Autism - Valley Village,CA

my baby had autism. delayed speech - everyone said 'he's a boy, don't worry about it'. i wish i had.

lack of eye contact except when excited/rough play.

not feeling connected - he doesn't point, bring you objects to share.

my baby was always very cuddly, so not necessarily an indicator if they aren't physically affectionate.

stop vaccines.

go to a developmental pediatrician for a proper assessment (don't trust regular pediatrician). in LA, try dr Batra or dr Danis.

best.

hi~
while every child is different if you have concerns i encourage you to talk to your pediatrician. There are some diagnoses that may seem similar to autism at first (e.g. lack of speech could also be apraxia, no reaction to sounds could be hearing loss). Here is information from http://www.autismspeaks.org/whatisit/learnsigns.php#redflags

In clinical terms, there are a few “absolute indicators,” often referred to as “red flags,” that indicate that a child should be evaluated. For a parent, these are the “red flags” that your child should be screened to ensure that he/she is on the right developmental path. If your baby shows any of these signs, please ask your pediatrician or family practitioner for an immediate evaluation:

RED FLAGS
No big smiles or other warm, joyful expressions by six months or thereafter
No back-and-forth sharing of sounds, smiles, or other facial expressions by nine months or thereafter
No babbling by 12 months
No back-and-forth gestures, such as pointing, showing, reaching, or waving by 12 months
No words by 16 months
No two-word meaningful phrases (without imitating or repeating) by 24 months
Any loss of speech or babbling or social skills at any age
*This information has been provided by First Signs, Inc. ©2001-2005.

If you have a concern about a baby, you should not think autism first. Have the babies hearing and vision checked and discuss your concerns with your doctor.

While I could tell you what I saw with my autistic child when she was a baby, it would be far from diagnostic, and it might do nothing more than to make you worry needlessly.

Google development for.the first three years, and keep a close eye on milestones. If your baby misses some, contact your doctor and act sooner rather than later. Then, enrich your babies environment by reading daily, talking all the time, singing, and having lots.of.face.time with you.

Babies are not usually diagnosed with autism, but babies can have issues that need therapeutic attention that are not aitism, so let your pediatrician help you if you see something that worries you.
M.

EEEK! Only a developmental evaluation by a qualifed professional will help to determine if your child has Autism! Mamapedia, while a nice source for mothering, is NOT a diagnositc tool, so please do not use it that way. Talk to your doctor about vaccines too, there is no evidence whatsoever that vaccines cause autism and if your baby has it, they are the last baby on earth who needs pertussis, mumps, or measils, you can trust me on that.

I don't think there's any definitive symptoms. Looking back, my daughter showed problems with transitions as early as 9 months. For example, if we were watching a bird outside our window, and he flew away, she would cry. Otherwise, she was pretty much on track with her milestones (waving, clapping hands, playing peekaboo, way ahead on first words, etc.). She was later diagnosed with Asperger's.

C.
www.littlebitquirky.blogspot.com

You can google "early signs of autism" and similar terms to get a huge, and probably worrying list of things to watch out for. Here's one such site: http://pediatrics.about.com/od/weeklyquestion/a/04_signs_...

If you have concerns, write down all behaviors that seem problematic to you and talk to your pediatrician. Don't go in expecting your doctor will settle on autism, either, since many symptoms could point to other problems, or perhaps not even be worrisome unless they are part of a whole pattern of symptoms.

I'm sure there are posts that the same thing but... I am ( not currently active) a behavior therapist for children within the spectrum. Obviously from the other posts you are aware to watch out for lack of eye contact. But depending on the age of your baby it is hard to diagnose very early on since eye contact could be caused by several things. Stereotypy is very common in children/adults with autism, such as hand flapping, bring there hands to their face and watching them bring it away, lining things up...etc.. this is a self-stiumulatory behavior. But if your child is too young to play or speak it is a very hard thing to tell. Good Luck

littlebitquirky.blogspot.com

This is my girlfriend's blog about living with her daughter's Aspergers. You can find or ask for any info you need.

Good luck.

I do not believe there are any "definite" signs/symptoms of autism that one can spot at early age. The only thing a parent can watch out for is developmental milestones and any sudden behavior changes, and even that is not absolute because every one is different, and the severity of everyone's situation is also different. If the primary care taker's parenting style is the overprotective kind, it just makes determination that much harder (at early age I mean). My first boy was diagnosed with mild to medium autism at age 4 1/2 because he was raised by my in-laws who did EVERYTHING for him for the first two years, to the point that he never had to say a word or use any other form of communication to get what he needs/wants (they believe that's what good parenting is about). He had eye contact, smiles and was always cuddly and needy (yes, passionate). Even though he almost never followed any command we knew he understood what we said because he would purposely do the opposite. He never shared anything but lots of kids don't do that either. We enrolled him at preschool/daycare because everyone we knew said he just needed to go to school to start talking more. We always considered him just a little delayed and spoiled but misunderstood by teachers at the two preschool/daycare centers we brought him to, until I finally learned that he never said a single word for the entire 5-6 hour day everyday at age 4 (he could say a few words and could communicate somewhat at home), because the teachers never stressed that to us and assumed he was behaving the same way at home. I raised my second one (everywhere I went people told me he's the most pleasant well behaved baby around) from day one and was only able to spot something alarming after he had his MMR shot, which was the disappearance of his smiles, friendliness, and the just budding language (he just started to say 'hi' and 'bye' on his own one week prior to that). It was an obvious change but I still would've just dismissed it if I did not happen to have a talk with a friend who warned me about MMR the week after his shot. But still this does not happen to everyone I've talked to (just some), and no one professional mainstream medical doctor would say there's a correlation, just a "coincidence" (which, as it turned out in the afterthought, happened after every previous round of his shots, but the change didn't last more than a day until the MMR, and he's been under intensive therapy sessions up to now, eligible for RC services even after age 3). What I've learned from all this, is that if you have any concern about the child's developmental delays or behavior changes, don't just talk to your pediatrician or neurologist or any doctor you feel is appropriate and stop there. The fact is that to this day no one knows for sure what caused it therefore no one can say for sure what to look for, let alone how best to treat it. There are currently lots of guesses on possible causes, derived based on the various different symptoms observed from different individuals so far. Therefore they do not necessarily know any more than you do regarding your child once you spent some time doing serious research both in books and on the internet, in addition to talking to various different doctors. The kids who had the best improvements are the ones whose parents had done the most INDEPENDENT research themselves. And those can be very dramatic improvements happening in relatively short amount of time.

If your baby's developmental delay is severe enough, the regional center in your area will take care of early start therapy sessions for you any time before the baby reaches age 3. Just give them a call to request an evaluation: http://www.dds.ca.gov/RC/RCList.cfm

Good Luck.

this early any sign of autism could be just a delay or something else is causing it....i know a big thing is if they don't like to be cuddled or kissed is a big thing with autism (my sister was diagnosed at age 4, but then again i think shots caused hers because she was developmentally normal until her 4 years shots (back in 1996) and then within a month wasn't talking anymore but a couple of words and was always saying no and wouldn'
t let us hug her...

A couple of other things to watch for:
Does your baby look at you if he's in an uncomfortable situation to see if everything is okay? Most babies do. They "check in" with mom to gage the situation.
Does your baby look at you to see if you're looking at something they are looking at? This is joint attention. They "share" the experience with you when they look at you. Almost like, "Do you see this neat toy too?" Only without words.
Does your baby look at you when you say his name? Most babies respond to their name consistently, not sporadically, and it doesn't take two or three times to get their attention.
Does your baby try to communicate with hand gestures? Reaching up to be held, waving bye-bye when prompted.
These are some other things to look for.
Call your regional center or early intervention program. They'll do a free evaluation and give lots of help for the under age 3 child.

Dear Kika:

Everyone has left you some great information. Eye contact is one of the first indicators of Autism. If this is Autism there are great things you can do to improve the circumstances or reverse it. The sooner you address it the better.

Temporarily stop all vaccine until this has been determined. More information posted on Mamapedia on your child will help determine if this is really Autism.

Don't give up or think there is nothing you can do. There are answers.

Kim