How early can you spot asd traits?

[Catsu]

am wondering about dc3 who is 8 months...
Dc1 is 6 and has as, dc2 is nt age 4
Dc3 is 8 months, can sit up but not roll over or crawl etc yet, flaps hands fairly often and needs very little sleep (is content but just awake a LOT!)
What do you think?...

Personally I KNEW from a few months old. DS2 never sought my face, as even tiny babies do, he stared at bright lights and shiny door knobs :( He was utterly content..not bothered by anything or anyone, no separation anxiety ....

I was terrified he was autistic. Turned out I was right....BUT he is adorable now.. he eventually 'found' our faces, and in his own way is caring and kind, verbal, and a thoroughly gorgeous young man (14 now!) with autism and MLD....

He was my 4th child and the difference in him was very obvious to me from day 1 .

My ds, my first, was a lovely happy baby but never waved bye bye or clapped hands. Otherwise, he was a text book baby. It didn't occur to me anything was wrong until he didn't speak at all unlike his peers.

He is 7 now and has hf ASD.

Dd3 was a really placid baby, she made few demands on anyone. She hated loud noises right from birth and would only sleep if wrapped and under a pile of blankets. She met most of her milestones on time and spoke early and in sentences.

Fwiw, i am a great believer in gut instinct. If you are concerned keep a diary of things which concern you and then take it to your GP and ask for a referral.

Good luck

Oh, forgot to say she is 9 now and has been recently dx'ed with ASD.

I suspected there was something going on with her from the very early days. It took a long time to gets my concerns taken seriously. We started the assessment process when she was 5.

I started worrying from the time DS1 was a baby. The only time he ever laughed, apart from being tickled, was watching a tv show called Pocoyo, at which he would roar and gurgle and splutter.

Flappy twitchy fingers would certainly catch my eye if we met and have me worrying about whether to say anything to you.

Flapping is a developmental norm at certain ages though.
With both girls, one would scream always and nothing would comfort her, one was too happy, and never rarely cried.

Dc3 is a happy little thing and very rarely cries. Does smile a lot and love cuddles though. Puts arms up to me for a cuddle.
Other worry is that at 8 months dc doesn't eat any food at all yet, just milk. Struggles to swallow any solid food, even very runny stuff and has zero interest in it. Have salt referral but it's taking a while to come through....

With DS3 (aged 3, currently undergoing ASD diagnosis), I started noticing sensory problems very early on (from a couple of months). He was happy, smiley and had good eye contact, but screamed when in lifts, hated being in water (has only now just started to dip his hands into water) and had major problems with weaning due to not liking anything in his mouth. He had no solid food until he was over a year (exclusively BF until then), but this wasn't through lack of trying on my part - he was so averse to food. Eventually got him to eat yogurt at 12 months, but he still has massive issues with textures. He either likes super crunchy or completely smooth. Oh, he also never pointed or waved and seemed bemused by the world.

Zen, I did wonder if the not eating could be a sensory thing? What did you donabout your ds eating? Did you get any help given?
We've been referred to salt but there's a long waiting list and not sure how long if will be till we are seen!

Unfortunately, no help from anyone re the eating. At that stage he wasn't "in the system", so all I had were different health visitors giving conflicting advice. In the end I stopped asking for advice and just went with what I thought. I just kept offering yogurt and once he initially took it and realised it tasted ok, I just gave him yogurt every day for quite a while. TBH, getting him onto protein was an absolute nightmare, and I had to hide it in the yogurt (even though it was all just puree) or put yogurt on the front of the spoon with a savoury thing behind it. With weaning, I realised (after a few months) he was actually averse to having a spoon in his mouth. It was very difficult and stressful. We eventually saw a SALT at 26 months (who said no signs of ASD ), but who was unhelpful. Now he has a different SALT and they are trying to work on ways to get him to try different textures. He was also late meeting other developmental milestones (didn't sit till 12 months), so I often wondered whether his lack of being able to sit without falling sideways was in someway connected to his not being ready for solids.

How is your DS with touching different things? The other strange thing I noticed about my DS was that he never put anything in his mouth like NT kids do, even when teething.

Dd2 was a horrid horrid baby :( she howled relentlessly and if we picked her up it made it worse. She didn't roll over until she was ten months old. She's 2.7 now and still struggles to roll! She's currently awaiting assessment and her screeching still drives me insane that accompanied by the fact she doesn't need to sleep is the reason why I have a glass of wine in my hand at only 7.15 pm :)

Oh yes DS1 didn't babble, he just went on to echolalia, mostly quotes from Little Einsteins cartoon like "Fortissimo!" Accelerando!". I lied at his 8m check and said he was babbling, not sure why, just assumed he would get round to it but he didn't. I thought perhaps he might have the Aspie gene and an engineer-ish type personality but didn't expect him to be fully Aspie.

i did an interesting course on social communication diffuculties a couple of mths bk and it was recognised within 20 minutes of birth..how they got this info i dont know ..but probably through research and studies

my ds as a baby just constantly screamed and never slept. he hated loud noises, when he settled down wth the screaming at around 6months he just smiled constantly then he started head banging constantly, he sat at 6months, unaided he was later but he didnt roll till almost 9 months. he use to do this weird thing when he touched you or any object, toy ect he would flick his hand in and out on things (hard to explain) rather than explore it. babbling that dissappeared, he once babbled the word "unbelievable" then stopped babbling altogether, didnt say a word then till he was 2. he was with me constantly but couldnt care less if i wasn't there

he's not diagnosed with anything but hes definitely a quirky little thing

I took DS to the dr's for the first time at 4 weeks. He didn't make or maintain eye contact like my friends babies did, I just had a 'feeling' - he never slept, hated loud noises, was late to meet milestones and struggled learning to wave or clap etc. Late speech, just a general feeling. As he got older he sruggled in social situations but people kept saying that was just toddler behaviour. He struggled with new things, the amount of times I walked out of clarks and sat and cried in the car over his behaviour over getting a new pair of shoes!! He hit other children in frustration at toddler groups and I knew the other mums talked about me/him. It wasn't until he went to school someone else saw what I saw - the relief! x

gottalovecosta - that is my ds described exactly, im hoping the school he starts in september see what i see too! x