Ds is 6 years old and I first raised concerns when he was 4 months old as he wasn't smiling and his eye contact was non existent. The neonatal paediatrician referred him for urgent sight tests because she thought he had a serious sight problem, his eye contact was so bad.
Anyway we finally got a referral to the community paediatrician when he was 3 and since then we have seen 3 different locum paediatricians who all take a history, say he is still very young and say they will see us in 6 months.
Today we had a telephone appointment with another different paediatrician. I was sceptical but she was really good. She asked me some questions, read the reports from the school and the speech therapist and said it's glaringly obvious he has autism. She said if this had been a face to face appointment she would have just given him a diagnosis. But she wants to see him just to confirm it so we are going to have a face to face appointment in 3 months and she will give him an autism diagnosis then.
I'm so relieved that it's finally happening.