Earliest signs of autism spectrum condition, in a child?

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I think the location on the spectrum definitely has something to do with when it all will become apparent. My son was diagnosed at 7 but there were several observations done when he was 4 that totally missed it. Face it, all toddlers have social difficulties so if you get an outgoing Aspie like my son, you won't be able to tell until the other children have acheived some mastery of social situations. I would say that for a child like him diagnosis before age 5 is really difficult.

Looking backwards were there ANY signs? Yes, although they would not be considered conclusive. In a word, I would say my son was "more." More active, more difficult, more demanding, more needy, more sparkly, more interesting, sleeping far less and needing to be held far more. Most milestones were advanced. He was just not like the other babies but it was generally seen as a sign of future brilliance and not of a condition that would require special education. He did very little by the book, and we were knocked off our feet by him. But, gosh, he was amazing and beautiful. People used to stop us to tell us how vibrant, interesting, and beautiful he was.

My NT daughter was the perfect little baby who was everything you assume a baby will be. All nice and even keel, meeting milestones and not doing much out of the ordinary. So easy.

From previous threads on this topic AS babies tend to be extremes. My son was at one end; others you will hear about were quiet and calm and clearly the opposite end.

I don't know - I tried this when my cousin was born, and he just stared up at me, with his hand in his mouth. He didn't even look like he was trying to mimic the movement. He's 12 now and is NT.

I'm smiling reading this because this is EXACTLY the way I'd describe my ds. More, more, more. I'm amazed at his strengths (watching him teach himself to read, fine motor skills, etc.) and frustrated by his weaknesses (meltdowns and violence).

I don't think the data is about actual newborns, but about young infants. The visual cortex isn't fully wired up until about 3 months of age, so a literal newborn would have a hard time even seeing the tongue sticking out to mirror it.

YES! I agree with this! My daughter seemed fine when she was younger. She was very advanced with her attention span, she could concentrate on somehting for hours before she was even 2 and that is not typical. She spoke in full clear sentences before she was 2. She met all milestones early. She did have alot of extreme tantrums where she would cry on and on for seemingly no reason. She woke up horribly from naps. Her personality was never very easy going, she was always strong-willed. So when she was about 3.5 - 4 years old the "strong-willed" behavior was really bad and started to truly affect our lives. We tried all the normal parenting strategies that really did not work or change behaviors. Socially she seemed normal for a 4 year old. But then as we approached 5 the differences between her and her peers grew. They were getting mature and she wasn't. She lacks emotional regulation, she is impulsive, has to have things a certain way, lacks appropriate social skills, conversations are one sided etc. She was diagnosed recently with Aspergers at age 6. So it is possible to have a "normal" child that slowly has more and more issues. I do wonder if the mercury in the vaccines slowly built up in her system and she is a child whose body just cannot rid itself of toxins.

I was reading the lack of joint attention can be an early sign.

Looking back, there may have been signs that my Aspie was on the spectrum right at birth:

- she didn't cry until poked in her apgar test - 15 minutes after birth
- she had latch/sucking problems for the first 3 months, losing weight. Switching to bottles didn't help - we needed to devise ways to get her to latch properly and to continuously suck (tapping the bottom of the bottle throughout to remind her to keep eating...)
- sensory issues - intense crying fits when too warm. even in cool weather needed to unbundle her. Caused problems because our infant wasn't 'dressed apropriately' for the weather. She was dressed right for her - she was always warm to the touch. Also very sensitive to loud sounds - startle reaction was expected but not the half hour crying fits afterwards.
- needed to be tightly swaddled for the first 3 months to sleep at all
- constipation problems - may have been sensory because the old q-tip trick worked every time - she just wouldn't push on her own
- her first purposeful smile and laugh happened without interaction - just suddenly we had laughing baby
- 2 months delayed in crawl, could only crawl backwards (my parents reported this in me too) Oddly enough, now, at 8yo, she can only peddle a bike backwards too
- 3 months delayed in sitting up, holding head
- 3 months delayed in reaching for objects

I was told repeatedly that 'all kids develop at different rates'. Looking back, knowing what I know now, I think the signs suggested something. I worked with her in sensory integration intuitively... just all the things I would have wanted as a kid. I have no idea how much or if it helped her but considering that her issues we so well 'hidden' that we needed to fight for her diagnosis, I think they have been. Her greatest deficits are in the things I can't teach her - social skills - and even there were routinely discuss what is and isn't apropriate to do and say. Coming from me it is subjective rather than intuitive but that is the way I will always be... she may be that way as well. We are even working on sarcasm! Also trying to put her mimicked words into the proper context. Her new favorite is 'Oh SNAP'. I'm not even sure where that one belongs in proper conversation...

Even if the research isn't there to support it yet, I do think some infants probably do show signs very early on.

My first ever Autistic sign was at 4 years old - and even that wasn't a sign what made everything think, ''oh she must be Aspie'', but the ''odd behaviour'' was because of the condition I've got. Under 4, I never showed any signs. Even if I did, my parents wouldn't have really known because they hadn't heard of AS until I was diagnosed (which wasn't til 1998).
I reached all the milestones and the average age, and was a typical baby and toddler. And I had temper tantrums over typical things what most toddlers have tantrums over, eg, not wanting to sit in the pushchair, not wanting my mum to leave me at playgroup, whenever I fell over and hurt myself, and so on.

The reason why everyone was in shock when I behaved differently when I started school at 4 years old was because of the fact that I never, ever showed any typical Autistic signs through babyhood at all.

Since I feel the scientific proof is solidly against mercury, if there is something environmental, it is something else.

What I feel I've observed in my son is more similar to the way allergies develop: you get exposed, exposed, exposed, and suddenly the body decides it's too much and "trips" into an allergic reaction. Perhaps our kids are getting too much stimulation too soon, ie we shouldn't be exposing them to loud noise Z until age X in the same way you aren't supposed to let your child have peanuts until 2. Wait until the child has matured enough to handle it. Except in our case its sensory items, perhaps some chemicals no one is even testing for (I see my son chewing on his flame retartdant PJ's...), emotional input, and the like. Just think about the busy, bustling, overloaded world they are born into. But I have no doubts my son was born AS. Just, there have been changes, too, things that he used to seem to handle and simply stopped being able to deal with.

Really do think there are two different things going on here. If autism is an alternate brain wiring issue, wouldn't it be present at birth? i know how much wiring kids put down from birth through toddlerhood but I'm not sure that explains instances of kids regressing as a certain age.

In my case, I feel there is strong evidence that asperger's is just a family trait. My daughter never displayed any sort of regressive symptoms. I'm suspecting that the regressive type of 'autism' may be some sort of organic medical problem that develops rather than genetically inherited. Whether any of that research pans out, I really feel we are dealing with more than one phenomenon here.

Also to note is that there are some environmental and diet exposures that cause 'autistic' behaviors even though the child isn't really autistic. I'm thinking of the parents who 'cured' their child's autism through whatever modality they tried. I know of one particular case on another board where a woman's child was undiagnosed with celiac disease and a severe dairy allergy. His symptoms were primarily behavioral (very similar to autism) as opposed to gastrointestinal. Once the offending foods were removed from his diet, his behaviors were normal again.

But then he never was autistic.

What I've seen more is a child that presented fairly "severely" autistic, finally got healthy, and now presents Aspie. The parents call the child "cured" but he still is a spectrum child, although sometimes the parents seem to refuse that term. Still, the child looks and acts very Aspie to anyone who knows AS.

Obviously, a child that is sick due to food sensitivities will withdraw and not act as his real self. But it isn't only AS kids who can have their lives colored by undiagnosed food issues. I work with a man who has severe food issues he has thankfully resolved as an adult and no AS label was ever put on him, although he did get other labels as a kid.

However, it's characterized primarily by a delay, which might not be present early on: sometimes what seems like a regression is really that a child doesn't keep pace with his or her peers.

Another theory of autism talks about "synaptic pruning," which is the removal of superfluous connections between brain cells that happens during certain stages of childhood development, which might mean that a child is developing normally until this stage.

At any rate, as I've said before: while early intervention is helpful (especially as regards communication skills for the kids who don't develop language) it isn't a do-or-die situation. I know many examples of kids (my husband and myself being two) who received no intervention at all (in fact, intervention for my husband's severe speech delay was refused) and who did reasonably well.

I never stated he was. I was just using it as an example that everyone who presents with those types of behaviors in early childhood isn't truly autistic. If he had stayed undiagnosed, he may very well have received an autism label.

Agreed. But it definitely muddies the cause and effect discussion, doesn't it?

My son is HFA, undiagnosed until age seven. I worked with babies and little kids for over a decade and always knew he was different. Had those differences dismissed a few times. He developed "normally" with milestones except had profound echolalia (also dismissed) for over two years. He now continues to have delayed echolalia at age eight. In hindsight, from my own experience, some of the marked differences were as follows:

In infancy:
1. Dead weight. My son didn't cling like most babies do or "help" when carried (like little monkeys). I eventually had to take him out of a sling and put him in a stroller because he would lean away from my body and it did my back in trying to keep him from falling out of a sling.
2. Lots and lots and lots of crying during waking hours. This was blamed on 'colic'. He was fine in a motorised swing or being bounced in a small bouncer.
3. He needed to be put to sleep on his stomach and would startle awake on his back.
4. He needed to be "bounced" to sleep and would make a motorised sound during this bouncing until he fell to sleep.
5. Seemed deaf at times.

In toddlerhood:
1. Lined up magnetic numbers that were the same colour, number or letter on the fridge.
2. Sorted blocks according to colour and shape but did not play with them.
3. Echolalia. This was called "normal language development" by our GP and a Paediatrician in a regional community.
4. Fear of deep water, even when held in trusting arms with no exposure to a frightening swimming/water event.
5. Hated having hair washed.
6. Perseverated on visiting a local civic centre rather than playgrounds. Would become markedly upset if we passed this area and didn't stop. When asked where he wanted to go, it was this place and not a traditional kids area.
7. Still needed help to sleep with "bouncing".
8. Seemed deaf at times.
9. Collected odd items. Wanted containers instead of toys. Enjoyed toy cars but only if he could remove the little rubber tyre from the cars and then would stack the tyres. Still collects rather than plays with toys, only now the collections are more expensive.

These are just a few things off the top of my head.