Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello.
My wife and I have very recently realized that our daughter Chloe of almost 11 months almost certainly has autism.
We live in Portugal and are currently in voluntary self isolation.
We are first time parents and up to recently we assumed everything was relatively normal with Chloe. She has always been a very good baby that seldom cries and sleeps well.
Non of her doctors or pedestrians have mentioned anything to us. Her nursery teacher mentioned that she should be responding to her name by now and that and a combination of other symptoms has lead us to believe she has autism.
Chloes symptoms are:
- does not look at us when we call her name.
- does not react to a loud noise (although will turn and look if ongoing)
- Very little eye contact.
- only smiles/laughs while being interacted with such as tickling.
- very often fixated with materials or patterns.
- bangs toys or repeatedly spins or rotates it.
We know we need to take her to see someone asap.
We would really appreciate any kind of advice.
Thank you.
I would make checking her hearing your first call. Secondly, I would start to keep video diaries of her behaviours so that you can show them a clinician at some future point. They will want several weeks of written diaries. If she is autistic - she may like light and water. Have a look at youtube for what techniques they use with youngsters on how to engage them more - and that way you can use this time of social distancing to do some of those activities. Keep a journal.
Look at it this way, shes been on the planet less than a year. Everything's new. Reaction to noise....have you tested her hearing? Also what motivation do you have for diagnosis under a year? Shes still a baby.
Shes much too young! Shes stills baby for goodness sake. Let her be a baby for now you dont want to rush into diagnosis for that to then not be the case. Shes still growing, learning
I’m not sure about over in Portugal but they don’t usually start diagnosis until about 2 or 3 years of age here. My nephew has been diagnosed recently.... so you may need to be patient with regard to getting a formal diagnosis. I’d like to give more advice on how to interact with your daughter but I’m not sure what my brother and his wife do to work on communicating with my nephew :-/