Hi Pixie & welcome to the board!
You didn't mention when your daughter started walking, but if she
started fairly recently, then it's not such an odd thing for her to be
walking on her tiptoes. It also wouldn't be so strange for her to
be hand flapping at that young age. NT and ASD kids demonstrate
both behaviors, so I wouldn't get too concerned just yet. My son
Luke is 28 mos and didn't start hand flapping til maybe 2 mos ago and
he only walks on his tiptoes very seldomly (and usually when he's just
being silly). You might want to mention your concerns to your
pediatrician at your daughter's 12-mo wellness checkup, just so that
it's been discussed. She is still so young and it's great that
she's sociable with other kids (Luke never was sociable with children
and he only recently started responding to his name on a regular basis).
Keep an eye on her and try not to get too wrapped up in your concerns
yet. You can always initiate an Early Intervention evaluation of
her developmental skills. Even if they think she doesn't need
therapy, once you're in the system it's easier to resume treatment if
it's required down the road. Good luck!
Kellie
Hi, I have been reading a lot of the comments on this site and am really impressed with the feedback. I have been concerned about my daughter for a while now. I know it's difficult to diagnose this early but I keep worrying. She just had her 1st birthday a couple of days ago and although she appears to have reached all of the milestones as listed below, she has other habits that are of concern. She walks around furniture but she's often on her tiptoes and sometimes flatfooted. She flaps her hands when she's excited or upset. My sister has a 6 year old son who is ASD and I have been reading how it is probably genetic. I have two older children 7 and 6 who are fine. She does say "mama" a bit and responds to her name, but doesn't seem to respond quite the way the other two did. She's screams quite a lot, very loudly, but is happy other times.
I guess I'm mainly concerned with the tiptoeing and the hand-flapping. These seem to be sure signs of early ASD. Her language isn't great but it's hard to remember about my other two. She babbles a bit, but I wonder if it's the right sort of babbling. It sounds different to other little babies around. Or am I just being paranoid?
Does anyone have any similar stories? I feel like I'm worried about her all the time in the back of my mind. She's so adorable and I'm also just trying to enjoy her and love her, but I can't help thinking about it everytime she does something that seems to fit the ASD criteria.
Pixie,
HI i'm Karrie. My sister has a friend with 2 children on the spectrum. If I didn't know her and her children I would have never even thought about my child possibly being diagnosed with something like this. When my son was born....at a very early age I suspected that something was wrong but couldn't quite put my finger on what it was. This was even before he was suppose to be babbling or anything really. He seemed to me to meet all milestones etc. But something that happened with him that never did with my other two children was this. I didnt' even realize that I anticipated what he needed without him communicating to me really. At about 10 months he was verbally saying and waving bye bye and hi. He never said ma ma though. He never pointed to objects and I really never caught on to that until later. HE never reached up with his arms for me in the crib. After he was about 15 months old or so I realized that the couple of words that he did have went away. At his 12 month appt I verbalized that I thought something was wrong but I didn't even know how to explain my concerns. The doctor said wait until 18 months and see what happens. At 18 months he seen a different doctor and by this time it was apparent to me that something was wrong with his communication skills and that doctor wouldn't do anything until his 2 year old check up. I didnt' know at the time that early intervention would have seen him anyway regardless of what the doctor said. I knew about early intervention but thought they wouldn't look at him until he was 2. So then he turned 2. A different doctor again and this doctor said something was apparently not right with his language. I got referred to early intervention and they evaluated him and he was language delayed and had sensory integration dysfunction. He started therapy. I voiced my concerns about the possibility of autism to his therapists and they put me in the direction of putting him on a waiting list for vanderbilt university. This list was SOOOO long that we ended up moving out of state before he got a chance to be seen there. (hubby is military) After we got to SC we enrolled him in Early intervention here and got on another waiting list for the autism center. An opening came up in Charleston so we decided to travel 2.5 hours there. By this time he was 3 years and 1 month. He was diagnosed with PDD-NOS. Because of his diagnosis his Early interventionist is still with him and I am told she will stay with him until he turns 6 or 7 i believe. HE is back into speech therapy and OT therapy and is due to start pre-school in an autism class in aug. I feel fortunate...don't get me wrong...that he did finally get diagnosed but frustrated that I KNEW something was wrong early on. Just remember this...if you feel something is not right with your childs development then DON'T give up. Keep taking her in...and make sure they hear you. With my son because he makes pretty good eye contact and is social and has some pretend play....no one would touch on the autism thing until we went to an evaluation center that see's these kids daily. I wish you luck and hopfully you will not have the troubles that I have had getting someone to listen. Take care and keep us posted.
Karrie
Welcome Pixie. I agree it can be too early to tell, but it doesn't hurt to have her evaluated by Early Intervention (the name may vary from state to state).
If you look at the very first thread it has links and info for new members. It has sites that would provide you w/ more detailed info on the spectrum disorders, as well as some characteristics.
I have a HFA dd who is 3 and a speech-delayed ds who is 18mos. Both of my kids walked on tippy-toes when they were new to walking. My dd never really did the hand-flapping until she was 2 yrs, but she doesn't really do it that often. My ds does it sometimes. I do have concerns about him being on the spectrum since he shows some of the red flags...but I am hoping that I am wrong.
Some of the things I remember about my daughter around 12 mos was that she did tippy-toe walk, she never responded to her name, she didn't make a lot of eye contact (if she did, it was for a second because she was interested in something else), she was fixated on certain things (like if we enter a store that has carpet w/ little specs, she would do everything in her power to lay on the floor and try to pick at them...she could do it for half an hour), she would repeat activities over and over and over and over again. Of course, at the time I thought she was normal. Most of this is just me remembering.
I think the biggest was the fact she would not respond to her name and she would get so fixated on an activity that she always seemed to be in her own little world.
Keep in mind everything listed above is just w/ my daughter. The characteristics can vary from child to child, as does, the intensity of the characteristics.
Good luck, I hope you find some answers.
Thanks for the replies!
I've been suggesting to a few people (family and friends) lately that she (sweet little Emma) could be showing autistic tendencies but I am always told she's fine. She's social, likes other children, has pretty good eye contact, is quite shy at times (especially when we all sang her happy birthday two days ago) and mimics certain behaviour and plays peek-a-boo. She also did point at some photos I held up to her earlier today and babble a bit.
But ... after reading on this site and others, lots of ASD children seem to show all of these traits. Plus, the tiptoeing, hand-flapping thing. She also seems to get fixated on toys such as her rubber ducks in the bath. There are other toys in there but she seems to like these the best. She chews them and I wonder if it's her teething a bit. Who knows...
Having two older children and fairly accustomed to the way they develop (even though they are all different by nature) Emma just seems a little different. Plus, with my nephew, I've done quite a bit of research regarding him in the past, I just can't believe I'm doing it now for one of my own children.
The best thing seems to be the earlier you can diagnose it the better. So, I will try to take her to a qualified paediatrician on my next visit, who specialises in this area and see what they have to say. I live in Sydney, Australia. Does anybody have any good contacts out here in the medical field?
Hi Pixie. Welcome to the board. Im not sure how things are done in Australia, but in the States, pediatricians usually refer ASD evals to a developmental pediatrician, Pediatric neurologist, or to an autism center. Here is a link to parents in Australia from the www.unlockingautism.org site's Parent 2 Parent Network . You should be able to contact someone on that list and they should be able to put you in touch with resources in your area.
Regarding milestones,... many ASD kids meet the developmental milestones at or ahead of schedule and later regress. Here is a link to developmental milestones and also some (so to speak) WARNING SIGNS http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/actearly/milestones_3months .html There are other ages listed on the left, so you can find the age approperate to your child.
Also,... here are a few other links to developmental milestones / delays
http://www.keepkidshealthy.com/welcome/conditions/developmen taldelays.html
http://www.eci-lps.org/is_this_typical.html
http://www.todaysparent.com/toddler/behaviordevelopment/arti cle.jsp?content=3237&page=1
http://www.psy.pdx.edu/PsiCafe/Areas/Developmental/PhysDev-C hild/
http://www.health-shed.com/developmental-guidelines.html
Hi Pixie! You wouldn't be a mom If you didn't worry!! We just can't help it! It is possible you will find out she may have an ASD when she is a bit older, but many kids also display what you are describing. I have 2 kids dx on the spectrum......my daughter who isn't dx and is quite NT used to flap her hands when she got excited....only one of our dx boys (our HFA) flaps his hands and not that often.