Toddlers: 12 - 24 Months

Maybe ASD?

My 18 month old DD has a few behavior issues that I thought were pretty normal baby behavior until my MIL mentioned yesterday that she exhibits some signs of ASD like her uncle did when he was little (he was diagnosed at 30 months). My daughter isn't very verbal. She knows like 10 words but doesn't say them very often, but sometimes when she does start babbling, she'll say the same word multiple times. She also has been getting very picky about which nursery rhymes she'll listen to and go into meltdown quickly if another plays (same thing about which books she's read). She's always been a pretty happy baby but hates to be held most of the time, even by me or my husband. When she plays with her legos, she'll pile them up in one area then move them to another then move them back (she'll go for an hour at this back and forth). 
Her Ages & Stages for 18 months came back normal at the end of September, she even excels in some areas. Just not sure if this is just growing pains and she's developing more of her personality or if we need to discuss this with her pediatrician when we see them next month for the second half of her flu shot. I just wanted to get some insight from other mommies instead of family and webmd. 

Re: Maybe ASD?

  • There is a great checklist at autismspeaks.org
    It is a great place to start- it gives you a number which then corresponds to whether your child seems at low risk, maybe has it, or at a high probability of having autism. If your child scores in the higher area, you have something concrete to discuss with your pediatrician. If your child's number is low, you have something concrete to show your MIL!  Hopefully she is just seeing things because she is hyper aware of autism, but you don't want to just ignore her totally because you don't want it to be true :)

    https://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism/diagnosis/mchat 

  • (For what it's worth, my 1yo is very delayed in communication, and scored high on the checklist. At this point we are starting speech therapy, and seeing whether she improves with that or not. Early intervention can be key to any kind of issue your little one may have!  Every state has a free early intervention program, and they should be able to come out to your house to do an evaluation. Just google your state+early intervention. Even though my daughter does have delays, just knowing that and knowing what steps will be taken to try to help her has seriously put my mind at ease.) 
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  • Thanks for the response! Good luck with the therapy for your daughter! I'll definitely take a look at that website. 
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