behaviors at 1 year of age
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behaviors at 1 year of age
| Mon, 11-07-2005 - 8:49am |
What types of things did you see in your children at age 1 that might have given you a clue that something was going on? THe devel. ped. are not willing to say that my Jacob is on the spectrum as of now. I think they are going to wait until they see something super out of the ordinary. He just had another eval and he was age approp. in everything except language (2 months behind). BUt he has just started saying no and ball. He does not make a lot of eye contact and joint attention is inconsistent. But he points all the time. I am just looking for some more insight. He has an OT eval at the end of the month for possible "understimulation" or something like that.
What kinds of things should I be looking for and what did you see?
Thanks
What kinds of things should I be looking for and what did you see?
Thanks

Well, I'll try and remember.....
He had good eye contact with immediate family. Hugs and kisses were fine, but he didn't seem to "need" it. When I would hold him, he didn't latch on like his brother would, you know, hold on tight. He only did this when he was frightened, which happened quite often. When he would look into my eyes....no emotion on his face, and he seemed to look right thru me at times. He eyes kinda looked glazed. He seemed in his own world too. He didn't seem attached to any particular toy either. He was also a late talker. Had problems understanding direction. He was either very calm and quiet or upset and fussy. He would get upset over something little, and it was difficult to calm him down. And then there were times where he would just automatically stop fussing....everything was fine. It was a bit strange to us.
He wouldn't always look when I called his name. And he didn't seem to crave or want interaction like his brother did. He also didn't point to things, grunting and screaming were common too. That's all I can think of right now. Maybe some other mom's will chime in with their stories too! HTH!
michelle
LOL, I have to wrack my brain here since you are talking 8-10 years ago. At 1 we really didn't know for either kid though I had conerns. You see I taught special ed too (older then) but didn't know what normal toddler development looks like. I had some concerns but I don't remember things like eye contact and pointing (The MCHAT wasn't arround then and a big deal was not made of those things). My pediatrician just poopooed my concerns until we insisted on an evaluation at 3.
I have tried looking back at videos and I don't see alot of eye contact, interacting or pointing for either kid at that age. But that is just on video. Hard to remember what that was like other wise.
My definite concerns:
Cait - motor skills were a bit delayed. She didn't roll over until 7 months and when she did she did it very oddly. She didn't have any words yet but her first did come about 15 months (dog). She also just didn't seem to get baby toys at all. No interest in those button toys. Only wanted to watch videos or go after the dog from what I recall. She was off alone alot at daycare and not alot of interest at all in other kids. Tantrums were starting then too. Lots and lots of long tantrums over nothing. Hard to feed too.
In many ways she was overly easy because she never colored on the walls, or figured out the child safety locks or had any interest in what was in the cabinets. She was very quiet most of the time. Very attached to me but not terribly interactive. Though she would make me read the same books over and over.
At one she was not walking yet. I don't think she was even trying or close. She had lots of ear infections so we blamed all our concerns on that.
Mike- severe stranger and separation anxiety. We couldn't leave him with anyone. He was precocious at getting into trouble. He used to take apart night lights while they were in teh wall. At 1 I had very few concerns about Mike. He had words (1 maybe 2) and the rest began to come in quickly, was just starting to walk and was more interested in the environment and toys or so it seemed. He slept great from infancy. Now I think it was to get away from being held, lol.
The other thing was that he DID NOT like to be held much and DEFINITELY did not want to be held to go to sleep. My other kids co-slept in the beginning and he would scream until you put him in the crib then he slept great. You also could not rock him. He would scream horribly if you tried. finally around 1 he would let me cuddle him a little before bed in the rocker so long as I didn't rock and it was for a very short time then he wanted to be put down.
It wasn't until 18 months that we were really worried though, we just thought he was his own person. He had one of those behavioral changes/regressions then. Then he would wake from naps screaming and I would have to hold him, sit very still and have the lights off for nearly an hour before he was able to stop and adjust to being awake.
Renee
Teresa
I think it is great that you are already seeing a dev. ped and that you have already had one eval. My son is only 3.5, so my memory is pretty good. But as we always say, remember that all children are different.
Eric was an easy baby, happy, affectionate until about 12-14 mos. He had very good eye contact as a baby, laughed a lot, a total joy. He hit all gross motor milestones on time. Walked at 8 mos., or should I say RAN! Once he could get around, there was no stopping him. He was eventually crawling, climbing on anything, perpetual motion.
Our first feelings that something was not right had to do with his extreme passion for spinning things. A toy was useless, unless you could spin it. He would run towards a stroller or people in wheelchairs hoping to spin the wheels. He would look at fans for hours. Couldn't care less for stuffed animals or other children. Was content to sit and spin things.
Next tip-off was speech development. He did start making a few sounds, ma, ba, ca, da etc. and to us seemed to associate them with items. Ma was me, Da was our dog. Ca was cup. But he never babbled. Then after at first developing these sounds, he just quit talking and started to bang his head in frustration when he was trying to make sounds. It was like he wanted to make sounds, but couldn't, then got upset. But he did not seem to feel pain when he hit his head. Soon after that, he started taking us by the hand to bring us to, say the fridge if he wanted a drink. Once he started doing this he quit head banging. He would never bring anything to show it to us, however.
He seemed to have good receptive speech, but not expressive. If you said, "where is the fan" he would point. If you were looking at a book and asked him to point to things, he could. He could even point out most of his letters and numbers. When we were at the mall he would point to the letters on signs and get very excited. On the other hand, if you called his name, sometimes he would not respond. You could say, "Come here Eric" and get no reponse then two minutes later ask, "where is the fan" and he would point. His eye contact got worse around this time too.
He did not have temper tantrums but if he was in a mall, grocery, party, he would either want to be held and hide his face in my chest, or try to find something to spin. I got so I carried match box cars for him to spin the wheels in my purse, like some kind of enabler, to keep him happy on outings. I carried him in a forward facing snuggly until he was way to big for it!
Eric had been incredibly healthy, not even an ear infection, until he got his first vaccination. I am not attributing his behavior to that, I have checked and thermerisol was not in any of his vaccines, but that was about the timing. He had a terrible reaction to every shot he ever received, fevers, febrile seizures etc. Soon after this he quit eating well (previously ate like a bear!) and began to have either constipation or diarrhea. But he didn't lose weight and his ped. thought it was just "toddler tummy" etc.
We asked our ped about all this. She was not concerned herself, gave us the "wide range of normal" argument, "boys talk later," etc. but she could tell we were worried so she sent us first to have his hearing checked and the audiologist concluded, "his hearing is fine but if he were my child I'd have him screened for autism." The next stop was the speech path, who said he was delayed by a year. Again we were told, "I can't dx autism, but I suggest you go to early intervention." They gave us the full run down, including that he was more than a year delayed in fine motor. We were not aware of this. I never heard of "pincer skill" until that test! They sent us to the neurologist who gave us the dx of PDD-NOS. By the time we saw the neurologist Eric was about 18 mos.
I don't know if this helps you, this is just our story. I wish you good luck. Our son's speech was already delayed more than 2 mos., by the age of one year and since you are on top of this so soon you are ahead of the game.
Katherine
this is a long time ago, 8yrs, and I've had 2 others in between, but this is what I can remember. In some ways it's easier to remember what he was like because it was markedly different than the other kids.
Weston did not have any words at all. He didn't imitate any sounds or mouth movements or make grunts or anything, he seldom laughed or even smiled. He did point. He was walking (10 months) and climbing already (climbed out of crib at 13 months). He was taking things apart. He would do the same thing over and over and over w/ toys. Like he was making sure the toy He had long unexplained temper tantrums, often, at least 5-6 a day. He was not attatched to any of us. He didn't care if we left the room or if a stranger came into the room. He did scream and cry when anyone tried to pick him up or engage him. When he bumped or fell he cried but would not let anyone comfort him. Sometimes he wouldn't even cry. He did understand us when we talked to him. He would do things we asked him to do (ie. put cup in the sink, pick up toys, sit at the table). He was very compliant at home. He could point to body parts, he would help dress himself. He liked to imitate Warren (brother 5 yrs older). His eye contact was ok sometimes he would look at us, other times it was like he didn't even hear us. His pictures all look like his eyes don't work together (we had him evaluated by a pediatric opthomologist before a year because his eyes didn't seem to focus together). He hated riding in the wagon or in the stroller, he prefered the backpack. He prefered to fall asleep by just being put in his bed w/ Tigger and blanket w/o being rocked or fed or anything else. He would sit for long periods of time listening to stories, he did not point at pictures in books, but wanted to see the pages of the book. He prefered to play in tight spaces (under the table w/ the chairs pushed in, behind the couch, behind doors, under the bed). He gagged on almost all solid food, I mean baby food, baby cereal, applesauce, etc, mostly he drank milk or breast milk, fluids.
HTH
Betsy