Anyone NOT show any Autistic traits as a baby?

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As an infant? I have no clue.

However, my mother, when gushing about how "cute" I was when I was small, reported that whenever she would attempt to play with me, I would tell her to "go away." Apparently, I didn't "play" with her until I was about two years old. Before that, I would either completely avoid everyone, or just blankly stare at someone who tried to engage me. Playing with anyone else besides her took even longer. And I was a very obvious "stimmer."

Other than that, my mother tends to view all of my odd childhood behaviors as "adorable," so it can be tricky to get her to describe anything that might've seemed "off."

Words aren't facts?

Anyway, I'm sure there are people here who can direct you to the research that suggests people with "autistic" behaviors have brains that differ in comparison to the majority of the population. There's definitely something neurologically "off" with my brain that makes it harder to function in the world as it currently is, and I don't really care if it's called "autism" or not.

Call it "Fruitloop Disease" if you must, but I do get tired of people nit-picking which traits constitute "true" autism.

Are "facts" actually "facts"? Or just things that we consider real in our own perception of reality?



Everybodies brain is wired differently. If it wasn't you would find people that are the exact same in every sense. People are quickly labelled with "words" if they behave in a way that go's against the system that we are expected to follow by somebody or something trying to tell us how to live our lifes.



If you can give me a clear definition of "real", "fact" or "truth", then you may convince me otherwise. But I seriously doubt that you can.

It's more of a concern when babies don't cry.

Last edited by Joe90 on 16 Jul 2011, 3:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I cried more than average while an infant and was called collicky. Can too much crying indicate a problem?

There's not much of a difference.



I never said they weren't; however, certain people have brains wired in such a fashion that it makes it difficult to cope with certain situations.

"Autism" brains are different than normal brains. Being "autistic" means you struggle with certain things the majority doesn't struggle with.



People are labeled in all sorts of ways for all sorts of reasons. The word "people" is a label. Labels help humans make sense of what they perceive as reality. It's not a conspiracy. The autism "label" is used to designate individuals who struggle with certain things that the majority of the population struggles with. There is evidence to suggest these "struggles" are rooted in specific neurological differences that are not accounted for by saying, "Everybody's different!" People with "autism" share certain traits and difficulties that are most likely the result of specific brain wiring, which can be helped by various treatments and coping methods; hence the usefulness of said "label." This is also not a "conspiracy."



In this case, I find it irrelevant. The fact I may be a dolphin dreaming I'm a human and that all of our ideas of what constitutes "facts" and reality" are merely subjective interpretations doesn't mitigate the fact it hurts like hell when I put my hand on a hot stove.

"Philosophy" is a fun hobby, but largely crap when applied to practical matters. Anyone who wants to go down the "reality may not be real" road is more than welcome to test that hypothesis by jumping off a bridge and seeing if they end up in an alternate dimension, the Matrix, or wake up as a brain in a vat. I won't be joining them as my perception that a long fall will result in an unpleasant death is one of my strongly entrenched beliefs. But I suppose I'm just a victim of "The System" who just doesn't posses the necessary intellect or imagination to see past the delusion of what is commonly accepted as "reality." Meh.

I had almost all of the AS traits as a child except for a speech delay and I could look people in the eyes. I don't think anyone thought much of it, though.

There is no ''average'' with babies and crying really. All babies cry to different degrees. There becomes an average more as the baby gets older, but even then there isn't always no telling whether something is wrong or not. I think the most concerns is when the baby doesn't cry at all. I knew a friend who had a 1-year-old baby a few years ago, and she never, ever cried, and I saw her a lot. She was VERY quiet. She never once babbled, and once she was sitting on the coffee table then fell off and hit her head on the ground, and she did cry, but didn't make a sound. But she did have a voice, because I had heard her squeal once or twice, but this was very rare. The child must be about 5 or 6 now, but I haven't seen her since she was a baby, so I don't know what she's turned out like. I did think of Autism, but Autism isn't always the answer to everything a baby might or might not do.

Then the child next door to me always cried as a baby and a toddler, right up until he was 5 or 6. About 6 or 7 times a day you'd hear him crying really loud, and it got on our nerves in the end. He's nearly 9 now, and is NT. We haven't heard him crying for 2 or 3 years now, but he did used to be a very miserable baby.

I suppose sometimes it can depend on what the baby is crying about. The most common things babies and toddler cry over are hurting theirselves, somebody taking a toy away, not being allowed to do something it wants, not wanting to be put somewhere (for example, a pushchair), being teased by older siblings, not getting enough attention, when it's feeling confused or lost, and when it's parents walk out of it's sight. Stop me if I've missed anything. But my mum said I always cried at those typical things.

Last edited by Joe90 on 16 Jul 2011, 3:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

"Everbody's different" does have it's place in the grand scheme of things. It helps to remind everyone that, despite all our differences, we are all the same species and this realization is very important and can get lost when folks perceive themselves as too different.

Yer, I know this. I was just doing this as a diagnosises point of view.

But yes, everybody's different. And children can be strange creatures, whether they are Aspie or NT. My brother's friend used to be a type of child that liked to get toys and take them apart then rebuild them again. He done this up until he was about 7 or 8, and he was always so intelligent for his age. But he's not Autistic. He's actually the opposite - he's got a full-blown social life, got a girlfriend who is confident, and enjoys clubbing and parties. But anyway, yes, all kids have their own little interests and habits when they're little. That's what being a child is all about.

I didn't cry as an infant. I showed signs of sensory defensiveness before I was a year old. I didn't like to be cuddled. I taught myself to read before I was three years old (that's when my mother noticed I could). I was more interested in objects than people, and my first sentence was actually about an object. While I could speak at an early age (sentences at 11 months) my ability to communicate was atypical - I've never been able to properly manage reciprocal conversations and most of my speech early on (okay, most of my speech until I was in my twenties) was about my interests.

So I guess the answer is, "no, I don't fit into the category you're asking about."

That is one thing I could not stand. Being cuddled or hugged or kissed. I would cry louder when people tried to console me with hugs and cuddles. As a toddler I screamed and squirmed away whenever cuddling, hugging or kissing was going on.

It would hurt relatives feelings that I didn't want to be hugged or kissed goodbye after a visit but it was the worse thing for me to do. I couldn't fathom it for some reason.

Even now I vaguely understand why I despised it so because it doesn't seem like it's a big deal - to let someone hug and give a kiss on the cheek but I was totally against it with every fiber of my being.

Where I come from, when you have a baby you get given a milestone book, to record all the possible milestones you notice in your baby, and next to the boxes you fill in it says what the average age for this certain milstone is, and see if your baby's age is around the average age. You then show this to the health visitor who comes regularly to check up on you and your baby, and if they notice that anything is delayed by a few months, they write that down, then collect all of the results once the baby reaches a certain age, and sees if anything has changed. Sometimes babies can delay in something, which doesn't necessarily mean anything's wrong. But anyway, I looked in my milestone book, and I noticed that everything that was put down was around the average age of the typical milestones. So there's more evidence that I was a typically developing baby and toddler.

I was 4 years old when it all noticed, but nobody still suspected Autism, which was why the doctors and psychiatrists took at least 4 years to get a diagnosis, even though they saw me every 2 or 3 months or so. So I ended up getting a diagnosis at 8 years old.

My milestones were met on time. My mom paid close attention because I was in a high risk group and her task was to watch for signs of various sorts which might mean a developmental delay.

One thing that was delayed were my teeth. It took them longer than average to rise above the gums. My mother was really worried I had none. One started coming in before the pediatrician was to perform x-rays to be sure my teeth were there.

I also didn't cry as an infant. My mom said even when I was first born, out of the birth canal, I didn't cry.

The one trait I know I showed as a very young child, possibly still as a baby, was not liking being hugged or cuddled. Possibly also special interests - apparently when I was about 2 I knew all the colours of the front doors and toilets of people my family visited, and would identify them by those - my mother would say who we were visiting and I'd say something like 'They have a yellow door'. I also knew a lot of birds and bird calls at about the same age, if I remember right what my mother tells me.