Baby and Kid News
Spotting Autistic Behaviors
more and more children are being diagnosed, and that this is an epidemic, but it might just be that the testing for autism is better than it's ever been. Whatever the case, parents should be aware of certain autistic behaviors so they can see a doctor if anything seems to be wrong.
It's hard to see autistic behaviors in children under one year old, but there are a few signs that parents can see. Some babies with autism will be under or over stimulated by loud sounds and even colors and textures. When a child jumps at everything, or they don’t respond whenthere is a loud, startling noise, something may be wrong. As long as you know your child does not have hearing problems, this signals something is serious enough to be medically evaluated. Other early signs of autism are a child not responding to their name, or not pointing to things or interacting with their environment.
As children move above one year of age, the autistic behaviors they may exhibit will be more obvious. Some children with autism do what is called stimming. This is the act of repetitive motion or action the child uses to self soothe. These behaviors are very obvious and easy to spot. Other autistic behaviors might include a lack of communication skills, or a regression in language once a child has built a vocabulary. You may also notice that your child is not interacting with other children, and seems to prefer to play by themselves most of the time.
When you spot any autistic behaviors in your child or children, you should have them in to see a doctor as soon as you can. Treatments that are available are much more effective if the condition is caught early on. Your doctor will have a series of tests that your child will undergo. Remember that autism is a rather hard condition to diagnose, and is often what is found once everything else is ruled out. Some children will display just one of the autistic behaviors, and some will have many of them. If you see one, look up information on the rest of them to see if you notice some of the same issues.
There has been a lot of news lately about autism. This is a condition that is very widely misunderstood. Some people mistake it as mental retardation, but they are not the same thing. There are some cases where children have both, but most autistics are actually very bright and score high on intelligence tests. They say that
