How come some people with autism do not show signs of autism when they are babies?

Answer 1

No idea. I wasn't diagnosed with autism until I was 9. I'm 12, now. Because it's not something you can tell until they are growing up and beginning to communicate with people. Babies don't talk or show many emotions. There's 2 types of Autism - one where the child is born autistic and the other is late onset autism. Early onset (infantile) autism is usually not diagnosed until age 2 or 3, but a few symptoms can be observed at age 1. Late onset autism usually does not show symptoms until after age 3. (Distinguishing between these two types of autism is more an issue of when the child was diagnosed, rather than when autism occurred.)

The diagnostic criteria includes impaired social functioning and delayed language development, which are easier to detect between ages 1 1/2 and 3 than as a baby. Some researchers are investigating ways to diagnose autism at age 1 or earlier. One of these methods involves analyzing the child's eye contact.

I am a mother of a 4 year old who is diagnosed with mild autism. Hannah was a normal and happy baby. She hit every major milestone except speech. When she was about 18 months old I noticed that she only spoke 5 "true words" and the rest was babble. I took her to an ears, nose and throat doctor to get her hearing checked since she did have reoccurring ear infections for the 1st year of her life. The doctor did a hearing test and to my surprise it came back normal. The ENT doctor referred us to a speech language pathologist who did an assessment on her. The SLP said that her mental level was that of a 10 month old and her speech was that of a 9 month old. She diagnosed Hannah as having Symbolic Dysfunction Disorder. Hannah continued Speech therapy but I wanted to know why Hannah had this so I took her to see a pediatric neurologist who did a complete workup including an EEG and he diagnosed her with being Mildly Autistic. Today Hannah attends Special-Education Pre-School at the recommendation of her neurologist and also attends speech and occupational therapy. Actually, some babies avoid eye contacts, that is an early sign of autism. Autism cannot be diagnosed before two years old when the symptoms are not clear.

A child might have a condition in addition to autism, such as ADHD. The ADHD symptoms could be so significant that the autism symptoms seem minor or are ones that can be explained by having ADHD. In this case, the person might not have seemed to have symptoms of autism as a baby, although he or she did.

A child might have mild symptoms of autism. This child might be described as a difficult or sensitive baby, but it might not seem that the child has the symptoms conventionally associated with autism. Again, it might seem as if the child did not have symptoms as a baby.

A child with autism might not be in situations that trigger the symptoms of autism until he or she enters school - or is exposed to other unfamiliar people and places. The symptoms of autism might never happen at home with family. In this case, the child might not have shown any distinguishing symptoms of autism as a baby.

In one case that was described to me, the child was the parents' first child, so the parents did not realize the behaviors exhibited by the child were atypical, so they never mentioned them to the pediatrician. The pediatrician did not ask questions specific enough to realize there might be a problem. The child seemed slow to develop in some ways, but faster in some, and the parents thought it was all within the range of expected development, so it was not until the child was older that they realized something was wrong.

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