12 Signs of Autism in Babies

my husband and I have five kids and our two youngest are autistic and here are 12 signs that your baby may have autism our 8-year-old Ezra has level three autism he is so fun he communicates through an iPad and he's learning how to spell which is really exciting and he likes to spin with cords and play with cords and throw cords and put them around his hand and manipulate them and since he has level three autism we were able to see earlier in life his signs of autism even when he was just 3 months old our son Simon on the other hand has level one autism and it looks very different on him since he has no intellectual delay and when he was a baby I really didn't think he had autism but now looking back I can see some of the signs in Simon as well as a baby so we'll be sharing home video and examples from our two sons from our home to yours so these are some examples of what autism can look like the first sign is not responding to your voice now Simon because he has level one autism would actually do that he would hear the sound of my voice and he would get excited but Ezra never did that and I'm talking not once did he hear the sound of my voice and get excited about it I wondered why is it that when I enter the room let's say he's in his crib and he's kind of whining a little bit he's new baby four or five months old and I come in I say oh Ezra it's okay mommy's here there's no response or reaction that I can see nothing he's still doing the exact same thing that he was doing have any kind of response that was different so so a neurotypical kid would most likely kind of turn towards the voice or get excited that mommy's here and recognize that hey this is my mom's voice now he probably did recognize that this is his mommy's voice but he didn't respond in a neurotypical way and so that was one of the earliest signs um that a newborn baby showed showed autism because I was like uh this is different I've never seen this before right Ezra was my fourth child so I'd had three before and I was like this is not something that I'm using used to this type of behavior is different so that's the first sign I'm so excited to tell you about my book I wrote it for parents who have autistic kids to help support them and build strong relationships with their kids and find joy in the journey click the link below in the description and get your own copy the second sign is no or limited social smile now both my autistic kids smile a lot a lot and when we lived in RV fulltime traveling to all the national parks yep that's five kids in an RV me and my husband we would go to caves and we would go on Hikes and Ezra especially would laugh and smile the whole time e would be a mile down the trail if Daddy would keep up huh where are you going n where are you going he loved those types of Adventures he still does we go on heel time and it's one of those things where even though he's my happiest child and he smiles a lot the smile is not social smile now Simon with his level one autism he will show a a social smile but he learned how to do it we actually kind of had to teach him how to smile back when someone's smiling at you and he caught on really quick on how to smile socially but Ezra has a harder time with that as a baby both Ezra and really didn't show me a social smile at 3 months old so my three older kids who are not autistic Mark Benson and Marie when I have them as babies they would always show me a social smile at 3 months old it was like [Music] clockwork b b hi hello hello Mar hello baby [Applause] hello then I had Ezra and when I talked to him he didn't smile back and I I had no clue why I just figured well he's he'll learn you know and now even though he smiled smes more than like any of my other kids it's not a social smile he's not looking right at you smileing like reacting to your smile or responding socially trying to get your attention with his smile those are examples of social Smiles the reason he's smiling is because you're smiling back at him that type of thing and by the way it's totally okay that if he's uncomfortable with that I'm not going to force it on him it's not a big deal but it is a sign of possible autism in your baby a neurotypical baby would most likely learn how to do a social smile before 5 6 months old sign three is a little bit older baby they have to be able to really focus on a certain toy or object or mobile so I want you to notice if your baby is really fixed on an odd angle or an odd light and is watching it for a long time so it's completely expected for babies to look at mobiles as they're going around right in their crib an example of an autistic Behavior would be if a baby picked up a car and instead of trying to drive it it picked it up and then just spinned the wheel at like the corner with the light coming through like that and can do that and be entertained by that action for an extended period of time both Ezra and Simon did that in in different ways it looked different right Ezra ra um still won't take a car and go vroom vroom he he likes to take a car and throw it Simon will watch how other people like other peers and kids in his class will play with toys and he'll copy them he will copy us all day long I have to be so careful what I say but we still really encourage him to be his own autistic self and to do what he wants with the toys too because what if he thinks of a more fun way to use the toy like who am I to tell him you have to use it this way sign four is they don't try and get your attention now it doesn't mean that they don't want your attention like every baby Autistic or not is still learning oh if I do this this happens right this is cause and effect it's quite complicated because adults are not consistent with their reactions and so these kids these babies are just entering this world they're trying to figure things out and an autistic baby will sometimes not try and get your your attention as much as a neurotypical child my three older kids would always try and get my attention as soon as they figured out that oh if I put my arms up someone will come pick me up they would be searching for me in the room if they were laying down maybe having tummy time they' try and look up and find me and then try and yell at me or get my attention in some way but Ezra he'd be doing tmy time but for me as a neurotypical parent it looked like he was in his own the world it looked like he didn't even seem to care or mind that I was there he wasn't looking for me he wasn't trying to find me he wasn't trying to get my attention I there was nothing that he did that I could see that meant that he wanted my attention in any way and I I think he did he wanted some of his problems to be solved for example he wanted his diaper to be changed it took him many years uh he was like three years old when he figured out that I could actually help him and solve some of his problems and you know give them food or something so the fifth sign is kind of related to the fourth sign the fourth sign is you know you don't try and get someone's attention the fifth sign is you don't really respond when someone else is trying to get your attention as well and that's going to look different on each child for example if Ezra as a child was laying on the bed and I would go and talk to him and put my face close to his face he would usually Look Away now it makes sense because I know he's over simulated visually and I know that that's uncomfortable for him understandably I'm not going to put my face really close to his face and tell him to do something whatever details or sensory input he's dealing with it's too much it makes him uncomfortable so as a child as a baby when I didn't know that and I was like trying to get his attention and I'm like honey look at mommy you know and then I didn't get a response and he's like looking away that's a sign of autism with Simon who has level one autism he would respond to me as a baby but it would take a lot of extra effort on my part usually I just kind of have to throw them in the air a little bit and tickle him and then he would respond socially he would look back at me and he would respond to my um effort getting his attention so that's that's that sign the sixth sign is they don't like to be held as a baby now that was very true for my son Ezra but not true at all for my son Simon so keep in mind this isn't a rule that's like it it rules it out but with Ezra he did not like to be held if your child does not like being held as a baby please go get them checked out by a pediatrician please because there could be many things that are wrong and it also could be autism and so if there's nothing physically wrong with the doctor can see then you might want to consider oh my child could possibly be autistic it was it was extremely hard to feed him so we actually moved to the bottle and we did formula with the bottle and it was great it was great we had this special chair that kept him at the perfect angle and then we had this um blanket that we would fold and put the bottle right on the blanket just slide into his mouth I watched him to make sure that he was safe and getting his milk and everything was okay and he was a pro he was good at that but Ezra still is like don't touch me don't hug me the only thing that he enjoys with a physical contact with another person would be like deep massages and like deep tickles and he does really like that he he will laugh and he likes that sign seven is if your baby does not cry unless they need food or need to be changed that was Ezra I remember getting up in the middle of the night wondering like is my baby okay is he still breathing and I'd go and check on him and he'd be awake a newborn baby would be awake in his bed just cool just happy as can be just content and I thought oh this is an easy baby and now I look back and I was like that was a sign of autism he wasn't hungry when he woke up he didn't need a diaper change he didn't need me and I just felt like that was so odd because it was so different than my three older kids and even Simon was more like that he he would cry cuz he he liked being held and he didn't like being alone but he was more content he was just naturally more content than any of my three older kids sign eight has to do with eye contact my three older kids would have eye contact at 3 months right on the dot it was like clockwork and then I had my fourth child Ezra and at three months I remember holding him trying to get his attention and his eyes would never link to mine never and I mean not once and we took him back to the eye doctor again and again and the eye doctor is just like stop coming back here his eyes are fine so if your baby is Naturally by themselves making lots of eye contact then that's a sign that they may not be autistic so we talk about this a lot in our ASD club which is a weekly chat that you can join click the link below in the description and I'll see you next week sign nine is they don't seem to notice when a here is next to them or in the room appear as in someone their same age so if I have a 9month old who's sitting up kind of playing with the toy and then I put another 9-month-old 6 Ines away from them sitting up playing with the toy do they respond do they react do they care do they do they seem to care maybe they care a lot that a pier is playing with them but maybe they don't a neurotypical kid a lot of times will notice oh there's another being that's kind of my same size that's right here and they'll maybe try and grab the other kid's toe but a neurotypical child will respond in some way socially so Ezra um didn't really like having child there he he wouldn't push them he wouldn't reach out for them he would just try and go away from them every time he wanted to distance himself away from the pier that was in the room he did not try to do parallel play definitely didn't try and play with them it was not something that he naturally just did by himself so Ezra might seem like he doesn't want to interact socially with anyone but he loves being social he's just social in his own way and it looks different than a neurotypical person and that's okay that that is a sign of possible autism it could also be that they're just super introverted and annoyed that you know the another child's here because maybe they're not used to it too it could be that as well put in the comments another sign of autism in babies I know I didn't get all of them so add to the list and put it in the comments and you never know who your comment might bless we still have a lot more to share of our unique normal with five kids and two on the Spectrum so please consider subscribing sign 10 is sharing the moment this can look different maybe your child has a toy and then they're on your lap and then they look back and show you the toy look Mommy this is a toy you know I'm so excited about this or maybe show what the toy can do or why they like it that is sharing the moment now Ezra never did that he still doesn't do that that sharing the moment with someone it's it's very social thing it usually involves eye contact and social smiles and so it's not natural for Ezra at all and for Simon on the other hand he will sometimes share the moment but I noticed that when Simon was actually in the middle of his autism assessment the doctor showed him a doll and did a bath and that was actually part of the 2 test for that age group and you're supposed to like a birthday party or a bath and he did bath time so he showed Oh put the little bottle of shampoo on the baby and of course there was no shampoo we were just pretending and then he took this little towel and was like let's wipe the baby's head with the towel and then the doctor step back to see how long it would take for my son Simon to share the moment to look up to seemingly notice that the doctor left and the whole time they were there Simon didn't look up once he's very interested and focused on this doll and having bath time he never shared the moment and so that definitely was a sign of autism a neurotypical kid would notice that the adult left and maybe would look up at least to see where he was um or share the moment and be like Oh look The doll's right here and look what I can do look are you watching me now do you want me to tell you what Ezra did during that moment he took the doll and threw it and he took the the tub and threw it and then he took this other thing he took everything and just threw it all and then ran over and got them and then threw them again obviously both of their responses were very different but they were both autistic responses sign 11 is repetitive hand movement yes even little babies can do repetitive hand movements the 12th and last sign is your child either doesn't Babble or if they do Babble they're not babbling to get your attention Ezra really didn't Babble he started babbling when he was about 6 months old and then he stopped when he was about 9 months old and he never really babbled again Simon would babble lot I remember even telling the doctor during the assessment for autism um we just had it two years ago so it was like yesterday I remember telling him he doesn't have autism because look he's babbling and then the very patient clinical psychologist was like yeah but who is he babbling at is he trying to get your attention is he trying to communicate with you and I was like no he's not he's just babbling to himself so most babies will Babble to themselves but as they grow up especially 9 months old they should be trying to babble at you and if you don't see that or maybe they don't Babble at all then that is a sign of possible autism here's 12 signs of autism under 2 years old and here's our autism playlist Remember If you have an autistic child you're in good company

Channel: 7-Ahead

Views: 596,568

Keywords: Autism, Mild autism, Severe autism, 7-ahead

Id: bNa7-K_mUzs

Length: 17min 49sec (1069 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 20 2024