There wasn’t any one thing that made me feel like Hunter had autism. Honestly, that thought had never crossed my mind. There also wasn’t any one thing that made me decide we needed professional assessments.
It was around age 2 that I really started noticing (or rather I should say feeling deep down in my gut) that something was off. Hunter was meeting all of his ‘milestones’ at the pediatrician and they didn’t seem concerned.
Backing up to when he was 18 months old, I felt like he should be speaking more. Again, he said the minimum required words so the pediatrician wasn’t concerned. Chance & I decided to put him into speech therapy at this time because we knew he could comprehend – he just wasn’t using his own words. I’m a firm believer that early intervention – for just about anything – is key.
Lack of speech and lack of wanting to speak were some of my very first signs. Looking back at his infancy, we used to joke that he never really laughed or smiled at us, but he really didn’t. There just wasn’t a lot of interaction on his part.
Between 18-24 months, he would either be hyper-focused on something or completely zoned out. But at 2, it was like Hunter flipped a switch at 2. And at first, I just chalked it up to the ‘terrible 2s’ everyone talks about.
The best way I know how to describe what was going on was ‘tantrums.’ It was like Hunter would flip a switch and we didn’t know what to do. Outside of these ‘tantrums,’ he’s SO good. It was SO frustrating for me because I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what would cause a ‘tantrum.’
We’ve learned along the way that we were making these tantrums worse by hugging him, loving him, etc but what he really needed was space. It’s so counterintuitive as parents, especially when they’re so little.
Something else that was very eye-opening was when Hunter would be in time out and how he would respond to us when we asked him ‘why he was in time out?’ He would be looking all around, he couldn’t communicate what was going on or his feelings, and would ultimately start talking about something completely random – like ‘the door is grey.’
Quick recap on the things that made me really seek professional help:
- Not speaking even though he was comprehending
- Being non-verbal in the first 12 months
- The ‘tantrums’
- Not making eye contact
- Not being able to communicate his feelings / emotions
But always remember, you know your child best. Deep down I just knew something was off even though I didn’t know what it was exactly. Definitely take a look at the book guide I mentioned; I really wish we would have known about these books sooner to help us start understanding more about what Hunter was experiencing.
DM us on Instagram @messy_wonderful if you have more questions or are in a similar season – happy to answer anything you have!
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