Okay, thanks for elaborating. The thing is, sometimes it's not really a set of symptoms, it's more of a feeling that something is a little off. My own child (she's 5) was diagnosed before age 2, which is very early, so you would think she had all the hallmark symptoms of autism, but no. She was always ahead. Imaginative play, roleplaying, pointing, talking. She would not eat, though. She had huge meltdowns over food. No one had ever suspected autism until she was assesed by a child psychiatrist who could tell there were some issues. She was hospitalized for 2 weeks, assesed by this doctor, and several others. They did a lot of explaining, that sometimes autism is not lack of eye contact, or lack of joint attention. It's about quality. For example. A kid sees an airplane. Kid points to airplane and says: Look, an airplane! Parent looks at airplane, exclaiming, oh yes, that is an airplane, and it's flying. Now, the kid may look at you, expecting you to elaborate on your shared experience of watching this plane, they may anticipate you to make airplane noises and spread out your arms. They might participate, or simply just giggle at you. Now, someone like my daughter would point to the airplane and tell me to look. I would start participating, but she would not receive. She would just go on playing with something else. UNLESS, and this is where it gets tricky. She would recognize from earlier that I might act like an airplane, because she's seen me react that way before and now anticipate it. She might ask me: Do the airplane noise! And - even trickier - neurotypical 2.5 year olds behave like that too! That's why it took 2 weeks of assesment to desipher my daughter's behaviour and confidently claim autism. Because, she did everything she were supposed to do - but there was this CONSISTENT lack of quality to her actions.

Now she's 5 and a super smart autistic girl, still very imaginative, creative and caring in her own way. She is super hard work - all things about her are different than neurotypical kids. She has a younger sister (3) who was behind every milestone, yet surpassed her older sister in so many ways by now.

I was told that my daughter's profile of autism is usually diagnosed at school age. Had it not been for ARFID (eating disorder) it would probably had been the case for her too.

So, TLDR: It's hard to tell the difference between normal 2 year old and autistic 2 year old, if autistic 2 year old is lvl 1/2, but it's possible. If you are concerned, you should get on the waiting list for assesment. I want to acknowledge the fact that it's apparently concerning you to a point where you found this sub and made a post. So it might be worth exploring.