Hi hoping I've put this in the right section. My ds will be 3 in a few months. At his 15 month check the health visitor raised concerns about his, speech, fine motor skills and problem solving. She implied he might be autistic. He was 6 weeks premature so I wasn't expecting him to be able to use a coat hanger as a tool to hook an out of reach object or to put buttons into a coke bottle. Nevertheless I was shocked and really upset for a couple of weeks. He caught up on fine motor and problem solving over the following year but at the 2 year check she said he had a severe speech delay as he only had around 5 words. I had already been seeing private slt for this so wasn't surprised. He also wasn't really pointing so another potential indicator for autism. He started nhs salt and finished that fairly recently. He now has well in excess of 100 words and points all the time. He doesn't use sentences yet. Anyway, the slt told me today she was referring him for an autism assessment if I conset as he apparently has a lot of indicators. She then went on to list them and I felt I disagreed with most of them. I don't think I'm a mum in denial as I have health anxiety for the kids and always think every little thing must be the worst case scenario. But at the same time maybe I am and I can't see it. She said he has sensory differences as he is obsessed with staring out the window. He isn't, he looked out his bedroom window once for a few minutes when she was doing a home visit. I was with him pointing things out. He occasionally looks out at his swing set and points and says garden as he wants to go out. She said he is hyper fixated on letters and numbers. He isn't. I got his magnetic letters and numbers board out when she was here to do an activity which he really enjoyed. He also went through a phase of trying to count to ten and recite the alphabet. Now that he's mastered that he doesn't bother that much u less I prompt him. Again this wasn't all the time. He isn't particularly obsessed with any toy etc, he plays with them all but usually has a temporary favourite which gets slightly more attention e.g ten mins of play. She said about his challenging behaviour. He is such a calm laid back boy. I've never once told her he has challenging behaviour nor had she witnessed any. She said at his first clinic visit at the start of the year he didn't oay attention to myself or the slt he was just exploring the office and looking at the tots without trying to engage us. That did happen but he hadn't long turned two and was in a new environment with a load of new toys. She said he o ky smiles at the toys. Definitely not true, he smiles at me and other people all the time. He wants to play witb us and parrallell plays with others. She said it has to be by his rules though. I thought that was fairly normal for 2 years old. He doesn't always answer to his name, maybe 50% of the time and that is true. So you can get the jist of the conversation. I have agreed to an autism assessment anyway and if he does turn out to have it I would prefer he was diagnosed before starting shool in case he needs extra support etc. I was just really taken aback by her reasoning and the conclusions she had jumped to. We were really worried about autism after his 15 month check but had started to sway to him not having it. His health visitor was always 50 50 about it but said a few months ago she doesn't think so. At that point she also did an autism screening for him. She said if you score over 80(I think that was the number) then she would refer him. My ds scored 10. Not really sure what I'm even asking here . It was such a bizarre and unexpected conversation. I'm glad they are going to assess him if they have genuine concerns and he will apparently be seen in a matter of months. I just don't necessarily agree that he does have indicators which meet the autism criteria bar his speech delay. Has anyone else been in a similar situation if so how did it turn out, did you progress the assessment or just wait and see? Sorry this turned out to be so long winded hats off to you if you made it to the end.