mama, Dada, keekah ("kitty-cat"), and "goggie" (dog). By 13 months, she had stopped speaking and was not even saying mama anymore. The reason for this is because she realized nobody except her family could understand what she was saying and that she didn't sound proper, so she shut down out of frustration. It took eight rounds of speech therapy to get her going again.

She is brilliantly quick to pick up on physical things. For example, she watched a bunch of guys being taught how to do hockey slides while ice skating. After about 5 minutes, she did a perfect hockey slide. In karate, she saw someone do a spin kick, so she did a spin kick.

But even though she is very friendly and very charming, she has one friend. Friends never come to visit her, and she very rarely visits friends unless the parents ask her. She's been to exactly one birthday party in her life that wasn't her own or a family member's.

In school, she got 90 on her midterm marks for math, then promptly stopped doing anything at all. She failed the year.

She took 5 years of French immersion and tested out advanced enough that she was exempted from taking French high school credits. So I thought it would be a good idea to have her take french, as it should be an easy, relaxing credit for her. she did not turn in any work and failed.

It sounds like an awful thing to say, but I often wish that she was more profoundly disordered because at least then outsiders would see there's something wrong and stop telling her she's just a lazy gadabout.

But then I think of my oldest daughter, who is also autistic. I was told 35 years ago that girls don't get autism unless it is the classic headbanging variety. My poor oldest daughter was left to twist in the wind, being bounced from one wrong diagnosis to the other. She is virtually housebound now, virtually unable to navigate socially, even when it would be in the best interest of my granddaughter.

Who also shows the same signs of autism in that she's very brilliant and charming for her age.

I don't have time for a long reply right now, and you've had lots of great answers. I've only skimmed the thread so apologies if I've missed this, but have you done the MCHAT test on your DC?

It's a specific autism test designed for toddlers which quantifies the likelihood of autism. It might be useful for you to do so you can tell your inlaws that she's been assessed and is low risk (assuming that's how it comes out). As others have said it's entirely possible to be diagnosed at age 3, and there's a very strong link with better outcomes with an early diagnosis. I have two autistic DC and I'm autistic myself.

Here's the MCHAT test to administer mchatscreen.com