I am pretty convinced by 18 month old DS has ASD. My concerns are that he has never pointed, has no joint attention (e.g. has never brought us a toy to show us), doesn't have very good eye contact, has no words, doesn't understand anything we say (other than "no"), etc.
We took him to see a NHS developmental paediatrician the other day and she refused to refer him to the autism team, saying she thinks he just has a delay in speech and understanding.
I asked why she thought it wasn't autism and she said because the children she saw with autism "ran around the room screaming", had tantrums and had problems with sleeping and food. She also said DS is clearly very attached to me and DH (which is true) and she thought he did have some non-verbal communication (this was based on the fact that he tried to take a toy from her, she kept hold of it trying to get him to ask for it, he gave up and turned away and started crying (during none of this time did he look at her at all) - apparently this is communication of sorts 
)?
Is it just me or is this a very ignorant view of autism for a developmental paediatrician to have? I know that a lot of children with autism do very obviously have autism in terms of stims, screaming, having tantrums, not sleeping and having problems with food, etc. but surely that is not at all part of the diagnostic criteria?
It was the sort of thing my know-it-all MiL says - "oh he can't have autism because he gave me a hug this morning" - but I really expected a bit more from a developmental paediatrician?
Does anyone have any thoughts? Am I right to not trust this doctor's verdict or am I being unreasonable? We are going to see Daphne Keen next week (privately) so it will be interesting to see what she says in comparison.