Pediatrician told me my 2 year old son is not Autistic

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I knew something was different about my aspie almost from day one. He didn't want to be held after he was nursed, even as an infant. He rarely smiled, rarely cried. He did speak and crawl exactly when he was "supposed to," but he didn't walk until at least 17mo, and he wasn't potty trained until after he was 4. He had some obvious sensory issues and delays in a lot of fine motor skills. He also exhibited other behaviors like lining up cars and trucks (and freaking out when we moved one) and rocking back and forth in front of the running dishwasher while humming. Although he had plenty of quirky behaviors growing up and some bizarre interactions with peers, everyone I talked to thought he was just "quirky." Finally, at almost 10 years old, others are seeing what I've known all along.

I didn't vote in the survey since none of the answers really fit us. I know that my kids are a little older than yours, but hopefully this helps you make a decision.

Our second child (5) just qualified for ESE pre-k, under the primary qualifier of ASD. Don't just worry, if you are able to have him assessed, that do it. Even though it can be more difficult to accurately assess ASD in younger kids, there are still some very characteristic patterns that will show up on these assessments. Both of my kids were assessed through the local public school system as our insurance doesn't cover these kinds of evaluations. We've also had some other evaluations done, since we have been taking place in an autism genetics family study.

Developmental scatter (high performing in some areas, very low performing in others) isn't always obvious until they do the tests and our school Psych was pretty convinced after the initial evaluation that Colin wasn't ASD, but after compiling the information, there was a consistent pattern - the kid can spout out 7 syllable scientific names of dinosaurs (larval special interest), identify written words but not individual letters, can already add and subtract double digits but can't take care of his own bathroom needs. Gross motor skills are above average, fine motor skills are almost a year behind. Pragmatic language weakness. Some of these things were already obvious to me, but I had no idea that he already knew words and that a typical 5 year old wouldn't be able to identify the numbers 20 or 100.

Like momsparky, our little guy was seemingly typical when he was younger, but when the meltdowns got worse as he got older instead of better, I knew it was time to ask for an evaluation from the school system, before I just sent him off to school, especially in light of our already Dx'd son. Our older Aspie son wasn't assessed until he was 8 and it caused a lot of problems for him at school, things that I hopefully will be able to mitigate for the younger guy. Having this information is vitally important for you kids - because if these kinds of behaviors occur in school without the knowledge of what is really happening, they *will* be treated as a behavior problem instead of communication.

With my older (now 11 year old son) in hindsight I should have known that something was different. At two years old, he knew the scientific names of probably 20 different kinds of reptiles (I worked at a pet store at the time and he came to work with me), could identify make and model on 100's of Hot Wheels cars and pretty much lined everything up. He was very sensitive to sound and touch - he couldn't sleep by himself until he was about 9 years old. He was about 3 when he started playing with LEGO blocks, following the directions and building things without any help.

With my younger son, even while knowing a lot about Autism Spectrum Disorders, I couldn't have guessed at that age.

Try and do a little more reading - the more you know the better. Get a second opinion from another pediatrician, or even a developmental pediatrician if that's possible. Not an easy decision to make, especially when you've been told that you're just worrying too much. Follow your intuition. In the worst case, you're worrying too much. In the best case, you can get your child the services (and more importantly) the understanding he needs.

If your truly consernd talk to a child psycologist not a pediatrician because the pediatrician is not qulifyed to give you a yes or no anwser on a psycological diagnoses. I think I would know, i'm on the ASD spectrum myself and have spent 7 years working with autistic people.