Is your baby behaving unusually to you? Is your baby reacting differently to certain objects? Do you find them abnormal compared to other babies? If your mind is filled with a collection of questions like these, then it must be a case of autism. You can confirm all the signs of autism in babies through the below-mentioned signs. The signs we collected are common, as well as major ones that can easily classify a normal baby from an autistic baby.
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6 Signs of Autism in Babies That You Cannot Neglect
Treating a disease is difficult, especially when you cannot confirm the symptoms in your babies. One of the most problematic disorders is Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and diagnosing this disorder is quite difficult. The main reason behind not showing signs is the body of each individual that reacts differently in autism. However, the most common symptoms can easily be identified in your little ones if you have any doubt about signs.
As we know, every individual has different ways of expressing their emotions and intellect. They also reach their development stage with no same age difference, especially when their health condition is critical. But, some of the bodily changes in the early days can give a sign of autism in a baby.
Here are the six major and most common signs that can confirm to you that your baby has autism or not:
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Difficulty in Maintaining the Balance Between Eyes and Joints
Humans have a special kind of ability that can help to maintain the balance between the eyes and other body parts. It is quite important to the healthy growth of your bodily organs, and in this process, the thought process helps a lot. Attention is one of the necessary thought processes we mainly need to develop, especially joint attention. This special kind of attention can be defined as when two individuals are looking at a common thing after someone alerts them. The signal can be given to them by expression or by words.
Joint attention does not look like that, but it is crucial to connect yourself with different individuals. It also helps to interact with new people without any hesitation and develop a personality.
A report from 2016 claims that babies around 8 to 10 months old are easily able to make eye contact with their parents. Also, able to interact with other individuals and react directly to their words. These kinds of signs are found rare in autistic babies, which can make their life difficult in the near future.
So, don’t forget to notice your baby’s bodily changes through their eyes and joint movements. Also, confirm that they can follow joint attention in daily life.
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Late or No Response When Calling Their Name
A report from the CDC claims that a normal baby can understand the difference between their name and the other person’s name. They read the person’s voice and give a response according to the given name. Around six months old, a baby can easily do that without any problem. But it is difficult in autism’s case; a baby struggles until becomes nine months old. They give late, or no response when someone calls their name, and this is confirmed by a report from 2017.
So, don’t forget to check one of these signs of autism in babies before you diagnose the disorder. And get instructions from a certified doctor to treat the disorder if that is possible in your baby’s case.
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Facing Problems When Talking Nonverbally
Another report from the CDC claims that a baby learns things fast, especially when they are around 8 to 10 months. They can figure out the difference between one object and other objects.
Moreover, a baby is also able to follow the movements of other individuals. According to research from 2019, an autistic baby figured out and followed movements with less response rate compared to a normal baby.
Suppose your baby is not able to figure out the movements or finds difficulty in understanding the sign, symbol, and expression. Then, it must be one of those signs of autism in babies which you cannot easily find in the early days.
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Limited or No Facial Expression
As we all know, a baby learns faster when they are around four months of age. They start to watch facial expressions and copy them. Then, respond with the same facial expression to the respective individual. Also, begin to show a certain expression continuously, for example, smiling when looking at a toy.
According to a report, a six-month-old baby can read other individuals’ emotions and react based on the expressions they have. But in an autistic baby’s case, reading and responding abilities are not fully developed. Their mental and thought processes also have a late response rate. Sometimes they respond, but their facial expression does not match their action, which looks inappropriate.
So, don’t forget to talk to them and try to notice what kind of facial expressions they make. Do they follow your facial expression or just randomly make faces? A kind of question must come to your mind before noticing your little ones.
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Late in Learning the Mother Tongue
According to the report, a baby around one-year-old can speak one or two words in their mother tongue. Also, they can copy particular words from other people, especially those that they find easy to speak.
However, autistic babies find difficulty in learning language skills and take time to catch particular words. They even take time to understand the difference between two sounds. A report from March of Dimes claims that around 35% of autistic babies cannot speak even a single word properly.
So, try to teach them as much as possible and speak to them. You can start with a single-letter communication and then gradually go from one word to one sentence. This way, you can improve their language learning skill and get a hook with new words which they find difficult. Use one of all these signs of autism in babies to make sure your baby has no problem speaking.
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Starting to Lose Previous Skills After Learning a New Skill
Learning a new skill always adds power to your life, but forgetting the previously learned skill is also hectic for most people. It is a rare sign of autism that can be noticed in babies who are under one year of age. They begin to forget what they learned before, especially after learning a new and advanced skill.
13 Major Signs of Autism in Babies Under One Year of Age
In the previous section, we have learned about what are the main signs of autism and how you can confirm it. However, in this section, we will learn about what are the major signs of autism and why you must check them once.
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Lack of Reaction to Sounds
Sounds are crucial to distinguish one object from other objects, and it plays a major role in classifying the categories of living and non-living things. Without having this ability, life becomes difficult, especially for autistic babies. When they grow up, they face difficulty in understanding sounds and make inappropriate facial reactions towards loud sounds.
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Unparallel Bodily Movements
Living things can move their body as they will and can go anywhere they want to or do anything they like to do. There is no restriction in movements, and face no problem in the coordination of one organ or joint with others. However, autistic babies face problems with their body movements, and sometimes, they repeat the same movement more than one time. These signs of autism in babies under one year of age look unusual.
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The Weird Reaction Toward New People
Meeting new people and showing them how you feel about them through your reaction is an important part of human nature. Generally, a normal baby reacts to new faces according to their understanding of certain circumstances. However, autistic babies react unusually and show inappropriate behavior toward them. Sometimes, they react according to an unexpected situation that kind of looks weird to new people.
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Limited Movements
Human life is incomplete without moving from one point to another point. It is crucial to maintain the movement of joints and bones at certain periods. As humans, we need our muscles to work according to the movements we do in our daily life. But autistic babies don’t show many gestures towards any objects. They usually ignore or show limited bodily actions for expressing their thoughts.
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Difficult to Understand Others’ Actions
Understanding others’ words through their actions is an important element of non-verbal communication. Verbal and non-verbal communication is essential to elevate the thought process between two people. This is natural to see in a normal baby and act according to the individual. But an autistic baby always struggles to do that normally and acts abnormally towards other people. Sometimes, they show unusual actions towards their parents and feel uneasy about new actions. So, it’s better to check these signs of autism in babies before you take them out.
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Smile Inappropriately When They Go Outside
Going out with friends and family is a special moment for everyone, especially for a baby, because everything feels new to them. A normal baby can understand the situation better than an autistic baby and react accordingly. But autistic baby smiles inappropriately whenever they go outside with their parents. It is natural to feel excited, but smiling without having a reason, looks unusual.
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Speaking and Translating Words in the Mother Tongue is Rare
A human baby can learn words’ sounds and the differences between voices. They can understand their mother tongue and try to speak in one or two words. However, in an autistic baby’s case, it is a rare situation to understand the words and try to speak in an orderly manner.
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Inability to Make Eye Contact
Eye contact is an important bodily function for a normal human baby, and they usually like to do this with their favorite person. Also, they don’t feel shy in front of new people and try to make eye contact with them too. But an autistic baby is unable to make normal eye contact with an individual. It does mean they don’t try; they try, but the moment they make eye contact looks a little bit abnormal.
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Don’t Like Physical Touch
A human baby is sensitive to the touches of new people, and they respond according to the situation. However, an autistic baby has problems with physical touches, too, and shows unusual behavior towards people. Generally, they neglect getting touched by other people even when they want to. These physical touches related to signs of autism in babies are important to check at once.
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Less Response to Certain Words
Hearing a word and responding according to the speech connection process is an important part of the healthy growth of a baby. This step is crucial to understand the difference between their names and other individual names. But an autistic baby finds it difficult to recognize the difference between words and speech’s connection process. So, they feel trouble hearing the actual words’ sounds and create an inappropriate word image.
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Don’t Like to Play Interactive Games
Interacting with a person through games is essential to the growth of a baby in the right direction. It enhances the mental as well as physical growth of a normal baby. However, interactive games don’t look interesting to an autistic baby. Sometimes they show interest and interact to play games, but they eventually find nothing special and then skip to play.
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Rarely Able to Understand Objects Through Their Eyes
Differentiating one object from others and understanding the unique quality of each stuff is crucial for a normal baby. It helps to notice the difference, even the slightest one. However, an autistic baby struggles to determine the right difference between objects. They find everything similar, even with their eye contact. These kinds of signs of autism in babies are crucial to notice.
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Blow Things Out of All Proportions When Hearing Inappropriate Sounds
A report from 2020 claims that a normal baby reacts differently to different sound frequencies and makes a certain expression to show their understanding of that particular sound. But this kind of case is rare in autistic babies because they overreact when they hear unnatural sounds. Also, get hyper to specific sounds.
Conclusion
Having a disorder like autism or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in a baby is a big problem, and diagnosing and treating a disorder is difficult. So, we have filled the bucket with all the common as well as major signs of autism in babies that can help you to know about your baby’s health condition. Apart from that, we also included some tips to treat the disorder even at home.
