My friend asked me something about pointing and autism that I did not have a clue about. Her daughter is 17 months old and seems a bit quirky, but autism never crossed my mind when it comes to her. She has a very good eye contact, she is social ( not too much ). lots of words, seems to be very aware, but she is pointing with her whole hand when something is a bit far, she will point with index finger in books, and use whole hand for everything else?
We never have had issues with ds and his index pointing, but is there a big difference or is there a clinical sign of pointing with whole hand vs index finger?
Sorry I don't know if that is a sign of anything. I can tell you my experince with my ds though, as he had issues with the pointing concept for awhile. He didn't start to point till he was almost 3, and even now, I have to remind him to point to something with his finger, when he is not getting the words out.
He would "grab" for things. He wouldn't really use it as a communication tactic though. He would try to stretch his hand out to grab at somethign when he hit around 18 months, even if he couldn't reach it, then would follow up with a scream and meltdown. When I would ask him to show me what he wanted, he didn't understand. He also wouldn't follow your finger to what you were pointing at most of the time. Instead he would just look at your finger, and wouldn't make the connection.
At that point, he would not use his finger to point at anything, not even pictures in books. He would only grab. Despite trying to teach him the pointing concept almost daily. (I was deprate for any communication from him then). Even now that he is 3 1/2, when I am reading him stories from a book, and I say "show me the letter A" (he knows all his letters), he will look at it, but forget to use his finger. The minute I remind him though, saying "use your finger to show me" he will do it, lol.
So glad we are past that now!! It is so hard when there is absolutly no communication going on, and them being upset by not being able to communicate.
Good luck to your friend! I would advise her to bring it up with her dd's Ped.
I myself wouldn't worry about the whole hand versus finger point as long as the child was otherwise doing age-appropriate pointing. Here's a summary of the info I've read on pointing (ignore the yellow highlighting):
The pointing gesture is one that evolves -- it gets used for various purposes, first for getting needs/wants met and then for drawing attention to objects of interest (like an airplane). It starts out used alone, then is combined with words.
It should also be combined with eye contact fairly early -- looking to see that mommy and daddy are paying attention. At two years old, kids will start to limit pointing to something they think the adult has not noticed yet.
Here are the relevant milestones from First Signs:
Does your baby:
At 12 Months:
At 15 Months:
At 18 Months:
http://www.firstsigns.org/healthydev/milestones.htm
hi
many NT children point with the hand
what pointing means with autism is that there is no follow up to the finger pointing
a child with ASD does not understand that pointing means we want them to look at something
if she is pointing at words and other things then i cannot see a problem
the main problems with autism is the triad of impairments
marked imapirments of
social communication
social interaction
and imagination
if deficits are found in these three areas then advise should be looked at
if there are no problems from the triad then i would suggest still get advice but i can not see a problem from the message above
Before 18 months, signs of autism can be present. Here are some red flags: The child
shell