When I met my neighbor Carl one day he was pretty worried about his two year old daughter Marie. He said that she did not behave like a normal kid and wondered if she was autistic.
I told him to look up the autism symptoms in the Internet and compare them with Marie's behavior. The next day he was even more concerned. He told me that he did read about autism in the Internet and now he is even more convinced that Marie has a problem.
I asked him what his daughter is doing that makes him believe that. He said that Marie did speak about 70 words but had some kind of speech delay. She also had a behavior problem. She was throwing around toys like mad, switches the light on and off all time and also closes and opens the doors again and again.
Beside that she liked to be alone instead of playing with her brother. The lack of social interacting was worrying Carl.
Autism symptoms are like that but there are many others and this does not mean that Marie was autistic. Abnormal behavior like repetitive acts could be symptoms of autism. So what should Carl do?
I told him he must get professional help. Even if Marie was autistic, it is not the end of the world. But only a professional like a psychologist, occupational therapist or speech pathologist can make the proper diagnosis and start treatment if necessary.
The best and cheapest option is to visit the next public elementary school and request an evaluation. It is free of charge because they are required to do this evaluation by law.
This evaluation is fun for your kid and nothing harmful. The therapist will play with your kid for several hours and find out if it reacts normal or not. Carl got this evaluation for Marie and was quite relieved to hear that Marie is not really autistic but more a visual girl that expresses herself by throwing things because she does not know yet how to express herself verbally.
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