2 Month Old

I would just express your concerns to the pediatrician. There are many reasons this could be....many.

It could be a sign of Autism but it's hard to tell until the child gets a little older. A first big sign is not responding to his or her name (your child may seem deaf or hard of hearing), lack of reciprocal communication or desire to communicate and of course eye contact. Another big sign of autism spectrum disorder on the moderate to severe range would be a child who is also inconsolible very early on - that sign would be in combination of some of the other prominent signs. Self stimulation (i.e. banging head....) doesn't occur until a little later. I can write a lot more but information is out there.

With all of that said, here is my personal story. I am a school psychologist and also have a degree in communication disorders as well. I completely freaked out when my child was around 2 to 3 months old because he had significant difficulty making eye contact. Being this is my profession, just made me overanalyze everything more. When he was only 3 months old, I started to go through slight depression because I sensed something was wrong. As he got older, I really started to worry about Autism because he didn't even respond to his name, hardly even babbled even at age 9 months and didn't speak five words at age 12 months. He had other signs as well. He was not interested in interacting with other children or adults, loved to put toys in a straight line, appeared overally obsessed with "things" and not people, etc. Unlike a lot of babies and toddlers with autism, my son was pretty adaptable to new situations.

I took him to an Autism center at a Children's hospital where a pediatrician gave him the diagnosis. She said he was autistic without a doubt. He was 2 years, 2 months old. We then took him to a psychologist who also specializes in Autism and he concurred with the pediatrician. An early learning specialist from the state agreed with the diagnosis as well but he really didn't have the qualifications to diagnose.

Our son began receiving speech therapy for his severe expressive language delay. Ironically, the speech therapist completely questioned the diagnosis of Autism. About two or three months later, my son took off. He was also in a great daycare center and the teachers knew of his difficulties. They really focused on socialization and strangely enough, he became one of the most social children there in a matter of months.

At 2 years, 6 months, I took him back to the psychologist who gave him the original diagnosis and told him I didn't believe my son was Autistic as he has made great gains and no longer had the symptoms associated with the diagnosis. He had a few other psychologists look at my son and they didn't see any sign of Autism, just a continued expressive language delay.

My son is now a very social 3 year, 8 month old boy! He can pretend play, doesn't have difficulty making friends and loves life. I still have a few concerns but I am the only one with those concerns. He is very smart and extremely funny. Here I was concerned that he would never talk and now I can't get him to stop.

One thing I did very early on was continued eye contact with him whenever he would look away...which was all the time. Even doing this he would hardly look at me. I continued to do this and he slowly started to come around. It took a few years but I do believe it helped.


I would just continue to monitor your child's development and really focus on the eye contact and bonding. I know it's hard but just continue. It may or may not help. Your child may be just fine. Even if you get the diagnosis later on, just focus on the treatment and not the diagnosis. There are many levels on the spectrum and sometimes children are not diagnosed correctly, especially early on. Again, your child may be completely fine!!

I can completely relate to what is happening to you right now. If you want to PM me, go ahead. We can exchange email addresses. I honestly felt so alone when I was going through this.

Good luck and take care! Keep giving your little one big hugs!!