pointing when should they do it?

[ruty]

My ds is ten months next week and we have had some concerns about in him the past because he has a gut problem. He seems now to be doing well, just starting to crawl, playing with toys, babbling, laughing. Just wondering, when should he start to point? He doesn't, but he grabs things. Watching him like a hawk because he has to have a special diet to avoid development problems.

13 months is still too young to worry- and always look at the whole child- can they communicate with you (not with speech necessairly- ds2 didn't speak until late but I never worried as he was perfectly capable of getting his point across).

The going to fetch things etc is good, but the really important thing with autism is a lack of interest in sharing things. So for example if we were at the zoo/farm wherever with ds1 when he was little (and still actually not that we go to those places anymore) and we said "ooh look" and pointed then ds1 would have no interest in looking to see what we were pointing at, he didn;t even try. He's still crap at following a point. He does point ow but often with his whole hand (twisted round strangely_ or with a middle finger. A common auti trait would be to lead you by your hand and put your hand on what is wanted- or sort of push it in the general direction- he still does that. He'\s done that since he was tiny.

But always you need the bigger picture, and the child as a whole, not just one or two oddities. Pointings a big one (especially of things of interest) but mainly because it indicates shared attention.

Thinking about it when he was little and we were looking at books if I said "where's the X" he would pick up my hand and put it on the relevant picture. I thought it was cute, but now know its completely autistic!