Expert: James Michael Roan - 3/23/2008

Question
My son has been walking since 9 months, smiles, laughs, babbles a lot, will bring things to me to share, if i gesture and ask will bring me his bottle.  However sometimes when I call his name it's as if he's ignoring me, or that he is in a daze.  He also does So Big and claps well. I just want to ease my mind or know if I should be worried about autism.

Answer
Hi Jennica;

It's true that "failure to orient to name" is the most research validated early sign for autism, however, there are other ones as well. I have provided early red flags for autism at different ages below. Your son sounds like he's developing normally. It is normal to not respond to name 20 percent of the time. We are worried when it is "most" of the time.

6-12 Month Markers:

•   Passivity and decreased activity
•   Extreme distress reactions
•   Fixation on objects

By 12 Months:

•   Decreased positive affect and social smiling
•   Delayed gesture and language
•   Poor or no eye contact
•   Poor disengagement of attention
•   Inability to shift attention back and forth between different stimuli
•   Failure to orient to name
•   Poor imitation
•   No babbling by 12 months
•   No gesturing by 12 months

By 16 Months:

•   No single words by 16 months
•   No pointing to objects or interesting events in an attempt to share them with another

By 24 Months:

•   No spontaneous two-word phrases
•   Loss of any language or social skills at any age


Kind regards,
James