Pointing and ASD

[magso]

A couple of other threads made me wonder about pointing.
I have always assumed my son did point ( well from about 2 - he had no language then but did a whole handed reach/point) but now I wonder. He points at things he wants us to get, but his pointing is not accurate and he doesnt seem to understand that it needs to be for us to understand! He still does not point accuratly at 9 and can get very frustrated (language is difficult for him) if we fail to accuratly locate the object of his attention. Ds does have a dx now of asd/ld but is this innaccurate pointing part of his autism/ part of his not understanding we do not see/know what he knows or something else ( he gets double vision too)?

Erm wonder what thread that was...

As far as I am aware (you'd need jimjams for the links etc) absence of pointing or unusual pointing is very common in ASD chidlren and a good signm of the asd.

(forgot the )

Thank you Peachy. I just hadn't picked up on unusual pointing being a 'red flag' but I do not think it was recognised 7-8 years back (when ds was a tot) anyway. ( Ds has so many quirks!)

I thought that ds pointed too. I remember thinking it when i looked at the pointers for autism. I have a photo of him in the park at about 2 pointing.
I realised though that the pointing was for him...it was him saying 'oh there it is' or 'i like that ' he didn't look to see if we looked to where he was gesturing..because it wasn't for us. He wasn't looking to see what our opinion of it was.He wasn't trying to engage us. The 'point' itself was odd too..like he was pointing with the fist almost (even though the finger was out)..it wasn't specific and always looked awkward...more of a general 'what i am interested in is over there'

If i ask him to point out something now...he still can't really do it...he makes a general movement to where the thing maybe (say something on the horizon)..but it is very innacurate and he can't talk you through it in a sequence.He kind of lacks the performance of pointing iykwim

Troutpout that is exactly how ds is! I have tried to show him (many times) how to point - lining up his finger with his eye for instance. He sometimes asks a question of something on the horizon (? I go there) but it is often difficult to work out what he is pointing at, and I'm not sure it counts as shared attention as such.

I think failure to point by 18mths is an indicator of ASD. My ds has never pointed.

There are two types of pointing: proto-declarative pointing, where the baby/toddler wants to direct another person's attention to a given object and proto-imperative pointing, where the baby/toddler wants to obtain either a desired object or wants help

Pointing uses many important communciation elements, including joint attention and gaze checking. I was very aware that my ds did not point by 12-18mths and did realise that it was significant.