How To Spot Autism Symptoms In Your Infant And/Or Young Child And How To Treat Them
Posted on: 15 October 2014
Determining whether or not your infant or child has autism can be a difficult task. However, there are certain behaviors that you can look for to indicate that they may suffer from this disorder. While these are just symptoms, and not actually a diagnosis, they are still helpful to get you on the right track for a diagnosis. This article will talk about how you can spot certain symptoms of autism spectrum disorders, and how you can proceed with treatment if your child is diagnosed with autism.
Infant
While it can often be hard to spot signs of autism in your infant, there are some signs that may help you. Your infant will likely avoid eye contact with you, and will instead focus on inordinate objects. Your baby may also not respond to facial cues such a smiling, laughing, etc, and will not mimic any of these expressions. They may be late in achieving certain milestones or they may miss them entirely, such as babbling, speaking, laughing, etc. You may also realize that your baby does not find joy in being cuddled or held, but instead prefers solitude.
Child
As your baby gets older and grows into a toddler, you will see more apparent signs that may indicate autism. They may fail to respond to their own name, or even speech in general. They may also have a hard time carrying on a conversation with you, either because they don't know words to communicate with you or because they lack interest. You may notice that your child prefers solitude, and has no interest in interacting with their siblings or peers. Your child may also begin to forget words they once new, and lose social skills they once had, so it is important to watch for this as well.
Treatment
If you notice any of these symptoms in your infant or child, it is a good idea to take them into your pediatrician for further examination. Your pediatrician will determine if they see signs of the disorder or not, and from there they can visit a specialist, such as someone from Specialty Clinic Of Kenai, who will be able to determine whether or not they are on the spectrum. If your child is in fact on the spectrum, it can be a good idea to take them into a speech language pathologist. The SLP will be able to help them not only improve their speech usual visual tools and speech improvement techniques, but they will also help them to better interact with others using appropriate words, tone, facial expressions, etc.
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