How do you know what's ASD and normal toddler behaviour?

[FireworkFranny]

Hi all,

I had a paediatrician appointment on Tuesday for my 22 month old as he can't walk yet but we've also noticed some possible ASD traits (his uncle and grandma have autism) the things we've noticed so far;

He doesn't really respond to his name recently he has but it's very hit and miss - mostly miss to be honest but the odd time he will turn to look at you.

He's lost a lot of his words, he could say quite a few prior to now but all he can say now is dada, tah, bye and no.

He cannot follow simple instructions so you couldn't say to him "oh please pass mummy that nappy" however if he's holding something and you hold out your hand saying "tah" more often than not he will give it you.

He plays with parts of toys, he absolutely loves cars but will mostly play with their wheels.

He's sensitive to some noise and actually when we brought his baby sister home (she didn't actually make any noise) he put his fingers in his ears, closed his eyes and shook his head.

He doesn't pretend play, hates dolls.

He does rock, stim and flap.

Doesn't really show concern, if someone's crying he laughs - he doesn't really understand emotion.

He doesn't recognise or point to objects so you couldn't say where's the dog or whatever.

He doesn't join in with songs etc

Prefers to play on his own but has form a bit of a bond with one particular child at childminders.

He's also started to avoid eye contact a little bit now where as he didn't before.

He also loves his routine and gets quite distress if it's interrupted.

Also, and I hate this one and I'm trying to get him out of it but the meltdown is unreal he'll zone out at the telly, the same shows for hours (if we let him, we try to limit it)

These are things we've noticed but I don't want to automatically say he's autistic or anything like that when they may just be normal baby behaviours - is it worth mentioning to the pedestrian or will I be laughed out of the room?

I'm just worried about him as I know early intervention is important but like said, don't automatically want to assume something if it's not there.

Any advice please?

Is it worth just mentioning anyway?

Bump

If you are worried I would take the list to the doctor, you could also raise it with your health visitor as they can refer you to services. At the very least you should ask for a referral to get his hearing checked.

I can't tell you if he's autistic or not but he does sound quite like my ds at that age.

Thank you for your reply he's had his hearing checked, that was the first thing we did and he's fine.

We have an appointment with the paediatrician tomorrow due to him not walking so I'll mention it to them.

Some of those ring familiar with what my son was like at that age and he’s been diagnosed. The spinning wheels on cars was one of his favourite things to do.

I would definitely mention it, and push quite hard if they don’t take you seriously.

good luck!

Sounds very similar to my toddler, except she sings along/ knows a song for almost every occasion yet is really lacking in functional/ 2 way communication (26 months old). She's in the process of assessment (so far meets the diagnostic criteria, paeds just waiting for info from SALT & nursery) & I think it's important you definitely mention it- if ASD then early intervention can apparently be very helpful & if not then nothing is lost. In our case her stimming/ arm flapping is quite pronounced so along with her GDD (especially in communication) I'm not sure what else it could be?

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I did end up mentioning it at the appointment and at the moment we've been told he has low muscle tone so is being referred to a physiotherapist, he's severely delayed so being referred to a speech therapist when he turns two in January and we've to go back in six months time and if he hasn't developed appropriately we can look at an ASD assessment but at the moment I think it's classed as a global developmental delay.

At least the right things are in place for him now

That sounds like a good outcome.

I thought so too, I think it's gonna be a long road to get to where we need to be but we're on our way