Published on 12, July, 2020
HI there,
I am a bit lost regarding what to do with my daughter. She is 22 months old and shows almost no joint attention. Otherwise she is social, good eye contact, happy, affectionate, not many tantrums and sleeps the night through. She eats well and she likes to play peekaboo, sings a lot and really well. She waves and says bye, and she smiles and babbles all day. She is been raised trilingual and has few words for her age. She attends full time nursery, and they have told me they have not seen any red flags and that she is actually gaining vocabulary (in english), that she is very social, plays along children (no social play yet but this is normal) and she understands and follows instructions.
However, the lack of joint attention together with delayed communication is driving me mad. She's only had two moments of shared attention with us, which happened last week, and in the past weeks has shown me some toys like 3times. She also does some pretend play.
I have done online M-Chat and depending how harsh I am she shows 50% risk. I have done other screening tests and show always low risk. I went to the GP last week and burst into tears because I am convinced she has ASD, probably mild. I felt ridiculous and terrible. He told me however he would try to refer her. I am based in Camden, so does anyone know how it works here? Should I seek a private assessment? They cost a lot money but could make big effort if that would actually help to clarify and easy the process.
Thanks
It seems a tricky case to me- to be honest I would probably advise you to give it a little time and see how she develops further. There are things that indicate she might be on the spectrum in your post but nothing that makes me feel certain.
It does often affect us girls differently to the boys and because of the way it manifests differently in each person who has it it is also very hard to pin down in general, but there's nothing that makes me think you need to get urgent help in place right now; it sounds like she's doing well at nursery and is getting along with other children just fine (in contrast, by the time I was at playgroup- about a year older than your daughter- I was very obviously unusual in my interactions with other children). The important thing is that your daughter sounds like a happy and well-looked-after child and current evidence seems to be that she's getting along fine.
The lack of joint attention seems to be something you're really fixated on but at the end of the day it's not something that's causing her or others immediate harm and she seems to be making recent progress with it. Autistic or not, children develop at different rates. She might just be slower in that particular area than most, she might be autistic.
If she does happen to be autistic you have loads of support available out there (including this forum). I get that the possibility your child might have a 'condition' is scary, but there's no reason she can't be autistic and have an awesome life and achieve the things she wants to achieve. Please don't let the possibility upset and worry you as much as it seems to be currently; just keep an eye and if she starts to struggle or show more obvious signs you know what to do & how to get the information you need (you made your way to this website after all), so you have the advantage! :)
All the best to you both!
Emma x
Hi Emma,
Thanks for replying so quickly. I think I should give her more time and relax a bit about this. She is happy, and in the nursery they have told me that they actually think she is improving. She says hi in the morning to teachers and other children when they enter the room. She cuddles some of the teachers, I guess the ones she likes better. And as you say, if nothing is impeding her to develop fully and happily, what is there to worry about? My concern is about her very limited social communication. Not so much her social skills, or not that I have noticed any repetitive behaviour, but I am no expert, and girls manifest things differently.
It just seems to me that everyone, experts, physicians, researchers, SALTs, imply almost that the lack of joint attention is almost a diagnosis.
Thanks a lo for your support!
If her social communication issues are ever causing her problems, or continue well into primary school then I think it would be appropriate to pursue some sort of support so that she doesn’t become isolated or find it hard to get the most out of her education in a social environment. :)
Until then I think that taking a watch-and-wait approach is ok. Just whatever you do don’t worry yourself to exhaustion about it, because that doesn’t help anyone involved. X