Do autistic traits come and go? Advice needed...

I wanted to ask if Autistic traits can come and go. I am so confused by more daughters’ behaviour and was hoping other people with children on the spectrum may be able to help.

Some background, my daughter is 2.5, and 6 months ago her childminders told us they were concerned about a change in her behaviour, she went from being the funny, sociable kid that all the other kids followed and ran to, to suddenly withdrawing, refusing to speak, look at or even acknowledge the other children, she also stopped playing.  This along with a few things I had noticed at home sent us down the line of autism.  At home I noticed my daughter was extremely sensitive to noises, i.e. terrified of vacuum cleaner, hair dryer, hand dryer, car engines etc. She also played quite obsessively with her dolls, I.e. going through the same routine with them over and over again. Also, she became hysterical when she noticed tiny scratches on her hands or if certain foods touched each other on her plate. We have an appt with a paed later this month.

However for the last two months the childminders commented and I noticed she was like her old self again; she was interacting with all the children. Playing well, socialising with anyone that spoke to her etc. Her reactions to the things like food, noises etc almost disappeared altogether, we started to think there had just been a blip and now she was ‘ok’ again.  Then about two weeks ago she went downhill, so to speak. She has stopped interacting with the children again, she attends play groups, story time sessions and moves away from the huddled children and sits with her back to them. She also has suddenly almost completely stopped making eye contact unless I tell her to look at me, which she does fleetingly. She has also begun to ignore people talking to her, and almost looks ‘vacantly’ passed people. Is this just autism progressing / getting worse as she gets older? Is this what happens?

There have been no events to have caused the changes in behaviour, and I am struggling to understand what is happening. She is a very humorous, mostly happy, intelligent little girl with amazing language skills, both spoken and comprehension and I’m terrified that she is going to lose all of her skills with the way she is suddenly behaving. Has this happened to anyone else’s child? I’m certain its autism, I just didn’t think autistic traits came and went, from everything I’ve read, this doesn’t seem right to me.

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks for reading my super long post J