What is wrong with my child?

[dark angel]

I'm very worried about my son. I'm concerned if he could be autistic. My main concern is that he is not speaking a word yet though seems to be babbling monosyllables and shouting a lot. I'm listing out his behaviors. Please let know what you think is wrong with him. Thanks so much..

1. He is going to be 2 years this August. But he does not speak a word yet
2. Howmuchever I repeat a word, he does not repeat it back. He does not say mama or papa
3. A few days I kept saying auto over and over again to him. Now he only says ado, ado for everything. For anything its ado.Whatever he wants is also ado
4. When we call his name, most of the time he does not look, Sometimes he does, but not everytime
5. He lines up items, but at times he also builds building blocks, puts objects through appropriate slots(though not all the time)
6. He does not follow instructions. When we ask him to bring something, it appears like he is deaf. But when some song is turned on in the tv, he rushes towards it and watches it with great interest.
7. He imitates us for some new activities if he is interested. For instance, today I was trying to apply lip balm which he has not seen me do before. He grabbed that lip balm and was trying to apply it for me.
8. He likes people and gets very excited when visitors come home. He likes youngsters and older children more. He also plays with us peek a boo, ring a roses and likes climbing on us. But he does not show tata or bye much.
9. He does not like books. He does not play much even with touch and feel books. I had bought for him the "is that your puppy" book. He felt the first puppy with the hairy coat and he was not interested in the rest of the pages. He just tossed the book away
10. He keeps throwing things upwards and shouting at the same time. This seems to be his favorite activity. If the thing he throws hits the fan, he gets very happy as if he has won something
11. He bites whenever he is hungry or gets irritable. Sometimes he shoves us to the kitchen. Thats about it. But he does not point much at anything. He sometimes drags our hand. thats all.
12. When we sing songs or rhymes, he becomes very interested and looks. If we try to speak to him he does not pay much attention

Please let know what you think of these behaviors. Are these autism spectrum disorder behavior or any hearing processing related problems. We had done the BERA test for him and it was ok.

[sumachechi]

All children do not necessarily speak before the age of 2. It appears you have some concerns regarding autism. The best thing would be to take him to a centre locally where he is observed and seen by a Child development Paediatrician. There are centres in most metros in India.
All the features you have listed could be just part of being the age that he is, all the same since you have concerns getting him shown at the right place is a good idea.

[DeccanGuy]

OP,

My daughter just turned 3 and shows similar symptoms. Since she turned 2, she was put under early intervention program (Speech and Occupational Therapy) and we were told that she has the autism spectrum delays. We were told there is no way to test medically for this condition. She still doesn't speak, except for babbling. She does not play with her sister (who is an year older, 4, and normal) or with anyone else for that matter. She just like to play/listen to music on TV, toys or cell phone. If she wants a snack (cookie), she drags us to the kitchen and that's all the communication we get out of her. She still walks or run around the house on her toes.

We are very concerned about her and would do anything to get her treated. Hope other members or medical professionals (Sumeet and Suma) on this forum can provide their feedback/suggestions. I just wish there is a way to test and treat this condition medically.

Added later:
I saw Suma's post after my reply. Suma, our child pediatrician is of no help in our case. She has been relying mostly on the therapy sessions. Do we need to go to any pediatric neurologist? Is there any way to test autism and medical treatment?

[avasanth]

OP, my elder daughter was also very slow to start speaking. Lot of the behaviour of your son could be due to loneliness, i assume he is your first child. My daughter picked up things really fast after she started going to playgroup at about 2.5.

I would generally not recommend sending your kid to the playgroup until 2.5 atleast. But since you are worried, no harm in trying a good playgroup for a couple of hours a day. Kids learn the fastest by observing other kids of their age. Will also beat the loneliness at home.

I am no expert on kids, just a layman's view.

[vsudhu]

Intensive ABA (Applied Behaviour Analysis) seems to be providing good results for children in this age group with ASD . But it requires lot of commitment , patience and time from the family . I think the stress is on therapy for around 25-40 hours a week. Also it is a big stress for the child to begin with, till they warm up to the therapist and get interested in the activities that encourage appropriate behaviour.

[sumachechi]

There are no medicines to treat autism. Treatment is through behavioural programmes as detailed above coordinated by developmental paed/child psychologist/Speech & Language Therapist. The earlier input is provided ,the better. Time persistence and patience are the important requirements.
DeccanGuy
Many medical paediatricians do not see autism/ADHD etc in standard practice. A developmental paediatrician /community paediatrician(in the UK) is the one.

[willynilly]

@ Deccanguy, i've heard about heavy metal detoxing/cleansing helping to control the disorder in children with autism and autism spectrum disorders, you can look into it more.
Here's a link to some information on the same :
http://ezinearticles.com/?Heavy-Metal-Detox-For-Your-Autistic-Child&id=439451

OP
If your child likes people and other children, and also plays with other people, there may be chance that it's not autism related. It's difficult not worrying when your child is not meeting certain milestones, but talking is such a wierd milestone, it's different for each kid, usually boys talk later than girls. I know of some kids who've talked late, and were absolutely fine. Hopefully he'll be caught up in sometime. All the best to you.
There's a book that was reccomended to my friend bye her son's speech therapist for his speech delay, which helped immensely in getting her son to talk , it's a little difficult to get, but is a very good book.
It's called "It takes two to talk" by Ayala Manolson.
Hope it helps.

[Grace]

I think your child is perfectly normal. We have been through exactly the same situation for our first child. One of the reasons was that we were so overwhelmed that we couldn't handle things properly. Unfortunately that was also a time when other changes were going in our lives. We read a lot and were once in a serious doubt that it could be a case of mild autism. But ever since we changed his child care, things became better, he picked up really fast.He started communicating, responding to his name, started following a routine etc. and we were happy and relieved. Be loving to your child but don't spoil him with over doing your attention. Try setting up a routine for him and make sure it's followed. Good Luck.

[apanati]

Nothing wrong. My daughter was exactly like this when she was 2 years old. Except amma , she did not say a single word.
Now she is 4 years and talking well . We tried following things.
1. We gave her speech therapy and occupational therapy. As far as I know they did not do much, but I wanted to try every thing. So we had some one come weekly once.
2. Being a work mom , I did not spend much time in talking. So i realised my mistake and started spending more time talking to her. When i was home, I completely stopped keeping TV. I used to show her pictures and items , appliances etc at home and started telling the names. I read books. But mostly single word /picture in each page.

3. I used to read this word/animal/number books even though she was not paying attention. When I was reading loud, she used to play with some blocks around the corner. But I noticed that after few days even though she was playing with the toys, she was listening to it and started trying to say the word.
4. Talk, talk and talk. Always tried to say single word lound and clear. Slowly she picked up.
5. She started going to montessori school. That helped her alot. From kids and teachers she learnt colors, shapes, phonic sounds etc.

If you have any more questions you can PM me.

[rajaR2I]

I'm very worried about my son. I'm concerned if he could be autistic. My main concern is that he is not speaking a word yet though seems to be babbling monosyllables and shouting a lot. I'm listing out his behaviors. Please let know what you think is wrong with him. Thanks so much..

1. He is going to be 2 years this August. But he does not speak a word yet
2. Howmuchever I repeat a word, he does not repeat it back. He does not say mama or papa
3. A few days I kept saying auto over and over again to him. Now he only says ado, ado for everything. For anything its ado.Whatever he wants is also ado
4. When we call his name, most of the time he does not look, Sometimes he does, but not everytime
5. He lines up items, but at times he also builds building blocks, puts objects through appropriate slots(though not all the time)
6. He does not follow instructions. When we ask him to bring something, it appears like he is deaf. But when some song is turned on in the tv, he rushes towards it and watches it with great interest.
7. He imitates us for some new activities if he is interested. For instance, today I was trying to apply lip balm which he has not seen me do before. He grabbed that lip balm and was trying to apply it for me.
8. He likes people and gets very excited when visitors come home. He likes youngsters and older children more. He also plays with us peek a boo, ring a roses and likes climbing on us. But he does not show tata or bye much.
9. He does not like books. He does not play much even with touch and feel books. I had bought for him the "is that your puppy" book. He felt the first puppy with the hairy coat and he was not interested in the rest of the pages. He just tossed the book away
10. He keeps throwing things upwards and shouting at the same time. This seems to be his favorite activity. If the thing he throws hits the fan, he gets very happy as if he has won something
11. He bites whenever he is hungry or gets irritable. Sometimes he shoves us to the kitchen. Thats about it. But he does not point much at anything. He sometimes drags our hand. thats all.
12. When we sing songs or rhymes, he becomes very interested and looks. If we try to speak to him he does not pay much attention

Please let know what you think of these behaviors. Are these autism spectrum disorder behavior or any hearing processing related problems. We had done the BERA test for him and it was ok.

My daugher didnot speak well except appa, amma and NO until she is 2.5 years old. When we made first visit to india after her birth, guess what she started speaking really well in 3 days there and now she is 7 and she never stop talking. From what you said above is most common in lots of families in US. He is feeling lonely himself. I think he is lonely. Thats why he is so excited when someone comes home.

Also please apologize me if I am wrong. Kids are very good in observing our surrounding. Item 4,6 and 10 seems like you guys having lots of arguments at home when he is around and not talking or listening each other very well. This will definitely affect any kids. Once again sorry if I made wrong assumption here. Other than this you son looks perfectly normal in autism stand point.