Expert: Celtica - 4/2/2007

Question
my husband and i have been talking back and forth about the
possibility that our 22 month old son Logan has autism.  here is our story: Logan
was a very happy and fairly healthy baby. He smiled lots, cooed at us
said lots of words. He was late walking for the average baby at 14.5
months but it didn't bother us he was happy crawling and we were
encouraging him so we knew it wasn't a big deal. Around 18 months Logan was
doing very well...he was even saying wuv you when he went to bed.  It was
at 18 months that we moved to a new city, i went back to work and Logan
was with his first full time babysitter. I was also 7 months pregnant.
After the birth of our daughter brinlee when Logan was 20 months old we
noticed a decline in his milestones. He stopped talking and used only
about 5 words(dad, out, bath, no and yeah) and was still walking on his
tippy toes although we noticed when he concentrated he would walk flat
footed. He was always jumping (on the bed, on the floor wherever he
could find a safe place to jump it seemed), he would flap his arms when he
was excited, he wouldn't play with the other kids at his daycare and he
always lines his toys up which sent up a big red flag. he loved
listening to music and dancing to it, and he is a very affectionate child. He
will hug and kiss you. He sometimes will and sometimes wont answer to
his name, and people that he sees a lot(myself, my husband, my dad and
our close friends) he will go running to when they come in the door and
grab there hand to show them things. he points although not always with
his pointer finger sometimes it will be his middle or his whole hand.
He will come get you to take you to show you what he wants or if he
wants you to play with him. he will make eye contact with those people but
not with strangers. His daycare teacher thinks he is just shy, but we
are worried. On a side note he had a lot of ear infections as a baby and  
is always flicking his ears. We have an appointment for him to see our
family Dr next week but his secretary said most like he will have to be
referred to a specialist to get testing done.  Could he be autistic or
might it just be a hearing problem? if you need more info please let me
know and i can give you more details.
thanks
Ashley "

Answer
Hi,

I'm not a health care professional so can't give you a diagnosis - please go and see an expert if you're worried (your familiy doctor's secretary is right, though, he needs to see a specialist. A GP is not very likely to be able to give an accurate diagnosis (most of them have never even heard of autism (apart from a little sidenote in one of their textbooks at university maybe), let alone ever *seen* an autistic child or adult - however he may be able to refer you to a specialist. If you're worried about his hearing, you should also get a referral to a ENT doctor to be sure.

Having said that, what you write does indeed sound like autism to me. However, I don't know your son and haven't seen him interact with other people or play so I may be very wrong here - it may also be possible he is "just" hard of hearing, as you suggest yourself (however the lining up, jumping and walking on tippy toes is typical for people with autism).
I'm really sorry I can't do more for you right now. Please go and see a specialist as soon as you can so he can get the right therapies and support (be it for autism or for his ears).
However, if you have more questions (about therapies, learning, or life as an autistic person in general) you're very welcome to ask again. And always remember: even if it turns out he is autistic it *doesn't* mean he'll never be able to live a happy and fulfilled life.

I hope this helps a little,
C.