2 year old boy with no communication

Hi, I’m glad you are feeling more positive. And if he is autistic, then he can go on and have a happy life and succeed just as much as if he was neurotypical. I’m autistic and I am currently doing a PhD. I have plenty of autistic friends who are doing very well, have degrees , careers, relationships etc. There are challenges but it really helps if you know that you are autistic from early on , then you can understand yourself better, get support and learn strategies that work for you. A lot of the issues autistic people face is also due to the way society works and I’m hopeful that understanding of autism will grow and that will make life easier for autistic people. 

Thank you all so much for your replies. 

We did have his hearing checked and the results came back as inconclusive. Basically he wasn't interested in any of the noises they were playing. We did get referred for a more specialist hearing test but we never got an appointment and we never chased it up; I think we had begun the process for convoncing ourselves it was autism so forgot about the potential hearing issues!

We also saw a paediatric consultant who assessed him but that was, again, inconclusive. She agreed there were signs of autism but was unwilling to diagnose at all as he is still so young (for clarity I don't disagree with her decision at all, I understand that it's a difficult thing to diagnose, especially at such a young age). 

I really appreciate your positive responses, it's so easy to get lost in the anxiety and lose sight of whats truly important. He's such a happy little boy and I think we need to remember that and focus on it a bit more as opposed to all of the potential negatives and hardships. I think we wpuld do well to follow the consultant's advice and give him time to develop (with a bit more input from us than normally required) before we start worrying too much.

Thank you all again :)

JuniperFromGallifrey said:

But with less of an ability to dull the senses. In an anthropological setting, we would've been incredibly valuable for the tribe. Sense-Perceiving different and with a greater intensity, and then with the Monotropic brain https://monotropism.org/ which allows for an ability to hyper-focus, we might sense danger long before our peers. 

I won't say much on this as I don't want it to take off and derail this thread here but to add to what you said I think this quote is especially true, I took part in a detection test and found the tiger in the scenery in under 2 seconds in every picture even when under a colourblind filter. It's modern life that makes autism more like a disability (they didn't have to deal with florescent lighting and mechanical noises back in the stone age for one thing.)

Younger children are known for taking their time in childhood, so Autistic or not, this can play a role in development. With some things here, it can be good to reflect historically with. I had a friend who couldn't nurse and one who nursed until her daughter was 4. There is no wrong answer with this other than perhaps if you are able to, not forcing a process or cutting one short. Children will let you know when they're ready to move to the next stage.

The issues of severe and mild is contentious. While any child can have added disabilities, Autism can be simply be understood as a different way of sense/perceiving and understanding the world in such as way that the lobes responsible for language and semiotics aren't pruned and strengthened the same. In stead, there are full brain connexions and often what has been referred to as 'right brain' thinking. But with less of an ability to dull the senses. In an anthropological setting, we would've been incredibly valuable for the tribe. Sense-Perceiving different and with a greater intensity, and then with the Monotropic brain https://monotropism.org/ which allows for an ability to hyper-focus, we might sense danger long before our peers. 

it's often best to just allow them what they appear interested in. Uninterrupted free play without being watched is a source of learning and growth. If playing with food while eating it is part of his meal time, I might supply a mat and allow them to eat on the floor until they express the desire to sit with everyone else. Or make sure to just give them one thing at a time. Often children learn best by mimicking our external behaviour - one thing at a time. 

Hello, my reply is  just to reassure you that things can get better.  My daughter ( now an adult) had very limited speech until she was around 5/6. Didn’t interact with peers, lots of sensory issues.  She was diagnosed with global development delay when she was a toddler and went to a special needs playgroup where she had speech and language therapy. However, from the age of about 7 she didn't stop speaking!   Her language skills developed over the years with speech and language therapy and now as an adult are good with great vocabulary. She is still having private speech and language therapy and she did go to a secondary special needs school which had a speech and language curriculum, which helped her.  She is autistic  together with ADHD and has a wonderful bubbly personality. I hope this has given you hope and positively. I would suggest definitely getting his hearing checked and discussing it with your GP to see if a referral to a paediatrician is a way forward as you and your partner are worried. 

Hi, this is a very obvious question and I’m sure you’ve already ruled this out, but is his hearing alright?

NAS87227 said:

The background is, he was born on time and naturally, although he was delivered using forceps. Everything seemed well and he appeared to be developing as he should. There was a slight challenge trying to wean him from milk onto baby food. He refused to eat any of the typical jars of food and we had a really hard time getting him to eat any pureed food. He did eat sometimes though, and once we introduced solid food he ate reasonably well so we didn't think much of it.

First of all I'd like to put your mind at ease nothing you did either during the pregnancy or events at birth will have "caused" autism, it is genetic, and it is a lottery because the genes that make it appear are not all the same genes in every person. Autistic parents can have neurotypical children just like neurotypical parents can have autistic children. Though if you do look around at your sons various blood relatives you may find traits in other people, some of which may be autistic and masking, others may simply have  few traits but sans diagnosable autism.
The swap over from milk to first solids might have been the first sensory issue, but a lot of babies go through that "ew I don't like it" phase so it is dificult to tell from that on its own.
Everything in that bullet list except the last item I have seen in neurotypical children of my friends so I don't think you need worry about those, they sound like typical toddler behaviour.
"He won't engage in any play with us, preferring to play with toys on his own." Is likely the key autistic criteria here.
Also something really sticks out that I think warrants its own separate investigation and that is not responding to sound, sometimes autistic people are under sensitive but it is more usual for us to be over sensitive. Has you son already been checked to make sure there is nothing "mechanically" wrong with his hearing?

As to whether it is "mild/severe" (what kind of support needs he will have) tbh you may not get an insight into the full extent until he has to interact with his peers at nursery or preschool, especially in verbal terms, mine (also autistic) didn't start to talk until he was nearly 5 and once he started we couldn't shut him back up lol. So it might click into place with time or it may not.