Like Robbie, a child may appear to develop spoken language at thc normal time, and then at about age two abruptly stop talking. While a child's abilities in areas such as working puzzles or counting may be normal or even precocious, her language skills may remain far below her age level. Development is discussed more fully later in this book. Chapter 6 provides an overview of typical child development and explains how you can judge your child's individual development compared to that of most children. The sixth symptom of autism is that it begins during infancy or childhood.
Autism is a lifelong disability that one is born with.
Generally, parents get a diagnosis before their child is thirty-six months old, but later diagnosis sometimes occurs. Furthermore, for a variety of reasons, some children may not be correctly diagnosed until several years later. In fact, some parents of children diagnosed with mental retardation do not learn until their child's adolescence or adulthood that she actually has autism. Do not rule out autism in your child just because all of the symptoms of autism are not actually observed until after thirty-six months. Regardless of their age at diagnosis, children with autism almost always exhibit the five other symptoms to some degree throughout their lives.