Hi all. I have a beautiful 18 month old boy who is on the pathway to being assessed with ASD. We live in New Zealand and I work at the local hospital so the process has been relatively fast so far. I am very sure that he will be diagnosed as autistic. I must say I have spent the past 6 months almost grieving and am now on antidepressants and able to think about it all much more pragmatically. I have realized he is still my beautiful boy and that hasn't changed. He had a big regression in his social skills just after his first birthday and basically stopped looking at us and completely stopped smiling/wanting to engage. It was incredibly hard. A lot of has improved and he now engages quite well with farmillar safe people. My initial fear was that he would never speak and I would never know what he was feeling, that he would never be able to tell me if he was sad hurting etc etc. He is making progress everyday and I guess I hoped people who have been in my position could give me their opinion as to how he is doing. He has never had issues with following a point, started pointing to request early around 12 months but I have only ever seen him point to share a few times. He has always responded to his name - no issues there whatsoever. He has never really babbled at all which was one of my main concerns early on, we have done lots of early play based stuff with a SLP working on joint attention / vocalizations / imitation etc. He now has around 40 words or word approximations (ie) ba for bus or moo for MOVE when he wants the dog to move out of the way. He has been shaking head no and nodding yes to answer questions since around 14 months. His understanding/ receptive language is great - he can follow instructions without gestures well and I feel he understands most of what I say. He definately has a strength in labeling items although we have specifically taught him more and help etc with the help of makaton early on and now he sometimes signs or sometimes just uses the word. He has never ever babbled in a socially directed way and will generally only direct vocalizations at us if wanting something. He has never really been through seperation or stranger anxiety and doesn't seem to react or really notice at all when myself or.his dad leave or come home. He has quite flat affect in terms of his facial expressions. He does tip toe walk on occasion and when overstimulated will sometimes shake head side to side, and do lots of what I think is vocal stimming repeating a broom broom noise or making raspberries. He waves (although this disappeared for a while when he had the social regression) but with a lot of encouragement it came back. I feel nervous and scared for his future. Does anyone have any.thoughts as to where he may be on the spectrum or weather he will be ok? I should add I believe I may also be autistic after months and months of research. I have always struggled to fit in, not completely but just never QUITE fitted. I have a great job and an amazing small ish group of friends but quite often struggle socially especially in larger groups. I guess my biggest fear is that he will regress further and lose some of these amazing skills he has. How common is this? I did read somewhere that in cases where toddlers were pointing before 18 months and then diagnosed with autism later on - quite often a regression is involved. @AladdinMum I think this may have been a comment of yours? I would love your insight on my boy. But also aware you have a life outside of mumsnet! Or any insight from anyone that has been here?