Special Needs
jamisoncondie
member
Autism moms - how did you know?
jamisoncondie
member
How early did you have an idea? What were your first signs. LO is 8 months and I've noticed things, I just have this feeling.
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Re: Autism moms - how did you know?
More relevant to your situation: when I look at his baby videos now things jump out at me, but he was my first and I didn't know any better. My MIL, though, said something was off with his eye contact at one month. He still fails the head lag test, which I wish we'd known about then (https://www.kennedykrieger.org/potential-online/potential-fall-2012/infant-head-lag-autism). He was always an "easy" baby, which was probably related to his hyposensitivity to sensory input.
I have to correct my earlier post because it's driving me crazy!! I meant "indication", not "inclination".
No joint attention was something I noticed too early on. He would move on to something else whenever I tried to engage him. Another thing was whenever I pointed at something (like a plane in the sky) he would look at my finger and didn't understand that I wanted him too look at the plane.
I have to correct my earlier post because it's driving me crazy!! I meant "indication", not "inclination".
No joint attention was something I noticed too early on. He would move on to something else whenever I tried to engage him. Another thing was whenever I pointed at something (like a plane in the sky) he would look at my finger and didn't understand that I wanted him to look at the plane.
He sounds pretty normal to me. Here is my experience with my DS who likely is on the spectrum, and my neurotypical DD.
DS has been sensory averse pretty much since birth. He had colic and reflux, but was also extremely easily overstimulated. He got stranger anxiety at 3 months and kept it with adults other than DH and me until he was 3. He got separation anxiety at 9 months and kept it until 3.5. He became obsessed with all things with wheels at 9 months and still has that obsession. As a young toddler he would crash his cozy coupe because he would be leaning out the side watching the wheels instead of looking forward. He is highly sensitive to strong smells, loud noises, clothing textures, food textures, and proximity of other people. Until he went to preschool at 3.5, he completely flipped out if another kid got within a five foot radius of him. He has good and bad eye contact days, but is generally much better with it with adults than kids. In fact, for a long time he completely ignored kids and only wanted to play with and talk to adults. He didn't talk to a single kid in his class until February of last year, after extensive practice on how to initiate conversation and start a game. He generally thinks things that people do that are completely unrelated to him are people trying to bother him in someway. For example, if DD is crying, he thinks she is crying AT him to make his ears hurt. His response is to scream as loud asas he can with his ears covered soso thatthat he can hurt her ears too.
He smiled at 6 weeks, wbich is within the range of normal. He pointed at 9.5 months. He did not babble until 9 months and at a year only had one word, but by 18 months he was talking like a two year old, and by two he was talking in paragraphs. He rolled at 2.5 months, tripod sat at 3, independently sat at 4, crawled at 7, and walked at 10 months. He was riding a two wheeler bike without training wheels on his 4th birthday.
DD is neurotypical. Th e reason I am including her is for comparison sake. She smiled at 4 weeks, which is early I believe. She rolled at 9 weeks, was able to tripod sit just before 3 months, and was easily independently sitting at just before 4 months. She was friendly with everyone and didn't have any sensory issues. She didn't crawl until 10 months and didn't walk until 15. She also didn't babble until 9 months, but she quickly racheted up 12 words by her birthday. By 18 months she had about 70 words and a few two word phrases now and then. Then she stayed exactly thethe same verbally until the last week or so. She has separation anxiety, but it is at a normal intensity. The same with stranger anxiety.
He also had an entire CD of kids music, which is 46 songs long, memorized at 15 months. Even though he wasn't talking in phrases yet, he could sing every song.
It's so funny because my DD just had her OT write on a report she has fantastic joint attention. Every kid is so different. In our autism moms group most of our kids have some overlapping issues but mostly seem so different from one and another!
We don't have a Dx yet, but we have an evaluation next month for it.
Our first and main red flag is speech regression. DS started talking at 9.5 months saying Da-Da, Mama, and Bye Bye. One month later at 10.5 months he completely stopped talking. He did not talk again until 18 months when he said Da-Da, Mama, and No each 2-3 times within a 2-3 period. After those couple days of talking he went silent again.
He is now 26 months and still non verbal. He does not babble (and never really has), just a lot of grunting.
Boy 7-11-2007 (has Autism),
Boy 2-26-2009 to 11-2-11 (had cancer at 4mo),
Boy 3-28-2011 (has Autism)
Girl 9-3-2013
Baby due 2-22-2016