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’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 :-/