Charlie has not had an psych evaluate him in years—-last one was really when he was getting diagnosed at the age of 2 in Minnesota.

Charlie does the same thing—”sneaking” close to a place he is not supposed to go to, and turning away when we “catch” him, and giggling.

You wrote “Parents need to know that their children may become worse, perhaps much worse for a time, and even though that time may seem an eternity they will start to come back.” Yes, that happened with Charlie—very very tough. But things have gotten better—infinitely.

Really good to hear about how your daughter is doing! Really good.

I’d be wary of any diagnosis made without regard to these standards which if I read between the lines is happening at some, perhaps many, schools.

When we received our daughters diagnosis, we were in no way surprised. Our biggest mistake was listening to her pediatrician who showed no concern whatsoever over her loss of language. We also had no idea on how to get her help. I think now a days as soon as we brought up our concerns, she would have been screened.

I’m not sure about confronting the autism thing. My daughter who had many of the markers of autism from birth, plummeted in her social awareness, academics, and became agressive and violent. But after a time she started to come back. She still has a long way to go, but last week her grandparents noticed how happy she was, and my mother took great pride in being able to make her laugh.

She is starting to make up games such as leaning around corners to peer into a room and giggling when she is noticed. She is starting to bounce and catch a ball.

We took her to the children’s gardens at Huntington Garden’s in Pasadena. There is a part where spices are put in squeeze bottles and the child leans over to smell it. I only had to position my daughter once, after that she leaned over on her own and waited for the bottle to be squeezed.

She was interested in the magnetic sand, but most important of all, my sister who was watching us as I had my daughter touch the magnetized filings, said it looked as if my daughter wanted to play with the other children.

Parents need to know that their children may become worse, perhaps much worse for a time, and even though that time may seem an eternity they will start to come back.

My daughter is starting to show a mischievous streak. At her grandparents when she would get close to a room we did not want her to enter, she would still try to do so, but would giggle each time she was called away.

I really think the eye contact thing is misunderstood and vastly overrated as a marker of autism. As the MDs like to say, it’s not pathognomic.

He’s always (since he was a young baby) looked out of the corners of his eyes.

And yesterday, after acknowledging all of these things, the developmental pediatrician said that she doesn’t see any glaring signs of autism. And the thing is, even my husband, who was in serious denial about our oldest, knows better. Time will tell, but we can tell, too. I’m really not surprised that an observant mall Santa might have been able to see something that the MDs missed.

Until he was three, TH had two pediatricians who dismissed our concerns over exactly the traits that eventually led to his diagnosis. Their big focus, as was the case with our youngest and the developmental pediatrician, was “eye contact.” TH made eye contact with us…not sustained, but it was there. Our youngest does too, although even more fleetingly. I’m truly starting to think that eye contact as a measure of anything is REALLY overrated.