I am anxious, what do you think about my sons' symptoms?

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My son has a few signs of Autism and is he will be evaluated by experts in the next few weeks. He had screening M-CHART-R score of 4.

What do you think of these characteristics/symptoms?

He has some concerning signs:
1) Not afraid of strangers - when he was little he shows normal reaction to strangers and was very shy. All of a sudden, we noticed that he is not afraid of strangers. We have relatives visiting, who he hasn't seen before, and he interacts with them normally showing no fear or caution.
2) When he does something that puts himself in danger, I told him to stop it. Even though I am mad, he thinks that it is funny. I have to be extremely mad before he gets it.
3) Hand flapping and spinning when excited - usually only around 5 to 10 seconds, never more than 20 seconds.
4) Walking on toes or heels sometimes - usually for 5 to 10 seconds
5) Extremely active, he can't never sit still
6) Lines up toys but he only does it one time and then plays normally
7) Has only 18 words at 25 month old. No 2 word sentences.
8 ) Only responding to name 50% to 60% of the times. It is worse when he is doing something.

He has some good signs:
1) Love to play with people, including his 6 year-old sister
2) He points to interesting objects like birds, airplane, moving cars, cats and dogs and look at us as if to share
3) He points to things that he wants
4) He looks for approval, he plays his piano toy and look at us to see if we are paying attention and he loves it when we clap our hands. He makes crayon scribbles on paper and then show it to mommy and then daddy and loves it when we give him positive compliments
5) He is very good at copying, his sisters does gymnastic moves and he tries to copy everything. When I fix something in the house he will try to do the same thing. For example, I was lying down on the kitchen floor to secure the the water line to the refrigerator to the wall. Later, I found him lying down on the floor and attempt to fix the same water line with his toys.
6) He says and waves good bye, hugs me and his sister when we come home
7) Lately he is learning many more words. He learns about 6 new words during the last week as we are trying to spend more time with him.
8 ) He loves to sit and listens to us reading books to him, he wants at least 6 or 7 books before sleeping.

If he is diagnosed, make sure he isn't turned into a "cash cow." Therapy can be counterproductive if he doesn't get sufficient recovery time. In fact, just getting a diagnoses can be a stressful experience. Too much stress may be the biggest issue for people with autism. You need to balance the need for therapy to be "normal" with the stress that is added to his life.

It may be a little early for an accurate diagnosis. Asperger children can be difficult. It can be helpful to avoid frustrated expectations. Here is a free booklet about Aspergers parenting that might be useful.

http://christianpioneer.com/blogarchiev ... g%20v2.pdf

Just wondering if this is how Asperger presents in young children?

If you're talking classic autism I can't see much of that from what you're telling us. Love to play with people, points to things he wants, looks for approval, good at imitating, says and waves goodbye. Loves to sit and listen to books being read to him... Jesus, if my kid would do one of those things I'd be saying he's recovered. And 18 words at 25 months is not that bad. There are NT children who don't speak at all by that age. And my son will normally listen to his name 10% of the times. 0% when occupied with something. However, if I step in and say "tractor" he'd the first one to look up.

It could be that he's on the spectrum but the things you are telling us sounds rather mild from my perspective. He seem to be able to connect with people and that is a good way to learn. Just think about those families with kids who won't allow anyone to come close. So you have a lot of things to be positive about if he actually is autistic. One of the most important things to keep in mind is that this is your son. Hope you can let us know how things goes with his evaluation.

Many thanks, I will let you know what happen after the evaluation. I also scheduled a hearing test for him just to rule hearing issues out but I am sure his hearing is OK. I took the Autistic Spectrum Quotient test and scored at around 30. 32 is the cut off with 32 or higher is considered Autistic. I know it is a self-administered test but I think it is accurate enough. I have never been diagnosed but as I learned more about Autism I think I have a few traits of Austism/Asperger. I think my son picks up the traits from me. I just hope that he is not worst than me. I think my dad [his grandpa] has ADHD because he can never sit still and always have to do something. My dad was a high school principal, my brothers and I are all engineers. I am an introvert and my brothers are even more quiet than me.

It's too early to say this for sure, but the patterns you have described kind of sound more like ADHD than ASD to me.

Thanks. My son is scheduled to be evaluated by professionals on May 24. I wonder if the symptoms of ASD overlap with ADHD? My dad [his grandpa] is extremely active and always agitated. He is extremely prone to accidents. In the last 10 years 6 car crashes and 2 times when he was hit while riding bicycles. I am calmer and not accident prone but I have restless leg syndrome, get distracted easily, and can't never work for more than an hour.

My son evaluation was moved to 2 days earlier. Today my son was evaluated by 3 experts. A Speech Pathologist, Occupational Therapist and Behavioral Psychologist. After 1 hour of watching and playing with my son they all agreed that we should not concern about autism. He is 32% delayed in fine motor skills but the Occupational Therapist indicated that it is not a huge concern and only recommended 1 hour of at home therapy per month. She said that many Asian families spoon feed kids and that delayed their fine motor skill development. It is true, my wife spoon feed my son because rice is not really a finger food. The Behavioral Psychologist said he needs some help with learning to respond appropriately but it is also not a huge concern. One example she gave is that when his baby sister cries then we would make sad faces and roll the fist near the eyes because right now he is laughing when his sister cries. This may involves only 1 hour per week therapy. He will need 1 to 2 hour of speech therapy per week until he catches up.

The state of CA will pays whatever insurance doesn't pay for these Therapies. My insurance pays for 60 sessions per kid.

It is a huge relief for me and my wife with the confirmation from the experts. We also noticed that my son has stopped screaming in high pitch when he is excited in the last 4-5 days. He has also stopped flapping his hands when excited.

Many thanks for reading.

Thanks for the follow up johnle. I don't think it was a very big surprise your child is not autistic from the information you had given us - although it's impossible to know for sure without actually meeting the child. Interesting that they could put such an accurate number as 32% on the delay.

The state of California Regional Center [agency that supports kids with developmental delays] has a guideline that says toddlers aged 24 – 35 months are eligible for early intervention services if they have a developmental delay of at least 50% in one areas, also called domains or a developmental delay of at least 33% in two or more areas. I think this rule requires the experts to score during the evaluation. The Speech Pathologist indicated that my son is more than 33% delayed in speech and definitely will get speech therapy.

If a child is classically autistic, the child would probably not interact with strangers. I don’t see “no fear of strangers” as a sign of autism. In fact, I see that as a contraindication of classic autism.

Many 2 year old children seem “autistic” in many ways. They don’t respond to their name frequently. They spin. They don’t react too well to change. They throw tantrums. All “Terrible Twos” type of behavior.