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Early sign of Autism?

Ebambina

Hello

Hope you're all well. I guess I am finding this whole motherhood rather stressful. I think especially when you have some medical background you are constantly nit picking anything that might be unusual but possibly normal or something that is absent. 

my daughter is 8.5 months now.

Gross motor wise seems ok ;

- sitting unsupported at 7 months

- Army crawl for last one month (so not proper crawling but I know crawling not a milestone )

- Able to weightbear using my hands as support and briefly holding onto something (tip toe mainly but appreciate babies are not used to being on their feet)

- Able to move object between hands and I have seen her bang two objects together in midline 

- Etc 

Fine motor wise good - no concerns either.

My concern really is her language , social communication skills.

She coos when she is in the mood and only occasional aaagaaa, gooo, baa , kaaa and definitely no repetitive babbling type noises (e.g. Bababbaba/dadada etc 

Also very rarely back and forth sharing of sounds. I constantly try and copy her noises. She does look at me when I do copy her but doesn't necessarily make her copy back. 

People frequently say  what a "perfect" quiet baby I have but I know deep down babies are not supposed to be quiet! 

There is no back and forth gestures either. For example - When I point at things she just looks at my finger and not what I'm pointing at. She doesn't point to things she clearly wants. For example she looks at her baby bowl with food I'm preparing for her and she looks at it makes a funny noise and looks at me and then back at bowl- doesn't bring arms out or point.

If I bring her favourite toy slowly towards her she eventually brings her arms up to grab it but doesn't actively point at it and look at me to tell me non verbally that she wants it. 

When she is sitting up or in her highchair and wants to be picked up she just kicks her legs and moves her arms about but doesn't raise them up to tell me.

Same when she wakes up from nap:sleep in the morning. Just shakes her arms and legs and occasional moany sound to tell me to pick her up. 

Also every morning and night I get her in front of the mirror and wave at her. She smiles but hardly ever copies a wave and just tries to look around. I can't really read her a book for long as she just wants to grab it and munch it or if I resist just look around to find the closest object she can grab and play with. 

When she was about 5 months old she used to love peekaboo and mimicking me by sticking my tongue out but she definitively doesn't mimic me now . And rarely smiles when I play peekaboo now. 

my husband  thinks I'm being silly and it's because she is bored of the game.

She happily plays (and coos) with her toys and will 40% of time respond to her name and when she does look up she usually does smile and make a coo sound.

She seems better with hus and. I guess could be that she is bored of my face and voice and so when husband comes home from work she gives him good eye  contact and smiles and squeals in delight and when he is doing something in the room she looks at him intently and then makes a sound to try and get his attention.

husband doesn't agree with me regarding her eye contact and thinks she is fine. But he only sees her for 15 minute in the week day

She happily plays with toys and moans whenever she is tired or wants to be picked up. She's not a cuddly baby unless tired/Ill but when she is in the mood will laugh if I make funny faces :tickle her chin. Never spontaneously. Occasionally she makes a fake laugh type sound when playing with her toys.

She doesn't play pat a cake. 

I guess what concerns me is the fact she hasn't showed any signs of babbling at all. 

Also the fact I can't get her to interact with me back and forth , no imitating or copying. 

Her hearing is very good. She can hear husband take his shoes off from upstairs!

I remember when she was  very young she was the only baby in a sensory room crying and stressed out due to the lights and sound of the foil blanket. We went again last month and she was fine. She is a very cautious baby and very curious. She constantly looking around and if someone walks in the room she has to assess the situation again and looks around to make sure nothing else has changed.

I guess the reason why I feel like opening up is because I was wondering if at 8.5 months of age there is still a chance things might improve ? If it was just the verbal aspect then I wouldn't be so concerned just yet but the fact that the non-verbal cues aren't there too. 

If I was to put on a doctor hat on - obviously I say it's to early to say until 12 months of age.

My mother instincts and hat says ASD is a high possibility and instead of "watch and waiting till toddler " early intervention is key.

I have been tempted to get private paediatrician with specialist interest in ASD to review but I just know she will tell me to wait till after her first bday.  

 

my husband thinks I'm screwed up. My sister thinks I'm being silly as "she is only just a baby". 

I think my fear is that I won't be able to get her the best help ASAP as early intervention is key and I would hate having to wait till she is 2-3 years of age.

I know a handful of kids with ASD have ticked all milestones and sadly regressed but I was wondering if you know if 8.5-9 months is genuinely really still too young or that actually in most cases the red flags are present around now? 

  • Hey, I know it's a long shot, but I'm worried about the se thing, what happened to you baby? Is everything al right?

  • Former Member
    Former Member

    Hi Ebambina,

    You are afraid and concerned for your child and it seems that nothing can dispel your concerns. All of your reading and anecdotes are doing nothing to dispel your concerns. There is a thing called Confirmation Bias which you should read about. This leads people to look for things that confirm their ideas (often their fears) rather than things which provide a balanced view of how things are. For example, You have picked on the lights and noise in the sensory room but then seem to have put less weight on the second occasion when nothing happened. When first exposed to anything new, a child will often be fearful and cautious. They then learn from other people's reactions as they get more experience. If your child had real sensory issues or autism then the second occasion might have been even more traumatic than the first.

    Your child looks up, smiles and coos when you call her name. This is very normal behaviour - many autistic people (e.g. me) don't recognise other peoples smiles and do not smile much themselves.

    Speak to your health visitor - an unhappy mother will be a concern for them and they should try and help you work out what is normal and whether to be concerned. (We in this chat room have not seen your baby and can only have limits to what we can suggest) I would not take the child to a specialist - they will send you packing at this age in any case but you might find a quack who will "see signs" and play to your fears. Try and look at other people's kids and look for differences between them and try to understand the variability that exists between kids. Read about normal speech development stages and look for the bits that explain the variability - babies have not read the manual and have not got dates set in their diaries! One child may do a particular thing at 9 months whilst another will not do that until 15 months without it indicating anything precocious in the one or indicating anything backward in the other.

  • Hello, thanks clovis for taking time to read my intiial message. 

    I think seeing all the other babies similar age (or even younger ) in various baby classes thst seemed so advanced verbally that made me try and google about it and  kept coming up with ASD.

    i have done lots of reading and I know it's very early to diagnose  but so many forums you read about mums saying how their babies showed all signs but couldnt get the help soon enough. 

    I love my daughter and wouldn't want her any other way even if this turns out to be something but as any parent I guess I just want to make sure I can give her the best support if there is anything !!  there is no family history but my husband is muxh older which apparenrly increases risk. also very difficult pregnancy requiring weekly or fortnightly ultrasounds which also increases risk

  • Former Member
    Former Member

    Another point to make is that even if one of you get a high score on the test it does not mean that your child has autism, it just means that it is more likely than average.

    Was there a reason for looking into autism other than your concerns that you described in your origonal post?

  • Thank you for taking the time to read my long message. what you said about testing parents is such a valid point! 

  • Former Member
    Former Member

    Ebambina said:

    If I was to put on a doctor hat on - obviously I say it's to early to say until 12 months of age.

    This is a good place to start a response! 8.5 months is really too early to start diagnosing autism.

    Particularly if the child sounds normal! Some kids are marekdly affected by some conditions at this age but your child sounds normal.

    Seriously, if you have a concern about autism at this age then the most reliable test would be to test the parents. Autism is highly inherited and an autistic child is most likely to have autistic parents and they will be much easier to test! There is a free test at aspergerstest.net/.../ that gives useful results. It is not a diagnosis but most people who are autistic (e.g. me) score a clear high score.

    I expect that you will score a normal score and that the real message is to go out and look at, an interact with more children and their parents, and try to understand how different they are from each other.