Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello everyone,
I have a beautiful one year old I am really concerned about, in particular with his lack of imitation, babbling and excitement.
I get lulled into thinking he's ok because he is very capable physically, he is very dextrous, patient and determined. He loves toys, he just doesn't want to share the game with me. He doesn't ever show excitement that isn't about strong physical stimulation, or about recognising a familiar pattern. He does have good eye contact but the only time I feel he's 'there' behind his eyes is when I'm singing a song he recognises and the second I stop it switches off. He does make sounds but to express his state, he doesn't copy any sounds or gestures and I am terrified he won't ever learn to talk.
Worst of all I find it terribly hard work being with him because there's no back and forth which makes me feel I may as well not be there and I find it desperately hard not to just withdraw. I crowbar myself into his games, which he tolerates but does not exactly share, or I leave him to it. If I leave the room, he probably will too but not seemingly to find me, just to move on to another thing he likes to do - climb stairs, open the washer door andbite the mouldy part (sigh...)
I know any suggestion that vaccines are a cause will incense a lot of people who feel this is blaming. But this is not about you, it is my own observation of my own child and there was a definite change. This was not even the MMR, which he's not had as he's not quite one, but after his 4 month boosters, which we gave him at 6 months because he'd been ill. After the booster he stopped sleeping through the night, which he had from 4.5months. He also stopped babbling, although he had been a very chatty baby and people had commented on how like his mother he was. Although he had copied me poking out my tongue at only a few days old, he stopped imitating us completely.
Watching videos of him at 4-5 months is heartbreaking. He is 'chatting' all the time, waving his hands with excitement. It feels like he's turned from a typical, chatty baby into a busy, unnaturally calm robot. My heart is breaking. I don't want to wait and see, I need to know what this means. I need to know if there is anything I can do to bring him into the world of sociability.
Please let me know if any of this seems familiar and if it does, what is the best way to support him, in particular with learning to talk. Thank you.
Firstly, no one on this forum can diagnose your child. You will have to take him for professional assesment to answer the question of whether he is on the Autistic Spectrum or not.
Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, if your son is on the Spectrum, do not blame any vaccintions he may have had. Lots of scientific research has been done into the purported link between vaccines and Autism and they have found absolutely no good evidence for any kind of causal link. Autism is a developmental conditional and this can mean that a childs development can appear perfectly normal until they reach a certain developmental milestone (and the exact milestone varies from child to child) at which point they may suddenly start to regress and develop more and more autistic traits. This does not, however, mean that the child was not autistic before that point - they were, you are born with autism and it never goes away - rather that they had no obvious autistic traits - someone trained in spotting autism in very young babies would be able to see subtle telltale hints, however. The opposite can also happen, by the way, and as the child continues to develop, their autistic traits can lessen, and even appear to completely vanish - they, however, are still autistic - as I said before, you are born with it and it does not go away.