How did you know your child had autism?

[Albaba]

I have 22 month old twin girls who are 20 months corrected age. One of them has just recently been diagnosed with having mild cerebral palsy and is not walking yet at 22 months old. We have also other concerns about her development and are worried that she could also have autism. For example she seems to cry for no reason and when we try to comfort her she can't be comforted. Being held doesn't help at all she tends to go rigid and arch her back. Also she has recently started being aggressive biting us, her sister and staff and other children at the nursery.
She doesn't like changes in her surroundings. Taking her somewhere different usually results in a crying match. Also with them being twins people tend to peer in to their pram and go "oh look at the twins" which then causes my daughter to start screaming. I don't know if this is relevant but she is a really messy eater. She takes the food out of her mouth, smears it all over her tray and throws it over the floor.
She cries everyday for no reason probably for several hours a day. We had her at her physiotherapist this morning and had to cut the session short as she starting crying hysterically and couldn't be calmed down. We mentioned our concerns to her paediatrician at her last visit and she just said that because she has hypotonia and mild cp that everything for her takes more of an effort and that she gets tired more easily but we can't help thinking that it is something more than that. She is just generally difficult and challenging. Her twin is generally lovely, easy going and only cries for example if she has a reason like falling over.
On the positive side though she has good words. If you say a word to her she watches your mouth and says it back to you but I still can't shake this feeling that there is something "different" about her compared to other children of her age, especially comparing her to her twin sister. Does this sound like autism or some other sort of behavioural issue to you?

Hi, my DS has severest sort processing issues, and exhibits the same 'autistic like' behaviours you describe. He hates change and anything new because it scares him. He will react aggressively and violently to feel secure again. He also bites and pinches because he is seeking sensory stimulation. I'm not saying it's not ASD With your DD, but there may be another explanation. We have to introduce any changes extremely slowly but have been lucky enough to have real expert advice. Much of what you describe does sound like a developmental delay which hopefully with the right help she will grow out of & catch up. X

Severe sensory processing!!! Damn autocorrect.

A very kind mum of a then 11 year old pointed ne to this site. www.firstsigns.org/concerns/flags.htm

I knew that day that something wasn't right. That was 2 years ago.

Ds2 was a delightful child(to me) but I would say the signs that he would go on to develop ASD, or had always had it were:

impatience eg: with food he didn't like the texture of, even when hungry
easily frustrated/bored/very lively
difficulty with textures
difficulty settling to sleep initially

He was hard work in a way because he spat things out all the time and screamed with frustration when he didn't get the chance to go out and see the world aged about 1 and half. Also he needed our constant attention and feedback. We gave it to him, but I am now realising maybe it was hard work, and that not all toddlers were so demanding...

The sensory processing stuff is important because a child with ASD gets overwhelmed by the noise and sensations around them. For example Ds couldn't manage a full day in Reception, and did mornings only for first year until he was over 5. When he couldn't cope he would go berserk, making loads of noise, running around like a maniac, crying. His desire for calm provoked the opposite response from his system. He needed lots of opportunity to release physical energy (park, climbing, rolling around) and very poor fine motor skills when he was little. But not so that you would notice if you were a HV. His communication was excellent, as was his speech, apart from a bit of dribbling. He loved chatting to people but he was obsessively interested in toys and played few imaginative games with them, more repeating a story he had heard already, or arranging them in towers, or lines.

I wonder whether your little girl is finding nursery life a bit overwhelming and that is why she is lashing out? Whether it is ASD or not, that might be worth seeing whether it improved things to see whether she needed more time in quiet setting 1:1. Ds loved things to be calm although as I say he was very lively and emotional. He benefited a lot from singing, and climbing, and dancing, and playing with his sister.

As the mum of a child with cp, you describe all the situations my son dealt with. Looking back on it now hes almost five years old I can see it was insecurity and frustration that were the main cause of his behaviour. Hes much better as hes grown older.

The arching of the back and problems feeding were due to him having problems swallowing.

Hope this helps xx

I have a ds and dd with autism they are and were as babies like chalk and cheese. I knew something was wrong from ds's earliest days because he wasn't like my others. He screamed constantly and picking him up made him worse, he barely slept, he wasn't at all interested in me but would search out lights. As he got older he'd spin objects and didn't speak and the tantrums had to be seen to be believed with seemingly no trigger and nothing to ease them and he had a compulsion to escape.
Dd on the other hand was a dream baby, happy and content, smiley, ate and slept well, loved cuddles I though she was fine. She lost all her skills at twelve months and then I knew she had autism.
I suppose what I'm saying is that there isn't a typically autistic baby or toddler they all have their own unique patterns of behaviour.

?Most mommies and daddies tell me ?I thought there was a problem at 14 or 15 months...and they told me let?s wait and see because sometimes some kids grow out of it.? Well, that?s not a good answer. We?ve got to make the distinction between less important problems, where we can wait and see from core problems, which involve a lack of reciprocity and a lack of getting to know your world. For these core problems, we have to act on it yesterday. We can?t wait nine months, we can?t wait two months.? (Stanley I. Greenspan, )

Worth cutting and pasting...

Hi, I was exactly where you are now about 8 years ago.
my ds was born at 28 wks & was originally dx with GDD, he was then dx with mild CP.
But I knew there was something else going on, we also got the "its the delays, its the extra effort & frustration etc" but as he got a little older it was obvious that his development was disordered rather than delayed & there was more going on than frustration.
Start keeping a record, write down the "odd" behaviours that cause concern.
For us ds2 showed no signs of wanting to interact, his language particularly his expressive language just didn't develop, there was also no animal sounds, baby babbling. He developed fears of odd & rather random things. Hated noise of any sort particularly if he couldn't see what was making it, would cry for hours, didn't like cuddles, would chew food & spit it out.
Some of these can be normal toddler phases but altogether, the extremeness of it all & the fact the phases didn't pass eventually meant our concerns were listened to.
If your dd is already getting support, OT, physio, salt etc because of prematurity & CP then in maybe a dx (if it is ASD) is not so important at the moment. If however you feel that it would help, go back & push for a full assessment to a developmental paed & a multi disciplinary ASD assessment.
BTW, my son is 10now & doing well at ms primary with 1 to1 support.