My husband is beside himself with worry that our son is autistic. He is 18 months old and does not yet talk which I think is mainly why he is worried, but there are a few other things he doesn’t do like point and bring people toys/food. His development is otherwise normal, started walking at 12 months, crawling at 10 months sitting up 6 months and makes a lot of ga/bah/dah/gee noises just not specific words. I looked at a checklist for autism at his age and he doesn’t show all the signs but does some:
• not responding to their name - he does respond to his name
• avoiding eye contact - he doesn’t avoid eye contact
• not smiling when you smile at them - he does smile/laugh when smiled at
• getting very upset if they do not like a certain taste, smell or sound - not really, if there is a loud bang or something startling he gets upset but calms down quickly
• repetitive movements, such as flapping their hands, flicking their fingers or rocking their body - he doesn’t do this
• not talking as much as other children - true, he does not talk at all
• repeating the same phrases - he does not talk
One other thing he does is he loves the wheels on toys (have heard the spinning wheels thing is a sign of autism?) and he loves real life objects like the empty coffee tin, climbing on benches, and railings (so random?) Does anyone with autistic children know what the signs would look like at 18 months and whether we should be worried? We are seeing his paediatrician tomorrow just in case but my gut feeling is that he doesn’t have autism but he does have some kind of speech delay.