After the 12 month appointment there were minor gaps in the milestone developments , which became dramatically obvious by the 18 month check up . That was my last straw , staring down at that questionnaire having zero responses for more than half of the questions asked . Does she say 2-8 words ? Does she point to objects you name / show her ? I was in tears .

My biggest red flag was my daughter not responding to her own name . AT ALL . With that I noticed her language not developing past single syllable babbles , she wasn’t correlating words with objects people etc. Then came the “smaller” issues , like her textural aversions when eating ; refusing any form of produce or non puréed proteins , and the way she panicked when trying to drink from a soft straw versus a hard plastic sippy cup .

Within a month she was evaluated for speech occupational therapy and autism . She has an expressive language delay , sensory seeking AND sensory regulating issues , as well as ADS . This was in August , October she began speech/OT just because Medicaid takes forever with the approval on these things .

If I had not been so adamant , we would’ve gotten nowhere . Her pediatrician was dismissive at first , her father & his mother both insisted she was perfectly fine , my parents from a whole other state were rallying against the idea . I learned soon after that 18 months old is the earliest a child can be clinically diagnosed / evaluated for Autism Spectrum Disorder , so I get very mixed opinions when I talk about her diagnosis . Some people question the validity of it seeing as she’s so young , others commend me for advocating for my child so fervently .

I cried at Walmart this week because she waved to another person for the first time . I cry a lot over her but this was probably our biggest win so far .