Regressive autism

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Have children who lose developed skills at about 15 to 18 months and then warrant a diagnosis of autism always shown autistic symptoms or have they really developed 'perfectly typical' before?

I was wondering, since I didn't regress and was unusual way before 12 months. I strongly suspect that this means I've been born like this.

But then I was wondering what it is like with regressive autism:

Are the symptoms of those kids with 'regressive autism' are just subtle before? Are they unusual before too?

Or are they really 'neurotypical' until they suddenly became autistic?

That's puzzling me!

my head hurt while reading that post...that cant be good

I was like this, and yes I was pretty atypical from birth, too. I had trouble learning things like how to nurse, that are supposed to be instinctive. And I responded to my environment differently than normal, and had repetitive behavior and stuff already.

By somewhere around 15 months I'd learned at least to repeat a few words, but then lost those, but that wasn't the first sign I was different or anything.

I became echolalic after that, and then developed that into passable language although it wasn't always communicative language.

And then I started losing that and some motor skills (in areas I'd already had problems with just not as much) when I was a teenager.

So I had two periods of what most people would call "regression" but I was never "normal" before them, and I don't consider myself to have changed much overall. I'm still the same person and I'm still autistic.

Basically I had trouble retaining certain abilities after I gained something approximating them. And that's why it looks "regressive" when I lose things that for most people are once-gained always-gained. It doesn't mean I was "normal" before, quite the opposite in my case.

You mean CDD? That's usually a normal level of development for a specified amount of time (2 to 9 years I think), and then a sudden onset of autistic disorder. Totally "normal" until they develop autism.

It's common for people with autism to improve through childhood [since birth where they were at their worst], and then "regress" in early adulthood to how they were before the improvement.

I followed this pattern; one could say I had "AS" in my primary school years (grades 3-7), and then I returned to "full-blown" autism over a period of several years in early adulthood (15 to 25).

No, not CDD.

You tend to like the DSM, so here's a section from the long description of autism:

I meant the OP (I don't really read messages I reply to too other than the thread title). I haven't really heard of the term regressive autism, and I know that with AD one can develop somewhat normally for the first two years or so, and then stop or "regress" in the last year, or any iteration of [in the first three years], which you posted.

I developed speech on time in the first two years (one to two word receptive, but rarely expressive), and then I stopped at that level until I was 4-5. I lacked eye contact, imaginative play; swaying when I stand, and so on since the beginning (no tantrums though).

It's funny, my mother just chalked these up to me being "different" (except for the speech, that was, 'boys develop slower,' by people and then speech therapy at 5); my little quirks and such. I was a little slow in the first few years of school (cognitive delay in a few areas), but I caught up. I've always been treated as "normal", perhaps because I am (I'm betting autism has been around a lot longer than modern society).

I like the DSM as it provides a universal language.

using very simplified thinking here....maybe they [or some of them] were autistic from genetics,but something then caused a reaction in the brain triggering the regression,and set off more severe autism?

Kingdomofrats:

I'm not sure it requires a "trigger".

In normal development for non-autistic people, there are periods that are, in most circles, considered the actual gaining of a skill, because it's known that is the point of these periods. But, in order to develop and gain that skill, the person has to lose other skills.

For instance, the ability to discern sounds in other languages. I know of this one because my French teacher demanded to know when I'd been exposed to French in the past. I hadn't, but I could hear, and thus figure out how to reproduce, all the sounds of French like a native speaker, and didn't speak with an accent. This is apparently unheard of in people who learn a foreign language past a certain age, because one of the normal regressions in non-autistic development is specializing in the sounds of your own language (or languages) and losing the ability to differentiate certain sounds in other languages. This either never happened to me, or happened at least a decade later than normal if it did ever happen.

My theory on the reasons for my so-called regressions, is something similar. That it is a normal part of my development to prioritize speech and certain motor patterns very low, and to prioritize other things (some of which are skills that I am not sure there are words for or not) very high. Thus, I retained certain skills that most people lose, as well as certain skills most people might just plain not have, but lost skills most people never lose once they gain them. Because my system of priorities is different than the usual one.

So I think it's often a case of losing different things than normal while gaining different things than normal. No outside event triggers regressions in non-autistic people, and I actually think that the fact that so-called regressions in autistic people happen more often at certain specific ages (and do so regardless of whether the person receives vaccinations or whatever, or not) points to it not being external factors, but rather a normal part of our brain development. (The ages autistic people are most likely to lose skills that are considered highly important to non-autistic people, are suddenly in infancy or very early childhood, and then either suddenly or gradually in adolescence and sometimes early adulthood. If gradually, it might continue forever, or level off at some point, or fluctuate.)

My son has gained an lost some skills, mostly it was around the move or a few other big events. But he has been different from birth so it's not like he ever was perfectly normal and became autistic.

I'm not officially dxed, but I had odd behavior even from birth but I lost my speech skills at around 12 months, pointed and grunted, had echolalic speech somewhere between two and three years, than began to learn to speak normally at around four. I don't think you "lose" being an NT so much as having an ASD becomes apparent.