Questions about infants and Autism very long sorry

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I have a almost 11 month old infant (the 25th of April he will be 11 months). At one time I was sure something was wrong but he seems to be developing on time.

When he was a newborn he screamed for hours on end. Nothing comforted him. He did this for about 6 months and slowly things got a bit better. He is still extremely fussy but will now allow others to hold him for a bit.

Until he was 5 months old he hated to be held. He would be trying to nurse yet pushing me away at the same time. He still does not cuddle into other people very well. He also makes very little eye contact, rarely smiles, and a laugh is even more rare.

He does babble (he makes the same two noises), crawls, and can almost walk. In fact he crawled early and has already tried walking with out holding anything.

He hates to have his ears touched, same with fingers & toes. If you try to hold his hand while he nurses he pulls it away. He also very rarely reaches to be picked up. I have only seen him do it one time. If he wants me he cries, and pulls at my leg. When I walk into a room after being away from him he does not get happy to see me, he starts to cry because he is not with me. He has never seen me walk into a room and smiled to see me.

He is not really old enough to play but he does bang everything. He also does not respond until about the sixth time you say his name. He also was what the ADS information sites call an aggressive baby. Meaning he was often tense/stiff, pushing away from me and other care givers, screaming, etc.

Should I mention my concerns even though he crawled "on time"? I am not sure if he should be making more then two noises also at this age. My oldest is four and he was nothing like this so I am flying blind.

I don't know if any of this means something I just remember reading about autism in infants and it sounded like I was reading about my baby. It made me cry but at the same time it fit him so well that I was relieved to think there may be a reason behind everything.

I also wanted to add that he also crawls like this "may crawl atypically, with one leg stepping while the other leg moves normally." He doesn't do it every time but he does it often enough. I think/thought it was cute. He also flaps his arms and bangs everything. I know the banging and flapping could be perfectly age appropiate just that it goes along with the other things I have been reading.

My mom also feels something may be wrong, mainly because of the little to no eye contact, and he only laughs if you tickle him. She was relieved when I first brought it up a few months ago because she didn't know how to bring it up with out offending me. We talked about it again this weekend and she still feels there is something off about Jacob. I know that from what I read that he could show signs as a new infant and then appear normal for a long while.

I am documenting all of this but I keep going back and forth on bringing it up with the pedi. I go on base and they are really hard to get through too about things sometimes.

Also I did the PEDS Child Development Screening Test, which I found through a link provided on First Signs. This is the result they gave me:

Screen results for Jacob German.
Your concerns are important. About 1 out of 10 parents have the same kinds of concerns you do. Children whose parents have such concerns have more than 10 times the risk of developmental problems. Put another way, 50% of children whose parents had concerns like yours have a problem with learning, development, or behavior and would benefit from special help. Such problems might include learning disabilities, language impairments, slow learning, mental health difficulties, autism, mental retardation and so forth.
Because the risk is high, your child should receive further testing to determine:

whether there is a problem;
if so, what type of problem; and
what kinds of services will be most helpful (such as speech-therapy, mental health services, special programs at school, and so forth).
If further diagnostic testing shows there is a problem, then helpful treatment is available. But the next step is to find out for certain whether disabilities are present so that you and your child can get the services you need.
If testing does not show a problem, please make sure your child's learning, developmental and behavior are carefully monitored by re-screening every 6 to 12 months. Sometimes emerging problems are hard to detect and repeat screening is needed.

They also provided a letter of referral for his Doctor and information for the National Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center.

This is what the letter for his Doctor said:
April 9, 2007
Dear Child Development Specialist/ Health Provider,

On April 9, 2007, an online developmental and behavioral screen called "Parents' Evaluation of Developmental Status" (PEDS) was administered to Jacob German, d.o.b: 05-25-2006. PEDS is a highly accurate developmental and behavioral screening test standardized on thousands of children around the United States and validated on hundreds of children who were also given diagnostic measures of intelligence, adaptive behavior, speech-language, etc. PEDS is one of three parent report screening tools of high quality recognized by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Further information about PEDS' validity, reliability and standardization, and the research studies that support its accuracy can be found at www.forepath.org/science.php or in various journals of pediatrics, which are catalogued at the National Library of Medicine (www.pubmed.org). On our site, children between 18 months and 4 years of age are also administered the M-CHAT, a measure of communication, response to sensory input and behavior, that screens for a range of possible problems especially autism spectrum disorders.

The results place Jacob German in a high risk category. Children with this result have 11 times the risk of disabilities compared with other children. About 50% of children with this score are eligible for special education services and the remaining 50% tend to score well below average on measures of intelligence, language, or preacademic skills. Such children need referrals for services such as Head Start, after school tutoring, Summer school, quality daycare, and parent training.

Given the above results, further testing is needed and should begin with speech-language testing. Hearing, vision, and overall health status should also be checked. Your clinical judgment is needed to determine whether assessment of intelligence, adaptive behavior, academics/preacademics, mental health or other assessments would be helpful. This is available without charge through your local child-find program (www.nectac.org).

Please assist this family in finding timely testing and services and also help them get information on how to help at home.


Sincerely,
The ForePath PEDS team.
www.forepath.org


Procedure code: 96110
ICD-10 code: 315.9
PEDS Result: Path A
M-CHAT results: Pass/non-contributory


I did not do the MCHAT because he is not 15 months yet. If any one has any thoughts I would love to hear them thank you very much for your time.

_________________

I would say to contact early intervention. Ask for a complete evaluation, including psychological evaluation and go from there, Regardless of a diagnosis at this point (as many doctors will refuse a diagnosis now) your son can at least start therapy which is crucial. It can be overwhelming but take it one day at a time. You will never learn everything you need to know in one day. My oldest son has been diagnosed for 5 years now and I am still learning! Best of luck and let me know if I can help you in any other way!! I am alwasy available to talk.

Robin

Sounds similar to how my parents described me as a baby. I cried continuously, lack of eye contact, I couldn't stand to be held, 'fussy' etc. As i grew older it took quite a bit of effort to capture my attention. My mother would have to get directly infront of me and direct my face to her's. She says that I would then seem to "look through" her. Things did improve, though.
....I'm now 26 years old with a recent diagnosis of mild Asperger's. (I've carried the inaccurate dx of Attention Deficit Distorder since i was 10.)
It may or may not be autism/AS. Just know that you're son is lucky to be born in the recent years. As the amount of autism spectrum research increases so does the number of programs and the like.
Good luck to both you and your son.

(My parents found that running water would calm me down,...get me to stop crying. Perhaps experimenting with that or other types of "white noise" could calm him when he's upset.)

Oh, yeah. I'm 27, also Asperger's.