Expert: Celtica - 12/14/2007

Question
Hello. Recently I have become very concerned about my son. He is almost 2 1/2 years old and says about 10 words. He puts words together like "I want", "What's that" but his vocab. is very limited. He does hand flapping quite often when he gets excited and has been doing this since he was about 7 months old. He is a very happy child and loves to be carried and rocked to sleep. He was a late walker (walked at 16 months) and was generally late at almost everything. He's had some language loss only 2 words... he used to say "light" and "star" but doesnt say them anymore. He has good eye contact, and likes to play with kids but he has never been in a daycare so his exposure to other children is very limited. He walks on his toes but he had to see an orthopedist because his left foot turned out a little and turns out he had a tight achilles tendon so I'm not sure if that may be a contributing factor to why he still toe walks. He used to do a weird "game" where he would have like 3 objects (just random things he would find)and he would take them and squeeze them momentarily and then shift them to behind his back and then he would scoot over after placing all the objects behind him and start over. he used to do this ALL the time but rarely does it now. He is quite hyper and likes to be chased around the house. He jumps up and down in his crib over and over again but doesnt jump when he is on the floor. He seems quite clumsy and trips and falls often. He adapts pretty good to change. When we took away his pacifier and limited it to only naps and at night he took to it fine and generally doesnt need a routine. My father has ADD and I am going to be seeing a professional to have myself evaluated because I feel I may have it as well... My question is does it seem like my son may be showing autistic characteristics or does it sound more like ADHD?

Also we have a 2 and a half month old baby so we dont know if maybe he's reacting in jealousy... he was a perfect angel (never gave us problems, was very calm, rarely cried) up until he turned 2... he started with screaming at the top of his lungs and just behaving badly. Pleaase let me know what you think!!!

Answer
Hi Jessica,

as I said in my disclaimer, I am not a doctor, and I cannot diagnose your child with anything. Even if I was a doctor, it is virtually impossible to diagnose such a complex disorder like autism, or even ADHD over the internet, especially when all you know about the child is a few lines of text.

Having said that, some of the things you describe could (but don't need to) be early signs of autism (language loss, toe walking), but then he likes to play with other kids, and makes good eye contact, and doesn't have problems with change which doesn't really sound like he has autistic tendencies. As for ADHD, it's even more difficult to say from what you write. Please go and see a professional if you're worried and get your son evaluated. You should maybe also get his ears checked. Maybe he is hard of hearing and this is why he only has a limited vocabulary.

I'm sorry I cannot help you with this question,
C.