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Early Signs of Autism in Babies and What To Do

Dr. Mary Barbera

So often we hear something along the lines of early intervention is best practice. This is true, but even still, young children are not usually sent for further assessments until closer to two or three. The good news is, if you’re worried about early signs of autism in babies, there are steps you can take to assess and to work with your baby right now to start turning things around.
I was in denial when my firstborn son Lucas started showing signs of autism after his first birthday. He didn’t want to say cheese to the camera anymore and stopped doing the little sing songy games we had taught him. Lucas stopped waving to people and became very picky with food and his sleep became a problem too. The first few words that he had popped out here and there, but I had no idea how to get him talking and learning. I didn’t have any idea how to teach him to point and how to teach him how to play.

Early Signs of Autism in Babies

My husband, who’s a physician, brought up the possibility of autism when Lucas was just 21 months old. At that point I told him, I didn’t want to hear those words ever again. Before he brought up the word autism, though, I didn’t notice any of the early warning signs. But now, looking back, I know they were all there. So I want to tell you a few things you can do if you’re concerned about early signs of autism in babies or if you have another child with autism and you have a baby that is at high risk. If you have one child with autism, 20% of the time, the second child will also have autism.
We’ve learned a lot about autism in babies and the early signs of autism by studying the siblings. If you have a baby or if you’re pregnant and you want to get involved with the sibling study and you live fairly close to a teaching children’s hospital, you can contact them and see if they have a sibling study going on.

What You Can Do

There are a lot of things you can do when you’re worried about autism symptoms in babies. First of all, I would check out the CDC milestones and keep a close eye on your child’s development. Remember, though, that there is a wide range. Some kids are premature when they’re born. Some kids have other issues that complicate things, like medical problems or so forth. But keep a close eye on milestones.
Whether a child is four, nine, 18 or 30 months old, keep track of those milestones so that you can see if the child is just generally delayed or very behind in some of the categories.

You don’t want to just look at talking, either. You want to look at the use of language, such as gestures or lack of pointing, and nonverbal cues. There is an M-CHAT screening tool that you can download and print for free to test for early signs of autism. The M-CHAT is a list of 23 questions where you can check off if your child points and responds to their name and other milestones. Pointing is a really important milestone and should emerge between 12 and 18 months of age.

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Early Intervention for First Signs of Autism in Babies

If you do see some gaps with what the milestones are and where your baby is at, you should contact your early intervention provider. You can also contact your physician, your child’s pediatrician, or a family practice physician and you can talk to them about what you’re seeing and your concern and ask for an early intervention assessment.
Taking a wait and see attitude is never a good idea. Intervention cannot hurt if you’re doing a child-friendly approach like I have developed. You want to promote social language by pairing yourself with all good things, playing things like peek-a-boo and animated songs and games that your baby and young child might enjoy.
You can also consider taking my online toddler course for parents and early intervention professionals. It’s for ages one to four or five. If you have a child with any delays and are motivated to learn step by step what to do, that is the best way I can help you.
Some members of my toddler program are even reporting turning autism around and preventing the diagnosis. They get off of waitlists because their child is caught up. It’s not the case for everyone, but I have learned a ton about how you can teach necessary skills.

Get Help

The best way to get started today is to take my free two-minute quiz and consider joining us in our online course and community at marybarbera.com/quiz. It could very well change your life.

In summary, we want to closely track early signs of autism in babies using tools like the CDC milestones and the M-CHAT. And although many people may say not to worry, the baby’s so young, every child develops at their own rate, it’s important not to ignore delays and to take action if you see any kind of social communication delays. Odd behavior such as lining things up and insistence on the same routine over and over again can all be signs of autism and there’s a lot you can do to turn things around. Don’t forget, take my two-minute quiz at marybarbera.com/quiz.

Free Workshop to Learn to Turn Autism (or Signs of Autism) Around

Want to start making a difference for your child or clients?
Sign-Up For Free Training