Hi all,
I feel really silly asking this but I was wondering if my 2 year old is showing ASD signs as HV was concerned.
My 3 year old was dignosed with Autism recently however he has different issues and his behaviours are completely different to his sisters so I'm not sure.
I don't want to write war and peace on it so I'll try and shorten my concerns.
She was extremely delayed, she couldn't do anything up until she was 1 year old but now at 2, she can walk, sit up, feed herself etc
Traits I've noticed include:-
Limited eye contact
Not responding to name
Hand flapping
Rocking back and forwards
Lines toys up
Limited speech, she says mummy and daddy but her speech is mostly repeating part of nursery rhymes.
Doesn't smile
Doesn't look when somethings pointed out to her.
Doesn't point
Walks around in circles and with her eyes closed
Shakes her head a lot and holds lights up to her eyes.
She gets extremely upset, absolutely inconsolable and will hurt herself - this can go on for up to 45 minutes (this can happen due to transitional or routine changes or for no reason at all).
- She's still in nappies (which I think is normal for 2) but she can get quite distressed during nappy changing time and it takes longer to change her, she'll scream, kick out, cry and I'd say a nappy change can take 10-20 minutes and then longer if we need to do a full outfit change.
-She can feed herself and eats what we give her which is great but she'll also eat non food especially paper and fabric (I have to race her to get the post so she doesnt eat it!) She has to be constantly supervised to make sure she doesn't ingest anything she shouldn't.
- No sense of danger. She will run full force into the doors, jump off the sofa, she also hurts herself, bolts in public, approaches strangers to be picked up etc so she needs constant supervision at home and outside (we restrain her outside with reins or pram which again i think is normal).
- She has very limited speech so she can't express her needs really, she doesn't point or gesture either.
She can't help with dressing herself, she's like a baby really and needs everything doing for her in terms of that but she can undress herself and will do so all the time but I think this is normal.
She doesn't go to bed before midnight no matter if she naps or not during the day and when she does sleep she'll wake up every 45 minutes to 1.5 hours absolutely possessed, she'll arch her back, throw herself around, make herself sick with how much she's screaming and it takes a long time to settle her back to sleep - she must only get around 3-5 hours a night if that! (I know two year olds can wake in the night though so I think that's normal too)
Do you think these are enough to be concerned about or will she grow out of them?