Should I be concerned

[ShannonLouiseX]

Hi my LG is 18 months old I’m a bit concerned she has autism, she flaps her arms and walks on her tiptoes not all the time but I would say half of the day she does this, she has also gone off her food she used to be a really good eater now I’m lucky if she eats 1 meal a day, also the tantrums are coming thick and fast, she will bang her head of the door, the sofa and the floor, her eye contact isn’t the best the health visitors have said this themselves, she answers her name like 80% of the time and she is really good at pretend play, also she only says around 5 words

I think it would be worth asking for a referral, yes. It's really hard to tell at 18 months because a lot of those things are "normal" for a child at 18 months, but all of them combined are worth speaking to someone about a referral. We were referred to a specialist HV for our DD, who then sent us to an early years SEND specialist who did a test called (I think) M-CHAT and then from there we were referred round all sorts of specialists over a period of two years. In between the multiple offers of parenting classes there were some incredibly helpful practitioners who really understood what we needed and how to navigate it all.

@LauraMipsum I have had 2 of those SACS assessments done the first one she scored 2 on the five main points of autism but she wasn’t so sure so we had another lady from speech and language assess her and she only scored her one on the test for her eye contact, they have said she has a slight speech delay and they will speak to her nursery to help with this they are also coming to redo the test in 6 months but they just say it’s unlikely she has autism but I feel like they are not taking me seriously and they think she’s fine