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I have twin boys born premature at 28 weeks. So far they have been almost on target for their development milestones. They did walk a little late around 13 months. But my main concern is that they love spinning wheels. They spin anything that they could. One of the boys would lie down with his car and watch the wheels go round. Otherwise they are quite active boys and have great eye contcat. They love to hug and smile and are quite social too. I started day care for them like a month back and they love spinning wheels even there. I am not sure if this is Autism and if there is something else going on. I did talk with my pediatrician and he does not seem to be concerned since the boys are quite social. The boys are 2 years and 3 months and they are still not making sentences. They have a lot of words though.
Thanks so much for your time.
Best Regards,
K.

What happens if you interrupt, or threaten to interrupt them while they are watching the spinning wheels / items?

Sometimes he would just start playing or get involved in whatever I want him to be involved in. But sometimes he gets very angry.
Thanks so much for the prompt reply.

I taught him go and stop, so sometimes when I ask him to get up he would just smile at me and say go and push the car and then stop and stop it .... but he is reallly obsessed with wheels.

If they go into uncontrollable upset when you take away the toys, then it might be more likely a 'stim' - a relaxing activity common amongst ASD people, but if they don't get upset, it still might be that... do they 'head for' the spinning things after/during times of stress?

It's unfortunately not something we can properly for sure diagnose here on the site - I don't think we have any doctors that post routinely, and it's not likely to happen properly over the web - but if you read around a bit you might catch other things that sound familiar - thats a good way to catch possible signs. And by all means keep posting more info and more questions, and I'm sure we'll all gather around you with answers and more questions!

Welcome to WP, by the way!

ps -
When they are 'being social' is that 'approaching other kids in the playground and trying to pull them into their activities' ?

Well... sometimes they do get upset, also my husband says he notices this more when he is tired.
They do play with other kids, but simple games like peek-a-boo. They also go upto people they know and want to say Hi. There is an old lady who comes to the park around the time we go and he loves her. So the moment we are at the park, he would go and give this old lady a big hug. But verbally he is still quite behind his peers.

I have a 10 year old with PDD-NOS. I also have a 18 month old. My 18 month old has minor skeletal dysplasia, failure to thrive, and suspected human growth hormone deficiency (can't test for it until after he turns 2 yo).

My 10 year old w/ autism crawled, spoke, crawled, walked, etc....very early.

My 18 month old seems slow to me. He roll over until 5 or 6 months. He didn't crawl until 10 months and he didn't walk until 14 months. He didn't have any meaningful words until over 12 months. He only has about 30 words, probably 20 that he uses consistently and appropriately. All of this is within the 'normal' development range, but I just compare him to my first child.

He has been obsessed with buttons since he could get his hands on things. Buttons and plugs. Since he could stand up, he will fight to get to buttons or plugs. He has an exceptional attention span for buttons - 30 minutes or so, since he could get to his buttons. He has always gotten extremely angry when I remove him from his buttons.

He has also had an exceptional perceptive eye since he was a month old. He looks at and notices EVERYTHING. Even when he was just a couple months old, if something in a room changes (e.g. a new candle on the mantel) he notices. He stares at it and makes noises (or pointed when he was able to). It is very noticeable and odd how intense his perception is. Since a newborn, he watches every movement of people slowly (e.g. eyes follow someone's hand as they reach for an item).

I do think it is odd that he is obsessed with buttons. I have said he will be my little engineer. When I was reading Jenny McCarthy's book, I could relate to the things she said and noticed about her autistic son before he was diagnosed as autistic.

My baby is extremely, outrageously social. Loves people and kids. He is happiest when we are outside or in public. He is very loud, screams in the store (happily), 'talks' to everyone. He loves showing and sharing. Very social.

He really does like things to be the same all the time though. He is very adversely affected by schedule changes especially. Maybe all babies are like that.

I don't even know anymore...I just found out a month ago that I have no "normal" to compare to since my first had autism and I didn't know it - my view of parenting is scewed, I guess.

But...I don't think my baby is autistic. Maybe I am being naive again, like I was with my little flapping genius toddler who was just now diagnosed at 10 years old. Sometimes I think I am being paranoid, looking for autism every where now because I missed it the first time. Not sure.

Sorry, you got me thinking about my own concerns....maybe I should be more concerned than I am? I have no idea.

You could have your children assessed, but IMO there is nothing concerning about the symptoms you described. But take my opinion for what it's worth - someone that missed it the first time.

You know what though. I'm 34 and only this year discovered AS. So missing a diagnosis for a while doesn't kill a kid. I'd sure as heck have had an easier time of things if I'd had a diagnosis say 10 years ago, but I could have made it at least that long before the serious damage started in.

And to be honest, I'd have been afraid of my father sticking me in one of those oxygen tube and diet programs, with absolutely no opinion allowed on my part... He's not the kind of guy who'd believe in long-term 'touchy feeley' solutions. Woiuldn't have been fast enough for him.

Loving things that spin could be a sign of autism, but it could just be a normal boy thing too. At this point, I would keep an eye on the speech development. Are they using words to communicate back and forth with you? My little boy had lots of words, but we realized that he was saying them for his own pleasure and not to communicate with us. He also had lots of echolalia (repeating what was just said to him) For instance if I would say, "Do you want to go outside?" He would say "Do you want to go outside?" He was also memorizing and repeating lines off of tv shows like "Today, on Sesame Street......" and memorizing all of his books that we read.
As far as the social thing, it sounds like they are playing with other kids, so that is a good thing. My son never and still does not at age 5 play with other kids. He is however, very social with adults. So that can make things confusing.
My advice to you would be to pay close attention to the speech issue, and if things don't improve pretty soon, I would have them evaluated.

Good luck to you and welcome to Wrong Planet!

It doesn't seem your twins are developmentally behind at all. In fact, for full term babies...they can begin walking up to 17 months and still fall in the 'normal' range'. Yours actually started walking at '10' months if you adjust their developmental age. Twins often times develop twin language which makes it appear they are slower in the language areas when in fact they probably understand each other quite well. Little ones LOVE spinning objects...so its hard to tell at this point if its 'more than'.

Elise

Thanks all for taking the time to reply.
No, I am definitely not looking for a diagnosis here, just trying to figure out if this is common and something that can be missed or overlooked.
No, they are not really effected with schedule change or any change in pattern.
As for communication, lets see, he shows us stuff and labels them, like if he sees a flower he would point to it and say Flower and insist that I see it. He would show me moons and stars at night and he loves saying twinkle twinkle .. ummm .. so basically so far thats kind of what he does, points and labels, he asks for water and cookies. I think that kind of qualifies as communication. But he does not combine much words yet. He heard his teacher at the day care say Come on guys, so he says come on guys but I think he thinks that is one word. Well but he does keep talking all the time. Which is sometimes just blabbering. He would just out of the blue say bye bye bye bye ... like I Said the boys keep "talking" the whole day ! ! They do love music a lot.
I am not sure what all this means, but just want to be alert and aware.

Another question in my mind is, why do doctors miss diagnosing Autism or any development issue ? And what are the long term effects if it is missed. We have enrolled for EI for communication skills, but I dont think it is that helpful. The teacher comes plays with them with puzzles and stuff, I dont see any progress there. But when we take them out to mingle with other kids that kind of helps more. I am thinking of enrolling them to Gymboree, and seeing if that helps in any way.

Another fact is that since they were so premature and extremely underweight, we had to keep them indoors for a long time. So they have just started meeting other kids. Dont know if that makes a difference.

Thanks so much ...

Again, we aren't docs, but it doesn't sound like any ASD at this point.
It often goes undiagnosed because
a> Doctors aren't always aware of the different spectrum disorders.
b> Doctors seldom/never ask about your social life. And since ASD people don't do 'odd' things in the doctor's office like talk to invisible flowers, their issues would not be something a doctor would witness.

As for what does a missed diagnosis mean:
I'm only being formally diagnosed NOW.
I'm 34.
I only came across AS this year.
It screwed up alot in my life, but I'm still alive.

The main things it screwed up:
-Led to serious misunderstanding between myself and my father (and other strict authority figures)
-Interfered with romantic relationships. I missed a lot of the social cues / needs of my partner.
-Interfered with school. Between bullies and trouble with homework I started well, then collapsed.
-People questioned my sanity / grip on reality. Thank god I never listened to them or I'd be dead.

So you can relax. These are all things that happen later in life.
Get them help for the symptoms you do notice, and get them a diagnosis later on, when / if there's a need to. I'm convinced my parents never saw half of my symptoms. And when I was a kid, a lot of the psychology knowledge that exists today was unheard of. So keep informed, but there's no rush as long as you are dealing with the things you see as actual today problems.