Expert: Ettina - 9/7/2009

Question
I have twin daughters aged 32 months. I have a lot of concerns regarding one of the girls.
She has had delays in all areas of development and suffers from hypotonia.. She learned to walk around 3months ago.
Her speech was very poor and she sees a speech therapist, however now knows lots of words, however doesn't seem to be able to make conversation. She will say a word ie, cat meow, car broom and so on but never asks what's that or makes actual conversation.
She makes some eye contact and is extremely loving..however tends to prefer to play alone. She is very good at practical play e.g train going round the train track or cars etc but not very good at imaginative play.
She can sit for hours looking through books and the majority of the time will go berserk if you try to interfere or read the book with her. She flaps her arms while scanning the pages and makes strange shapes with her fingers. She puts her thumb and middle finger practically together as if making the shape of an O or C and with the other hand puts her pointer finger and thumb straight. As she does this she shakes and grimaces. She has also spun in circles for a long time, she either does this with her eyes closed or looking out the corner of her eyes. She also laughes while doing it occassionaly or just suddenly bursts out laughing for no appahrent reason. She has also recently begun to pace the same peice of floor over and over again, as she does this she either does it with her eyes closed or looking out the corner of her eyes. She also uses her hands like mobiles and holds them infront of her face and just stares at them moving.
She likes routines and goes completely mental in transitions from one thing to another.
i have an appointment in 2months with a communication clinic but am looking to see what your feelings are.
I should also point out that from a very young age i have had this horrible gut feeling that something isn't quite right that will just not leave me.
Thanks
Laura

Answer
She does sound like an autistic child. However, she's pretty mildly affected, and her global delays make it hard to tell if she's an autistic kid or just a mentally retarded kid with autistic traits. Either way, however, her prognosis is pretty good. It's quite likely that she'll continue to have difficulties, but unless her development undergoes a dramatic shift, she will be fairly high functioning.