Expert: Jene Aviram - 11/10/2010

Question
Hello, Thank you in advance for taking the time to answer my question.
I have a few concerns about my son who is just over 10 months.  
He is very social and has always been.  He smiles, laughs, makes great eye contact and looks at us to engage us.  He waves and claps most of the time when asked and on his own.  He loves peek a boo.  He crawled at 8 months and is now pulling up and is starting to cruise.  He babbles and says Dada and out pet's name (Mama - occasionally).  He can feed himself finger foods with a pincer grasp.  He reaches to be picked up and loves to be held. He answers to his name 90% of the time unless he is very focused on something.  He seems to understand "No".
My concerns are - he does not point yet.  He will sometimes follow my point. He will engage us  or check in while he is playing by looking at us and back to the toy he is playing with to see out reaction.  
He does not consistently recognize objects when asked -like when we ask him "where is your ball?" He does not consistently brings us toys.
He flaps his arms when he is excited and grasps one hand in the other occasionally - playing with his hands?
He loves to put toys in his mouth and sometimes uses his mouth to carry toys around when he crawls. - I have never seen another baby do this.

Our pediatrician who is also a developmental pediatrician seems to think he is fine - but he has not had a formal evaluation.  
What do you think?  Hopefully I am just an over-concerned first time Mom.

thank you!  

Answer
Hi,

Your son is way too young to discern autism and one possibly cannot diagnose over the Internet.  However, that being said, your son sounds as if he is completely ON TRACK.

There is absolutely nothing in your post to indicate any type of concern.  Your son responds to his name.  90% is perfect.  Goodness, most typical adults don't respond more than that :-)
He has all the social indicators we look for.  He reaches out to you.  He has social gestures.  He wants to know what you're looking at (yes.. I know it's not all the time but we don't expect that at this age.)  He looks for your reaction etc.

I would not be concerned about pointing.  That often starts around 12 months and for some kids it's even later.  We look for pointing because it's considered "social behavior", but if your child presents enough forms of other social behavior, it wouldn't be considered a concern even if he was late at pointing.  I'm telling you this so that you don't worry if your child isn't pointing by 12 months.  He clearly has LOTS of social awareness.

I really and truly think you have NOTHING to worry about.  The flapping will fizzle out as he grows and matures and he will consistently recognize and point out objects as time goes by.  Relax and enjoy your son.  At 18 months, you can take the M-CHAT which you'll find here.  But my bet is that he'll pass it with flying colors!
http://nlconcepts.com/autism-mchat.htm

I wish you all the best and I hope this has been of some help.

Jene Aviram
http://www.nlconcepts.com