Expert: Valerie Herskowitz - 9/16/2009

Question
QUESTION: Hello Ms. Herskowitz,

Firstly, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read and respond to my question. I have a few concerns regarding my 13 month old son. I've been told that 13 months is way to early to detect signs of Autism, but I'm still concerned with some of the things my son does. Within the past 2-3 months he has developed these characteristics and I am wondering if it is normal development. He started shaking his head side to side like he is saying no, but he shakes his head really fast and he will often follow up with banging his head either on my chest, the sofa, or the bed. He some how knows the hard sufaces and will not bang his head on anything hard. He also does not respond to his name alot of the time. He does sometimes, but there has to be absolutly no distraction, no T.V, no music, just silence, and then he will respond sometimes. It's not just his name, he will often not respond to anything I call him, or if I shout or scream just to see if he will look at me, he usually doesn't. He also recently started flapping his hands. He will sometimes flap his hands and then turn his hands in a upward position where his palms are up and it looks like he's holding a ball or something. And the last of my major concerns is his social interaction. When he sees people, or if we go to family's house or something, he starts to get really anxious. Even before we enter the house. He'll start getting anxious at the front door and start to bury his head my my chest or shoulder and start to cringe, and as soon as we step in the house, he cries and cries. He eventually calms down, but I don't know why he does this. We recenlty went my niece's 1st B'Day and there was a bedroom where all the kids would play. All of his cousins were playing with each other, jumping on the bed, etc. and my son would smile, laugh for a little bit and go off on his own or into the room where I was. He will not let me let go of him. I always am having to carry him, because he gets so anxious sometimes, and I can see it in his facial reactions that he's not comfortable.

Sorry for the length of this question, but I hope you can address my concerns. I read in your profile that you have a child with autism, and I was wondering if you could relate to any of these symptoms. Thanks again.

ANSWER: Hi Vanida

I don't know where you live, but I can tell you that probably you won't find anyone to diagnosis him at this age. You are bringing up some good points about behaviors that are certainly characteristics of autism (flapping, not attending to his name, anxiety in new situations, preferring to play alone). If you want, I can do a checklist with you to see if he is developing in his language skills. If he isn't, then that would be another area of concern.

I don't think you are too early to at least go and see someone-he really is having some issues that I would be concerned about. Let's check out his language together.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Yes I would really appriciate the help. How would I go about checking out his language skills? At this point he only says mama and dada. He will rarely say papa and is constanly "brrrrrrrrrrrrr"ing.

Answer
Hi Vanida

Language is more than just what he says. There are a lot of things that he should be doing before he actually starts talking. Without knowing what he is doing, it's hard for me to know how to advise you.

I do private consultations either on the phone or via Skype (live video). If this is something you would like to do with me, let me know and we can discuss it on the phone