Early signs of Asperger's Syndrome in infancy

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Zukenkerl--What I posted isn't my opinion, it's scientific fact. Yes, it's rare, but there have been infants born with no brain--their skulls are fluid filled with no brain matter. And yes, the behavior of these infants is the same as a normal infant until about 6 months of age. I don't see the connection between this fact and the issue of whether dogs can think. Your impression of me as being like your Danish aunt notwithstanding, it's my opinion that dogs do indeed think.

Yup. It's called hydranencephaly. There's an anencelphalic kid in my mom's school district (she's a school psychologist). He was born with only a brainstem. He is cortically blind (since he has no cortex), he does not speak (obviously), and there is no indication that he can understand speech. After all, your brainstem does not control any higher brain functions. All he does is respond to sensation- like being held, etc. He can smile, and he reacts to stimulation, but it's hard to know what, if anything, he understands or perceives about what goes on around him. He also has major medical problems- really severe seizures and such. Apparently whenever the family goes on vacation, they have to factor in how long it would take to evacuate the kid to a hospital by helicopter- that's how unstable he is when he seizes.

Last edited by LostInSpace on 29 Nov 2007, 8:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

DrGreene.org rocks.

I walked and ran early, and displayed an early interest in books. I was a picky eater as a child, but that changed when I got older. My mom said I was also able to identify the piece of music that was playing by the pattern on the record. She joked I could already read before I started school.

OH, OK, I thought you meant NO babies were.

I also would play for hours on end by myself quite contendedly. I also would not really care too much if one of my playmates had to leave. It really did not upset me. Some kids down the street once came to the house and asked me to play and I just said no in a very flat voice and slammed the door in their face. I went back to play by myself, but my mother had other ideas. I remember being marched down the street and being made to apologize.

I loved things like blocks and cars to play with. I really loved making my own roads with the blocks to drive the cars over. I would spend more time building the roads than I would driving my cars on them.

I did the same sort of things. I don't even remember playing with any appreciable amount of toys, but I DID organize lots of things. I DID build different things out of lincoln logs, tinker toys, and an erector set.

I used to do this too.

I once had some toy "Brio" sets, these wooden trains and tracks. I once marked all over them with crayons to make highways out of them, and then I'd take empty cereal boxes, wrap paper bags over them, and draw doors/windows/stuff into them to make skyscrapers. I had built my own cities, was very meticulous about maintaining them, and would throw tantrums if anything was moved out of place by parents or siblings.

I'd spend hours upon hours adding onto it.

As a birthday gift, my dad picked up a wooden box from a post office that was about 4 feet tall by 1 foot wide by 2 feet long. It had slots to hold envelopes in. I was ecstatic; I drew in windows and a helicopter landing point and made a 120 story building out of it, built to the same scale as everything else.

I used to also cut up cardboard boxes into strips and build roads out of those.

I even took the styrofoam packaging out of a box that used to contain a TV my dad had purchased and built a bridge out of it and two wooden pieces of a broken dresser drawer. The 4-lane highway that composed the bridge looked extremely realistic given that it was done in crayon and I was meticulous about detailing it. My parents were none too pleased about the broken pieces of dresser drawers serving as on-ramps, especially since I left nails poking outwards on the sides of them to serve as street lights; my older brother eventually stepped on one and I was extremely upset when they were removed.

My room was termed a 'disaster area' by my mother. On one side of the room, I'd have all my toy cars lined up in rows and sorted by type(sports cars in one area, family sedans in another, antiques in another, et.), and on the other side, I had my 'city'. I had many hours of fun playing with that setup as a small child. Sometimes I'd let my snake crawl around and play the role of 'Godzilla'.

What you've written about this occurring is correct, however all sources that I can find report that the infant "may" appear normal at birth, and that in most instances it is noticed within the first several weeks of life that the infant isn't a "normal" infant. So it appears that you're incorrect in your statement that all infants operate on the same level and do not utilize higher brain functions that set them apart in the first 6 months of life or so. The traits that set the Hydranencephalic infants apart are behavioral - there were physical traits as well, but the majority of the list was compromised of behavioral traits; those controlled by the brain.

Also, if Lostinspace is correct, and these hydranecephalic children are cortically blind then wouldn't it indicate that normal infants, who are not blind at birth and who can hear at birth as well, are using more than their brain stem to function?

Though I believe that hydranencephalic babies are certainly born - I'm looking at a website with pictures of them, I have a hard time believing that babies born with all parts of their brain intact simply don't use higher functions for six months.

As for the OP about autistic/asperger's babies I'm not sure. I know how my babies were, and I'm pretty sure all of them are on the spectrum. My first two were very fussy and my third very laid back. But I'm not sure one can tell in infancy how a baby is wired. They say babies who stiffen on touch. All of mine stiffened on touch but rocking with them and dancing with them would cause them to relax and then I wore them on my body in a sling everywhere. They all liked to be swaddled tightly though. My middle child liked to be swaddled for sleep up til his second birthday.

I don't know much about hydranencephaly, but a baby born with anencephaly cannot live. To have anencephaly the whole top part of the skull that covers the brain is also absent, as is the brain beyond the brain stem. I KNOW this. I had a baby with this condition. She was stillborn. I was told at 7 months along after the sonogram that she was anencephalic, and had no chances of survival, except maybe a few days after birth. There have been a few cases where the baby lived a couple months, but that was almost considered a miracle for an anencephalic infant. Trust me I researched this until my eyes bled.

Before 3 years of age usually points towards autism; Asperger's is usually picked up in early schooling (probably because it's less severe).

I was lacking eye contact, I was aloof, I preferred my own company, I lacked imaginative play, I rarely spoke, I lined up toys and stuff; all before three. There was never a need for me to be "looked" at for I was a quiet and happy child; I never "melted"/threw tantrums, I showed affection to my mother (I kinda clung to her and became attached from the beginning). The teachers/remedial teachers at school always knew there was something "wrong" with me due to my difficulties in verbal ability; but since my performance IQ was through the roof, that pushed my IQ way up. 'He just doesn't want to do it!' Was their motto.

The passive ones like me don't get picked up as often.

My son (Aspergers) had an odd movement tick right from birth -- when he got upset, he would make a very rapid series of back and forth head movements for a few seconds. He met all early language milestones. However, there were virtually no gestures at all until he was about 2 1/2 and, even then, he didn't gesture much.

He was a late walker (18 months) but we didn't think much about that because my wife and I are were late walkers too. At about 2 1/2 we started to see a couple of unusual behaviors. He would rapidly wave his hands in opposite directions a few inches from his eyes, and he would make back and forth head movements with his eyes rotated to the edge of the orbits. There was also very little pretend play. He wasn't diagnosed until age 4, though, because he was meeting all of the language milestones and he didn't really have enough autistic traits to warrant a diagnosis until then.

So, there were subtle signs when we was very young -- just not enough to clearly identify him as autistic.