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Joe90
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28 Dec 2015, 4:42 pm

As in 5 to 24 months of age.

I've seen lots of photos and a few videos of me as a baby and my mum has a lot of memories too of me as a baby, and apparently I was like any other typically developing baby. I was interested in toys, made normal eye contact, smiled and laughed a lot, loved to be played with (like being bounced on somebody's knee), pointed to things, and engaged in play with other babies, children or adults.

I have watched me as a baby of about 10 months old in a video, and I was sitting on my dad's knee at this rather noisy, busy place (wasn't quite sure where it was). Then my dad's mate came and sat next to him, who also had a baby around my age on his knee, and as he sat down I seemed interested in his baby, making eye contact with the baby, although the baby didn't seem interested in making eye contact with me, so I must have picked up on that this baby wasn't interested in me because he wasn't looking at me, so I looked up at his dad, and he gave me a goofy face, which made me smile with joy. So I was drawn to other people's faces and movements as a 10-month-old baby.

I studied that video carefully and really took notice of my behaviour, and the other videos we have of me as a baby too, and in all of them I seemed like a typical baby. And in photos I was often smiling, with a face full of expression. I would send a few pictures of me as a baby and you wouldn't think I was a baby that's supposed to be on the spectrum.

Was anybody else here a typical baby, developed typically, displayed no peculiar abnormal behaviour that made your parents and health visitor concerned? Are Asperger's traits subtle enough to just be disguised as typical infant traits to begin with?


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Kyle Katarn
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28 Dec 2015, 4:43 pm

Yes, I was also sociable until I was ~10.



Starfoxx
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28 Dec 2015, 4:47 pm

I was for a short while and then stopped being sociable, stopped looking at people, stopped babbling or paying attention to people much.



Caz72
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28 Dec 2015, 4:50 pm

I was unusually quiet as a baby, though still not enough to be thought of as anything wrong with me, my parents just put it down to personality. I dont have many pictures or videos of me as a baby (as it was the late 60s when I was a baby) and I was never told how about how I was as a baby so I dont really know.

As a toddler and a child I was exceptionally different from my peers, due to autism, but I didnt display many typical autism traits. I had low IQ, I made eye contact, smiled at people a lot, never had any tantrums or meltdowns EVER, the only time I cried was when I hurt myself, but I was completely nonverbal right up til I was about 8-9. In some ways I was a ''very, very easy child'', although it was still hard for others, including my mum, to understand me because of being nonverbal.



kraftiekortie
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28 Dec 2015, 4:57 pm

I don't really know. I've seen baby pictures--but there's no video of me (it was the early 60s when I was a baby). I look like I'm kind of staring into space in those pictures.



Eloa
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28 Dec 2015, 5:01 pm

No, my parents realized from my age 10 days on that I was different than other babies, they wrote in my baby photobook when I was age 10 days: [pretending I said it] "Yes, I am here and now leave me alone".
I was extremely aloof as a baby from the beginning.


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captain mills
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28 Dec 2015, 5:03 pm

In a lot of ways, yes. But I didn't really like being touched and cuddled much apart from when I was really tiny, and was never particularly interested in playing with other kids once I got to about 3, but I was extremely expressive and pointed at things, etc.


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Joe90
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28 Dec 2015, 5:13 pm

My mum said that when I was 3 I helped my brother and 2 of his friends build a snowman one day. My brother and one of his friends was three years older than me, and his other friend was 2 years older than me, and I didn't know them that well but I participated in ''teamwork'' rather naturally. I was the youngest as well, but without having to be encouraged to engage in social activities with the other children or to have any difficulties, I was just like any other normal 3-year-old.

Obviously I was a little bit slower than the others because I was the youngest, still a toddler and not even started school yet, so two 6-year-olds and a 5-year-old will naturally have more social skills and co-ordination skills than a 3-year-old, but I was still participating typically like any 3-year-old would. But when I was 3 nobody noticed my Asperger's. It was only when I started school was when I exhibited behaviour that caught the attention of my parents and teachers.


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ZombieBrideXD
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28 Dec 2015, 10:31 pm

i enjoyed people as a baby; always very happy. However i did NOT initiate play or socialize willingly. I did not make eye contact and was generally very independent and happy being solitary. But i liked people, i liked playing with my cousins when they came over to play but when i was alone i was content to be so, and didn't seek people out.


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Marybird
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28 Dec 2015, 11:51 pm

My mom said I didn't smile when I was a baby. That's all I know. when I was I preschooler I played with my brother. The kids on the block used to play house on my front porch. They always made me be the baby and I would sit there and suck my thumb while they played.
I was always content to play by myself but my parents didn't like that, especially if I was laying around doing nothing. They used to come and drag me out of my room. I loved my parents but I didn't let my mother hug me because she was too overwhelming and her eyes were scary.



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28 Dec 2015, 11:58 pm

I never had any siblings, so I didn't have many opportunities to be sociable. I was a very atypical baby, though. I don't know about the eye contact, but I was really quiet, and I spent all day sitting on the floor doing puzzles. My mom knew I was different, but since she never had any other kids, she didn't realize just how different. I've watched some videos of myself as a baby and toddler, and yeah, I was a really weird kid.



blessedbethyname
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29 Dec 2015, 12:55 am

I was aloof as a baby. I never smiled to others and did not talk for a long time. I always had a glum look on my face my mother said. My mother realized I liked music though and encouraged me do play the violin when I was four years old. I was considered talented, but felt unhappy in music. I never was able to relate to other musicians and finally quit after 20 years. I still like to listen to music and still cannot relate to others. I believe this is not surprising given the fact I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder later in life. I have always been in my own world since I was a baby.



League_Girl
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29 Dec 2015, 1:58 am

I was. I may have been sociable with adults but I had a hard time socializing with other kids my age so I did parallel play but yet had no problem doing it with adults and plus I would wrestle with another kid my age who was a friend of my dad's because it was his friend's son and we were a month apart. I have seen in videos of me laughing and running from my father and trying to tease him and I have seen my mom and I playing together. I seemed like a normal toddler to me. The only thing was I was language delayed and when my mother told me to jump and hitting the cushion, I got up and started jumping up and down because I didn't understand my mom's hand gesture and I didn't know I was supposed to jump to the spot she was hitting her hand at. I never knew if that was normal two year old behavior or me just being an aspie there because I took her literal and didn't understand her hand gesture. But I understood what "give me a five" meant.

But I did walk late at fifteen months according to my medical record. I thought I was 14 my mom said but she probably doesn't remember when I started walking. I also made eye contact off and on I read and because I could socialize with adults and do eye contact once they got me engaged in a activity, I was not autistic because my behavior was not consistent with the diagnoses. Also because I roared like a lion and apparently that made me not autistic. Also I read I didn't tolerate touch but yet I liked being touched by my parents. I also liked to be held. I had my tantrums and terrible twos. I had my OCD behavior like food needing got be a certain way and be served in the same order, I had ritualistic behaviors and I also had to take a certain step in each room and I wrung my wrists and I also got overwhelmed in noisy areas but just as long as I was engaged and having fun, the noise all of a sudden didn't bother me so there was only one place they could bring me to that had the fake ship for kids to play on in the play area because everywhere else they always had to leave because I would get too overwhelmed but yet when it came to something I wanted, they had no problem. The noise was all of a sudden not an issue for me. I also took stuff apart. I did have autistic behavior according to my medical reports. That was how I was described then. I had autistic behavior but was not autistic so autistic behavior it was and it was only one doctor who thought I was. If AS was known then, that might have been the diagnoses then if I were born ten years later but then it might have been PDD-NOS since back then they didn't seem to diagnose AS at a young age. Now it seems like they do diagnose it as a young age and now it's ASD.

So even at a young age my problems were noticed but no one really knew what was wrong with me except that I had a language delay and had a history of hearing loss. So growing up everything was blamed on my language delay, I preferred younger kids because of my language delay so they were at my level where my delay wouldn't be noticed by them or how I didn't know how to engage and play with other kids because I couldn't talk, and so on. But my mom knew then I was different but she didn't know what was wrong with me and she knew I had something than just a language delay so she didn't know what. I was also described as being quiet by my parents and I babbled until around nine months of age and then my development started to decline because I was deaf so I talked less and less and then stopped completely one day. Then when I was two and could hear again, I would turn my head and look around when my parents would speak to me so they had to hold my favorite toy to their face so I could see their lips moving. They never grabbed my face and forced me to look at them, they held a favorite toy to their face so I would do eye contact. But my mom said I did eye contact as a infant and was very sociable. Apparently I lost that skill and then it was only off and on for eye contact. Maybe that is what it means that my AS comes and goes. I also seemed to have lost the skill for crocodile tears. But my mom says I grew out of tantrums at age three. But I was pretty quiet as a one year old from the videos and didn't seem to engage but at age two i was engaging with my parents and I saw myself play with my baby sitter from across the street with my red wagon I had. I was just following her around up and down the sidewalk while she was pulling it and I had on long pants and a long sleeve shirt and it looked hot out and there I was wearing that thing and it was June. I wondered as a 12 year old if I was hot in that outfit. But I did always assume aspies appeared normal at a young age until elementary school or preschool and I found out I had socialization issues at a young age just by reading my medical records about myself. My mom said I just didn't know how to do it but yet it appeared I had no troubles with it with adults such as doctors for example when they would play with me. Maybe that is what it means for Asperger's to come and go which was probably another reason why I was so hard to diagnose. It would appear in some areas but not in other areas like eye contact for example or socialization depending on the environment. I also liked music so my parents would sing to me when they wanted me to do something like brushing my teeth so they would sing it in a tune like instead of "Mary had a little lamb" it was "Time to go brush your teeth."

But I had different labels for what I had wrong with me until 6th grade when it was finally Asperger's and anxiety disorder and OCD and depression and plus hormonal imbalance.


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Yigeren
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29 Dec 2015, 2:25 am

As far as I know, I was a happy, bright, sociable baby. I did have sleeping and sensory issues.

Based on videos I have from about age 3, I was sociable with adults in small groups (like my parents and grandmother). I was very happy and loved to laugh. I was very advanced verbally as well. I did socialize with children in small groups but didn't seem to play cooperatively.

I enjoyed playing by myself a lot, and with adults mostly, from what I've seen. My eye contact wasn't great, even with my parents, but I think it was because of auditory processing issues.

With larger groups of adults and/or children I completely shut down. I would isolate myself, stare at the ground, and wring my hands. I would stand far away from others and did not seem to want to be touched, held, or hugged. In every situation with large or medium groups of people I behaved in this manner.

What I saw didn't seem normal to me, based on children I have seen, but I haven't yet been diagnosed. Asperger's didn't exist as a diagnosis back then and I definitely did not/do not have classic autism.



Brittniejoy1983
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29 Dec 2015, 12:25 pm

I was sociable in general. But also inappropriately so. I was a late walker, early talker/reader. I was speaking clear sentences by 18 months old. Holding conversations at 2 years old. But with adults. I remember (if I really think about it), having issues really connecting with other kids around my age. I was considered charming, but presumptuous, to adults and people older than I (my cousin two years older than me loved showing off her 'smart, little cuz').
This was exacerbated as I became older and social interaction became harder than just a well said, advanced phrase. My symptoms haven't really become WORSE with maturity, just have stood out more. Whereas when I was a child, I was an 'old soul', old for my age, mature, and well read, now I am immature, young for my years, and 'refuse to grow up'. My behavior hasn't changed, my position within society has.


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wronngbong
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01 Jan 2016, 5:49 am

no