early diagnosis autism

A research group here at the university work hard to create a test to diagnose autism and autism spectrum disorder as early as possible.

Accounts of parents has made scientists aware that there is no need to wait untill a child is older than a certain age in order to get a proper diagnosis.

When my son was about 12 they aid that was the perfect age to diagnose.
During the next yeras the age lowered and now toddlers and even babies can be diagnosed.

In the USA pediatricians want a double screening at age 2.

But even before that age there are very clear signs:

Not wanting to look the parbnt in the eyes
no babbling
not reaching for toys
not listening to the name
not smiling at 4 months when the baby hears the voice of mom or dad

or loosing already gaines skills, like talking.

Ofcourse children can display strange behaviour at any time during development.
So one always needs to be careful to ascribe individual symptoms to autism.

My autistic boy got no official diagnosis when he was little.
When I said I had the feeling he was creating a distance between us people told me that maybe he didn't like the smell of my clothes, so I should get other detergent and laundry softener.

But I was lucky to have studied autism long before it got into the dictionary of the regular home physician and Pedriatric doc.

From early on I taught my son to look at me, and to look me in the eyes.
Just like parents of deaf children focus the attention on the mouth to enable a child to learn lipreading, I pointed to my eyes and his, to make the connection clear.

When he uttered noises to get something to drink, I told him the word, and gave nothing.
It was hard to do, but I felt it was the only way to get him out of his coccoon.

It made clear to me that with thourough training, conditioning if you like, an autistic child can learn socially acceptable behaviour.

But I've never been able to stop him completely from having meltdowns.
I can prevent most of them, or stop them right at the beginning.

My experience makes clear that autistic children can be trained to display certain behaviour.
The younger a child is, the less it will resist this training.

So the call to have children screened at a very early age is mine too.