Expert: Trey McGowan - 1/30/2009

Question
Hi, My 2 year old beautiful son, who may or may not have autism (he's going through assessment at the Child Development Unit in 2 weeks)has a lot of characteristics of autism but i can't determine whether it's his speech delay causing autistic behaviour or autism causing development delay. I'd really value your opinion on the below symptoms:
1. Hand flaps a lot when excited (but only when wathing Thomas the Tank Engine Episodes!)
2. Prefers to play alone
3. Has about 8 words (used correctly in reference to objects etc) which he says but can not join 2 words together yet and prefers not to speak.
4. Is extremely affectionate with me & his dad & gives eye contact, and interacts well, but usually only when you are following his lead (activities he shows me he wants to do, rather than me putting out something for him).
5. Drags me around the house pointing & grunting to things he wants - i don't know whether he can't or doesn't want to use words to communicate?
I'm concerned that they'll label him "autistic", when possibly it's a speech delay causing autistic behaviour??
Any advise / help would be greatly appreciated.
Many Thanks

Answer
Hi there, Belle!

My opinion on the symptoms is that I am not a doctor. As such, I unfortunately can't give a diagnosis on a child, and it should be left up to an expert to do. A genuine one as opposed to an AllExpert.

With your child already under assessment, I believe that the best thing you can do is to wait for the doctors to give an expert opinion, since they will be able to observe your child and get a more direct view of what's going on, rather than having to read a series of statements and extrapolate.

While I will not say that all doctors will 100% of the time be able to properly diagnose between a hearing/speech disorder and autism, there are definitely links and similarities between the two. This means that while the treatments aren't identical, at least for the lessons in speech and language, you will find that a lot of the same things are used. So either way it goes, your child's diagnosis will go a long way toward getting some assistance toward bettering his speech and communication skills even if autism is an issue as well as the speech (of which there is no doubt there's a delay).

Hopefully that helped reassure at least a little bit. I wish that I could give a better diagnosis than I have, but when it comes to online diagnosticians, there really is no good way to go about it when one isn't a genuine expert. :) Therefore, I'll leave it to those who can observe with their own eyes and ears. But if there's any other questions, comments, feedback, or follow-ups that I can answer, feel free to send them my way!

Trey