Expert: Paul Johnson - 9/18/2011

Question
I was wondering if you could help me with this question.

I have a two-year-old son. Even though was born 2 months early and is still late in his speech, we are happy with his development. Our doctor also said he is pleased and there is no problem so far.

However, for the last few days, we observe this problem. Sometimes he slapped his face one or two times without any clear reason. For example, this evening it went like this. He was playing lovingly with me on the bed. Then his grandmother came into the room, recounting the fact that during the morning when I went to work, my son liked to play with a ring. Suddenly he screamed and slapped his face two times. When I told him to stop, he cried. Something like that has happened over the last few days. We could have understood if he hit US. But we are confused why he suddenly hit himself like that even though at that moment, everyone was happy with him.

I read that self-harm tendency is also one of the signs of autism. But there is no other signs to say that my son is suffering from this issue. So we are very confused.

Thank you very much.

Answer
Hey Kevin

Thank you for your challenging and intelligent question.

As you know one behavior does not make for a diagnosis of any type.
Making an Autism diagnosis is challenging and doing such at the age of 2 year old is even more so. It is impossible to know from your question what is the etiology of this behavior.

What you have described is self stimulation. It is common among individuals on the ASD. I am fairly sure this is an act of self stimulation. I would advise you to keep a log of what may be causing it. Science is based upon strong observation. We call this an ABC chart in Psychology.
The A stands for Antecedent, the B stands for Behavior and the C stands for Consequence.
Thus observe what occurred right before the slap, obviously the behavior is the slap and also be sure to rescord what occurred right after the slap.

What I am interested in knowing is if he is seeking a reaction for this behavior, the more he appears to anticipate a reaction from you for his slap the less Autistic the behavior appears to be.

Good luck