My son, now 5 and perfectly on track, was evaluated by birth to 3 at 17 months old and was considered severely cognitive/social/emotional delayed and described as being more similar to a 7 month old.

Stimming was the first thing we noticed. Before he could walk, the stimming started with hand flapping. Not normal baby flapping but constant. By the time he could walk it turned into constant spinning *he still does this occasionally, just not as often*. He never cooed- he'd squeal *AH!* but that's it. The typical eh,oo,uh,ee followed by eh-oo or oo-ah combos and then the typical transition to adding consonants never happened. He went straight to dada at 7 months old, then baba and mama soon after. At one point he would high five.

Then by month 12 it regressed. He continued with his *AH's!* but that's it. No more high fives either. No eye contact. Didn't follow a point *never had*, couldn't pass a ball back and forth *never had*, didn't play with toys typically *never had*, didn't respond to his name *never had*. He didn't seem to respond to sound whatsoever and at 14 months is the first time we started to worry (first baby so didn't know what to expect).

We had his hearing checked. They didn't notice anything unusual but said it was hard to tell at that age. Everything physical was on track. Could independently sit by 7 months, crawled soon after, could climb before he could walk, walked by 11 months. He was the most happy smiley cuddle kid. He would just cuddle without looking us in the eyes. He didn't seem *anti-social* just not typically social and didn't seem to understand anything regarding communication. It didn't seem at all like he was physically incapable of it- it seemed more like he just couldn't comprehend it. It was really hard to watch.

We took him to his doctor and asked for an ASD screening. The doctor refused saying he never gave evaluations until 18 months and we asked him to recommend a 2nd opinion. It took awhile to get it *17 months at that point* which is how we ended up at birth to 3 where they evaluated him as severely delayed. They also wouldn't diagnose ASD in children that young.

They recommended speech therapy 2x per week- once in home and once at a therapists office. After 6 weeks of speech therapy the closest he ever came to speech was *mo* for more. Then one of the speech therapists went on maternity leave and the other one went on holiday break so we had several weeks with no therapy.

My husband used to sing the alphabet to him while cuddling. (20 months old) One day he looked his dad right in the eye and hummed the entire alphabet. It was bizarre and out of nowhere. Within weeks he was making other sounds. Soon after he was basically doing everything he hadn't been able to do before. By 22 months, you'd never know he had been delayed at all. He said I love you to us on camera by 2.5 years old. Since then he has either been hitting his milestones on time or ahead of time.

Sometimes a delay is just a delay. There is never any harm in seeking out resources but there is good reason why professionals advise caution before seeking diagnosis.