First Autistic Symptom?

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I didn't cry when I was born.
I was extremely cautious (even fearful) of playground such as the slide when I was a toddler.

These days I notice a disordered sense of anxiety. I get very anxious about ordinary things (like going to a new coffee place or seeing a movie), but not anxious about serious things (like driving down an icy road ar night).

Once, when I was a teenager, my grandmother was having breakfast with us and started choking on some coffee. At first I thought that she was going to throw up, so I jumped up because I didn't want to be at the table when she threw up. When we realized that she was choking, my mom dialed 911. I was completely calm the whole time. I knew that the paramedics would come and take her to the hospital and that she'd be fine. That's exactly what happened. I don't think my blood pressure even rose.

Is this normal autistic behavior? Is it like an extension of alexithymia? Or is this something more schizoid?

Not sure if it's a symptom, but I have the same thing. It's obvious it'll be fine, except when it's obvious it won't be fine. Do you accept things very quickly? Not with change, I mean, but...I don't know. Do you know?

edit- I was a very well tempered baby and toddler, very smiley, happy, not fussy etc...so not overstimulated, really.

My first autistic symptom...outward, I stimmed quite a bit (although not as much as other Aspies. I learnt pretty early on it wasn't really accepted). My favourite thing was the swing. Home videos are funny. When watching TV for the first time I flapped my hands so much that I went out of balance, laughing and shrieking. I think Pooh had just been attacked by bees or something. Also have videos of me not responding when my mum calls my name, walking on my toes, pictures of me lining raisins up (lol. anyway, my parents say that i 'didn't do this more often than the average child...'). Inwardly, I felt different from as far as I could remember. I was at a birthday party, I must have been three, and I felt completely separate than the hostess (my mum called her my 'best friend') and her little friends. They were all crowded around her new Barbie car and I couldn't have cared less. I have a few playground memories of 'nursery' too. Not fab.

Last edited by daedal on 08 Jan 2011, 3:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

My mother says I didn't cry as an infant (or cry much). I first started using complete sentences at 13 months. I was hyperlexic and reading tons of stuff before I got into kindergarten. I had an all-consuming interest in dinosaurs and the Dodekatheon (the Greek gods of Olympus). Also, cats - I may have*, in fact, suggested to my mother that I had been a cat at one time. My kindergarten teacher called my mother in for a conference because I was writing polysyllabic words on things. The one my mother specifically mentions is "tyrannosaurus rex."

That's what I remember or know about up to age five.

Oh - I am always calm in a crisis. That is when I am at my most decisive. I'm usually the first one to think to call 911, and I do not lose my cool. Earliest I remember this was when my foster brother - who had ADHD - jumped off the stairs in 1979-1980 thereabouts and managed to get a concussion and broke his wrist, and I was able to get in touch with my mother and dial up ambulance. I was in the 5th grade at the time, and said foster brother was in the same class I was. Said class was for students to work at their own pace - it was the only year I did well across the board in school.

* This definitely happened.

I would scream if people tried to hold me. My parents say I didn't really cry, but I would scream.

I had a really good memory.

I don't know... My parents say that i cried A LOT as a baby... and i was like a monkey on playground equipment.

My brother didn't cry as a baby. I remember one story of my mother dropping him on his head and he merely looked at her as if to ask "What the hell did you do?!". He always seemed deep in thought.

My daughter, on the other hand, cried a lot and LOUDLY. She came out screaming as if saying "Put me BACK in!"

My daughter's first sign/symptom was stimming by moving her head back and forth rhythmically (like Stevie Wonder). She also was fixated with textiles-rubbing her face and body on them as a very small infant but screaming when I put clothes on her. She would only be quiet in a sling or in a swing.

Me too. However, my mother tends to try to rationalize this in various ways. The next thing I can think of is late walking.

Do you think that a dopamine imbalance might have something to do with it? In retrospect, my grandfather especially had problems that were consistent with low dopamine.

This is going off of what my parents have told me. On my first day of preschool, I'm told I astounded every teacher and parent present. Each kid apparently was seated around the room with a different color crayon. As it was a bilingual school, I walked around the room and named each color in both english and spanish. I was the youngest kid (not sure how old though) in the class and not one other kid could name each color in both languages and some couldn't do it yet in one language. I also had an all-consuming preoccupation with dinosaurs as a little kid to the point that by the time I hit kindergarten I knew I wanted to become a paleontologist (not that that stayed my goal forever).

Really hard to say. I didn't cry when I was born either, but that doesn't seem to me very conclusive proof of anything. I was born anemic--maybe I wsa just lethargic from that? Who knows. I also had food allergies and hypersensitivities to sound and temp from the time I was born.

The earliest symptoms i can definitely say pointed to me having AS specifically ishyperlexia and a concurrent reticence to speak even though I had no verbal delays, That started presenting between 3 and 4.

I think I first displayed symptoms of autism when I was around three. I don't remember anything, but my mom said that I wasn't talking properly, instead I was just making incoherent babbling noises.

I tend to be very calm and rational in situations where I am the one tending to someone in an emergency situation. I become very focused on what needs to be done and tend to shift into autopilot.

However, after I am relieved of responsibility, I can be a bit overwhelmed, especially if it is someone I care about who was hurt. If I it is a situation that does not require extreme attention, or that I do not have to take charge of, I tend to get overwhelmed by the feelings I have of what that particular incident would feel like.

I'm like this. It makes my wife crazy. If it's not arterial blood you won't die. She is so used to it now that if something happened that I actually got upset over she would completely freak out.

My first symptom? I don't recall really. I do remember that while I had a precocious vocabulary, mostly I didn't use it it unless I was talking to adults.

I use to stare at things a lot.

My son's first symptoms were shaking his head back and forth at 4 mos old. At 1 yr of age, he started staring at ceiling fans and flapping his hands. He was a very late walker (21 mos) And at 2 yrs old, we realized he was memorizing all of the kids books we had been reading him.

Ever since I was a baby, I was very skeptical towards other people.

Apart from that my mom especially remembers these things:

Clothes sensitivity:
I'd freak out if my clothes were wrinkled, "clumpy" or if they weren't put on perfectly. I did'nt tolerate labels, some fabrics, tags, zippers, etc in clothing. I wore my socks inside out. ++

Had a great need of control:
For instance, if we had visitors, I'd try to decide where they would sit.

Other unusual tendencies:
For instance, I refused to sing in kindergarten, because the other kids sang out of tune. I was about 2,5 years old when I told my mom this...
I wouldn't participate in "gathering time" in kindergarten.


All of this started before the age of three.