Detecting Asperger's Age 2 to 4

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I read that Asperger's is typically not noticed until later in life, like late elemenatry school to even adulthood. I'm curious about noticing signs in very young children, like age 2 to 4. Most specifically I'm curious if there are types of daycare environments that bring out the the worst in an aspie of that age and types of daycare environments that bring out the best.

Montessori preschool was great for me. You wander around as you please most of the time doing what you like.

If Asperger's was known of when I was 2-4 a diagnostician probably could have picked up on it in me. Even earlier probably.

At preschool I would not talk to my teachers or most other kids.

I was extremely startled by loud noises since I was a baby.

I walked around in circles for as long as music my mom had put on was playing. Just kept going and going. Same tape usually.

I only said each new word I learned once (with the exception of a few common ones) until I was almost 2 whereupon I suddenly started talking in complete sentences. All-or-nothing you see, a sentence or pretty much no speech at all.

Really though the situations that are mentioned in diagnostic criteria can't or don't occur before a certain age anyway. Toddlers are toddlers if you know what I mean. They ALL can't do a lot of things.

Good point on Montessori. I never considered it, but it makes sense to me considering its method of letting you do your own thing rather than being forced by a teacher. I recall going to two pre-schools. The first one told my parents that I had the most severe behavior problems of all the children. But, in the second one, they said I was their favorite, and I think that second one was Montessori.

On the flip side, what kind of day care environment do you believe would bring out the worst in a young aspie?

A daycare where there were limited opportunities for learning and a focus on "tradition" rather than education if you know what I mean. Some daycares are actually schools and some are just babysitting services (home daycares, any daycare with a name like "All My Children" (I don't know where you live but these are ABUNDANT in my corner of the world, America)). I think the babysitting services are worse for any kid but markedly worse for an Aspie cause their focus is on grooming the kids to be in-line smiling little creatures who are manageable rather than inquisitive and creative and self-directing. Among daycares that are actually preschools, ones that have everyone doing the same thing and expecting people to "color in the lines" and "fall into line" (e.g. "This is how you make a cat! Everyone take a big circle of paper and a little circle and put the little one above the big one. There's his head and body!) are worst I'd say. In my humble opinion.

I didn't show any typical traits until I started school. I know I didn't, because although my mum wouldn't have noticed at the time, she would have noticed if she thinks back to when I was a toddler, and she says she didn't notice any differences between me and any other typically developing children. I was an ordinary, happy, healthy toddler, had the few odd tantrums like all toddlers do, and at typical things, like not being allowed to have sweets, not wanting to sit in the buggy, being teased by older siblings, demanding and crying when I was under the weather, et cetera. And also when I looked at photos I usually smiled. But not all children smile all the time in photos anyway. I've seen pictures of other people's babies and children, and they're looking at the camera with wide open mouths, as though they're confused, or about to cry or something.

I forget exactly how old I was I was either 5 or younger but my first experiance with a pre-school/daycare type place which I only remember bits and peices of was quite unpleasent. A couple of kids where picking on me the first day, they later appologized for it......and the teachers whenver they thought I did something wrong or whatever they would ask me questions I did not understand and if I answerd wrong out of confusion they put me in time out....My next experiance involved being mentally abused by the teacher who seemed to like degrading me in front of the other students

No one knew I had AS or anything but obviously I was quite a bit different from the norm even at a young age, and that even with out the label of AS being put on it is enough to cause one some problems.

These days I think it's noticable earlier because people are more aware of what to look for. My daughter would be considered HFA because she had a language delay and as of about 10 years ago no language at age 2 automatically gets you a referral for assessment. However, at that assessment my daughter was determined as "not autistic" and just developmentally delayed because she had eye contact and interacted well. Since then, she was diagnosed at age 6 with AS when her differences could be more easily identified/quantified but she could still pass for a very quirky, shy NT unless you were around her for a while. I think it's pretty obvious to her peers (3rd grade) that she is "different" but many are surprised to learn she has AS. And BTW, she is in montessori too so that helps tremendously as others have stated.

When she was 4 they kicked her out of preschool because when they would turn off the lights for nap time she would not only NOT take a nap but become very alarmed when others slept. They couldn't allow her to disrupt everyone.

Now with hindsight being 20/20 I remember her stimming as a young child but it must not have been so remarkable for me to think it anything but curious at the time.

Some children can have a speech delay without having an ASD. Sometimes it can be just learning difficulties or something like that.

It's tricky to detect AS in preschoolers because the diagnosis depends on having poor social skills, and most preschoolers have pretty poor social skills so the AS kid doesn't stand out as much.

Lack of social play is typical for 2 year olds, and relatively common for 3 year olds - only around 4-5 do most kids engage in social play.

Literalism is present in typical kids until around 6 or 7 - 4 year olds will bluntly tell someone they're fat, or get confused by people claiming it's 'raining cats and dogs'.

NT kids under 4 fail theory-of-mind tests, such as the Sally-Anne test

Many preschoolers don't have a particular friend, just random kids they play with.

In retrospect, though I was clearly gifted even as a baby, my AS wasn't diagnosable until I was around 6 or 7. Before then, I had no trouble getting along with other kids because they didn't expect good social skills.

I guess the one thing that would be a big sign is lack of pretend play (which most kids do by age 3 or so) but not all AS kids have that trait.

Well, based on my own history, I'd say that if someone asks your 4-year-old what he wants to be when he grows up, and he replies, "I want to be a paleoanthropologist," he's probably an Aspie.

You couldn't be more right. I agree 100 percent!
I went on a course in college when I was 16, and I studied child care, and I attended a work placement twice a week working with 2-4 year olds, and I had to study their behaviour. I could not tell you if any of them had AS or not because it was too difficult. There was one shy girl who never really looked at anyone or said anything at all, but that doesn't mean she isn't NT. Some toddlers are shy, and some grow out of it once they start school and get a little older. Don't forget, a 2 year old is practically still a baby - they aren't going to stand there and have a full-blown conversation with another toddler, saying, ''so how are you today then, mate? Hot enough for ya?'' When the parents came to pick them up, I often heard them saying, ''say goodbye to A,'' and B would just half-heartedly say bye to A just because she was told to.
Unless a toddler has a condition that is very severe, I don't think just AS is going to really be crystal-clear in a toddler. You can't really point to a shy 3 year old and say, ''oh she's got AS - get him diagnosed now.'' And anyway, all toddlers develop differently. Some 3 year olds played together, actually talking to eachother, whilst other 3 year olds (or older) played quietly. And every single child in the nursery had repetitive behaviour. That is something that every child has. It's their way of learning mitor skills.
And one little girl kept on calling out another little girl's name every time she went off to play elsewhere, and the nursery assistants kept saying, ''you mustn't keep calling her - let her go and play with other toys.'' And there was a little boy who had a favourite toy. It was one of those push-along toys, and he always walked around pushing it all the time, and if any other child wanted to play with it, he would cry. I didn't think, ''oh, it's Autism''. I just thought that is typical toddler traits which they soon grow out of.

And often when I'm in the street and a person is walking to another person, and they have small kids with them, 8 out of 10 times the kids are always pulling at their mums because they don't want to stand and wait, and don't care that their mums are trying to talk. So kids miss that body language.

The responses are not what I was hoping for. I'm not really looking for how to diagnose a 3 year old. Rather, if a 3 year old has Asperger's what day cares would work and what would not, even if certain NT personality types would also have the same results?

I'll spill the beans on what I'm getting at this question. I (an undiagnosed aspie) went through two day cares. In the first, the folks there said I had the most severe behavior problems of all the kids, and maybe I needed some special treatment or whatever because I was so bad. My parents disagreed and put me somewhere else where those folks claimed I was their best behaved pre-schooler, and later entering school became a model student, albeit quite the nerd.

My memory of the first one, which my mom confirms, was chaos: kids running wild, very strict discipline, forced nap times, being punished to sit in the corner for who knows what, etc. My memory of the second one was that it had no chaos wit the kids nor strict discipline from the adults. Makes me wonder if the two reactions could be chalked up to early Asperger's traits, or maybe that's just pure coincidence.

When you say chaos, do you mean a loud busy chaotic environment with screaming children, snapping adults, fights, tantrums, etc? Such an environment could cause sensory overload and meltdowns in an AS child. Daily. Hourly. Did meltdowns account for your severe behavior problems?

The preschool I went to was also chaotic. I had problems with sensory overload on a daily basis, which caused me to not be able to do anything except walk in circles around the room. The teachers didn't consider that to be a severe behavior problem, but they did bring up my complete and utter aloofness with my parents. What were your interactions with the children and adults like? Did you play with any children regularly? The same children regularly? Were you aggressive towards the children and adults at the first preschool? I think that mean loud snapping adults can set off aggression and meltdowns in an AS child. Even an overly loud voice can do it. Even a high-pitched annoying voice can do it.

Did the second preschool have more structured activities and clear rules? Was it more like grade school than free play or daycare? Nicer, more patient teachers? Was it quieter? Dimmer? Less clutter? Were there daily routines? I would expect all these things to help a child with AS. When I was little, I was a compulsive rule follower, and I did well with structured activities. The only time the teachers ever heard a peep out of me was during sing-alongs.

Did you perform any activities with abnormal intensity and focus for a preschooler and in a way that made you stand out from the other children? That could be another sign. Some AS children focus intensely from a very early age. We're talking longer than most NT adults can focus. Four hours a pop is not a problem. Eight wouldn't be a problem either, but the parents usually don't let it go on that long. What about intensity of activities? In preschool, I remember once when the teachers had us learn to tidy up, and I took the tidying up to truly ethereal levels of tidiness, which the teachers talked to my parents about, while all the other children played around casually and didn't tidy up. Did you stand out a lot in a positive way in any activity at the second preschool?

Also, did you behave like two totally different people at home and in preschool? That would be consistent with AS. I think it could also occur in NT children, but it is probably much more common and much more pronounced in AS. Did all your behavior problems disappear at home? Were you a sweet and happy child at home, but a little monster in preschool? I was a sweet and happy child at home, albeit very quiet and passive, but a little robot that appeared to have blown its fuse in preschool.

In general, I think that AS is definitely detectable in preschool children if all of their traits and behaviors are taken into account. You can't cherry-pick one thing at a time and say that NT children do that thing too. You've got to list all the traits and behaviors and consider the whole picture formed by them. In fact, AS may be detectable even earlier, but that's only in retrospect, probably not good to use it for excessively early diagnosis. My mother tells me that I was already different in infancy. I never reacted to anyone when they looked over me and tried to play with me in my crib. Didn't smile. Didn't wiggle. Didn't hold up my arms. Ignored them as I would ignore them more blatantly later. This was from ages 0 to 2. Of course, this was only one case of AS. Some children will not appear to be significantly different until they go to grade school.

My mother noticed something was wrong with me at age one, mostly my poor motor skills. I wasn't diagnosed at that age though. I was tested for fragile x.

I honestly don't remember all that detail. I was a toddler, afterall! But I do recall my mom later saying that I was the model child at home: never cried, never misbehaved, etc. But at the first day care, the owners claimed I had major problems. Given the difference of that vs. how I was at home, my mom assumed that the daycare people were the problem, not me, so put me somewhere else.

I was a well-behaved kid at home and a terror at school, because the school never explained why I had to do something and my parents did, and also my parents negotiated with me and the school didn't (eg if I didn't want to do something, I could explain why and they'd try to think of a compromise that met my needs).