The A Word

Yeah. That one. The one that starts with a and ends with utism.

When we went to the pediatrician to get the required paperwork for him to start preschool, King bombed the screening they give for autism. That doesn't mean he has it, but it does mean he should be tested.

The more I read, the more I'm inclined to think there's cause for concern. He doesn't have every single symptom, of course, but neither do kids with diagnosed cases of autism. So, yeah.

I've been mulling it over and trying to figure out how I should feel about the whole thing.

Ok, here's our areas of concern:

Eye contact. He makes eye contact sometimes, but only if it's something he's really engaged in. When he's on, he's on, but he spends a lot of time looking away and acting like you and the rest of the world doesn't exist.

Speech. Dude is almost three and we still don't have any two word sentences. Or that many one word sentences. He still asks for water by handing us a cup.

Play. Most of the time he takes a toy, like a doll or an animal, and he bounces it up and down. I've never seen him pretend like one doll is talking to another or take the dolls and put them in the house.

Other kids. He likes to chase after other kids, but he doesn't play cooperatively. No tea parties, no balls back and forth, etc. I don't know how much of this is developmentally atypical, but other kids his age seem to be down with the whole cooperative play thing.

Yeah. I think we've got some big concerns. The waiting list for screening can be up to six months long, so it may be a while before I find out anything more.