Mild Autism | 5 Signs in Kids

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I have autism and I didn’t start talking till 6 but I was put in speech therapy and now I can’t stop talking

Thank you for this video. Grieving as I've never felt so alone in this journey with my son. You guys are amazing.

Your explanation of the nuances was so good. I'll be sharing this with others. Ty for being a voice for them and other families. God bless you all!

Retired teacher here. I had a lot of students over the years who were either on the spectrum or had ADHD. A lot of them were pencil drummers in my math class. I bought Nerf darts and let them use them during class. They could drum to their little hearts content and not make very much noise. Thanks for your informative videos

Our almost 4 year old grandson has several different stemming (sp?) rituals. He also gets extremely upset and has frequent meltdowns (and is very loud, screams etc.) when transitioning from one task to another, and from going Pre-K to Pre-School. His speech, behavior, mental health, and trauma are the areas being addressed with regards to his Pre-K Special Needs IEPs class, and at through our local children's hospital. They are addressing those areas first before they delve into the realm of our grandson being autistic. It's overwhelming sometimes because the doctors and special needs teachers don't want to label or stereotype him into treatment without eliminating the aforementioned issues. He could be getting other much needed resources and services right now if he was diagnosed with autism. Catch 22 I guess. But THANK YOU for being here in this space, I'm glad I found you to help with our journey.

I have a 15 month old. I don’t think he’s on the spectrum after seeing videos like this but it’s still nice to learn. Also, I love how you share this info. It’s kind and understanding and teaching parents to empathize with their toddlers. Mine engages with me, understands me and likes using sign language but he doesn’t seem to want to talk yet. I think he’s focusing on gross motor skills. However it’s still possible I find out he’s on the spectrum. I love how you share that early detection is important so that you can find the support and community to parent a child with atypical needs. It’s not the end of the world but knowing is so much more helpful than not knowing when we have so many resources available these days. Sorry for the long comment. I’m a SAHM mom with a lot of thoughts and using YouTube to share them lol.

Autism is not about being non verbal it's just a way of absorbing from the environment in a very different manner 🥰

Glad you can understand the delayed processing. It is actually more thorough processing and maybe more rapid because much more extensive and intensive information needs to be processed, filtered, and directed than what appears to be happening in a typical person. A ton is going on and is being held in awareness. Most people auto filter and aren’t aware but it seems to me that in autism it is all coming in and being thought about. Ironically this gets interpreted as the autistic person not picking up information when it actually is the opposite that an overwhelming amount is coming in and being considered. In many ways I was fortunate with an extraordinary mom and good dad too although my mom raised me. I also was fortunate as I had a highly gifted IQ and a personality that wanted to be responsible and adapt. Actually, most autistic people I know are extra sincerel and serious, trying to do their best . It is a pity that they get seen as being stubborn rather than their efforts being valued.

So interesting the variations in kids. Mine primarily has speech and stimming. He is super social and does lots of direct eye contact. He is mild, level 1

Another wonderful video!! Love y’all so much!! ❤❤❤

Very Helpful and interesting!!!

The "moving the hand instead of looking at the person" thing is likely more eye contact avoidance than it is not understanding that the person is in control of the hand. Regarding eye contact, I remember reading an article on autism in one of my dad's Scientific American magazines as a kid. I remember seeing lack of eye contact listed as a sign and thinking "how strange". Fast forward 30-ish years, and I'm starting to realize how little eye contact I actually make. (Granted, the article as a whole was written at a time when understanding of autism was limited to what would now be called level 3, non-verbal, so it's not likely that I was going to recognize myself there). I definitely do the "tracing all the lines in the room with my eyes" thing. It's amazing how many of my own absent-minded stims I started noticing when I started really looking into the possibility that I might be autistic. I know you gave this particular stim in the context of "stims normal people do", but you probably should consider the possibility that you're autistic: you have two kids with diagnosed autism, two with a diagnosis for a common comorbidity (ADHD), and one without any diagnosis that's very stimmy. Autism is highly heritable, and it had to come from somewhere. Given that autistics tend to get along better with each other than with neurotypicals, the chances of two somewheres are probably a fair bit higher than might otherwise be expected. I definitely have a high capacity to ignore hunger and thirst. At least with hunger, it's not so much a matter of not noticing as laser-focus on what I'm doing. "I'll eat later". When responsible for my own meals, I've been known to delay cooking/buying food for hours. Thirst I have more trouble defining. I know when I need a drink, more or less, but it's harder to define the sensation. For delayed processing, I have a tendency to think "in paragraphs" instead of sentences. It makes conversational pacing hard. Emotional processing can take months.

One autism sign in both kids and adults that many people don’t know about is only becoming aware of hunger, thirst, and bladder fullness (for example) when they become critical. This sign is seen not only in autistic children, but also in autistic adults. I heard about this symptom on a YouTube video within the past week (I don’t remember which one, or which channel I saw it on). Until I watched that video I assumed that that was how most people experience hunger, thirst,etc. Apparently it is not. When I was younger I was probably level two. Today it looks like I am level one. In any case I am into middle age and I still go from not recognizing hunger,thirst,etc. at all to it being very strong (basically from zero to ten almost immediately).

your videos are SO helpful, thank you so much! I am an autistic adult level 1 to 2 since due to trauma in life my autism is worst now than it used to be younger I feel and it is very interesting to watch your videos! thanks

Delayed processing has been my biggest issue and the first sign I had as a child. My fingers we smashed in the car door at toy's r Us. My mom was expecting an excited kid to be at the toy store it was downpouring rain and I wasn't. Looking back probably overwhelmed it was a reward for going to different stores trying to avoid getting rained on. Another example I was at the lunch table well after everyone else left seeing if I could leave the table. As I wrote this my roommate said you need to take really quick out of your vocabulary my really quick is regular speed for everyone else.

I have autism and dyslexia and i didn’t talk in till i was about 1 so they put me to a speech therapy and I’m still in it now and i have special help at school.

Our son is not diagnosed, but has some characteristics of autism. He has hyperlexia (taught himself to read at 4), he walks only on his tip toes, he has echolalia and has many stims. He is very rigid in his routine and hyper fixates on subjects/topics. He is incredibly independent. Incredibly smart, especially in math. Obsessed with numbers. He does struggle with friends. Kids always tell him he’s weird and to get away 😢

Such a helpful video.

Used to try to move the hand too when little, however that wasn’t because of not knowing the hand and person were connected. It just made more sense to show directly to communicate directly by trying to move the offensive hand in the wrong place. The only reason to look in the eye was if the person with the hand didn’t get it even though the communication was direct by touching the hand. Felt it was more polite and considerate to the person to gently let them know the hand was in the wrong place by directing it to move, rather than doing a stare down or vocalizing (screaming and temper tantrum) only needed if upset and the person with the offending hand insisted on being rude and didn’t get the gentle direct hint of having the hand be removed. Personally, I think it can be mostly a different communication style. It was a more direct communication, more gentle to start and more polite, Screaming only followed if the hint wasn’t followed. In retrospect, I réalisé I was an odd kid. Normally quiet and calm , it surprised others when the screaming came. I had forgotten. My mother has Alzheimer’s now but I want to let her know how amazing she was, how patient and extraordinary, and I’m sorry not to be able to be there as had always intended to support her. Looking at these videos, I recognize so much and how much she did as a mom by herself so that I could be okay. Your family is beautifully caring and your kids seem to be doing very well.