Early Screening Signs for Autism

Early "Red Flags"

• Delay or loss of language development
• Delay or loss of typical social interest
  • Sharing Affect
  • Emotional Contagion
• Inability to imitate
• Lack of typical play, including pretend play

Toddlers (18-36 Months)

• Does not respond to name, may appear deaf
• Does not point to indicate interest rather than to request
• Rarely directs others’ attention
• Poor affective reciprocity
• Lack of functional play; doesn’t play/use toys appropriately

Preschool Years (36-60 Months)

• Does not engage in pretend play (e.g., tea set)
• Lack of gesture use
• Does not perform simple actions with a doll
• Lack of integrated communicative efforts
• Poor imitation skills

Why Screen Past 5 Years of Age?

• Positive Symptoms Develop Later and Often Occur in Different Stages of Development
• Some severely-impaired, developmentally delayed children are misdiagnosed with autism in preschool years
• SES factors may influence early identification process (Desposito, 2002)
• Colorado has the lowest identification rate in the nation (Shattuck, 2001)
• Some mildly-impaired or high-functioning children are not identified in preschool years

School Years

Elementary years

• Poor social reciprocity
• Impaired social-emotional understanding
• Difficulty integrating nonverbal behaviors
• Poorly modulated gestures
• If verbal, language is disordered
• Restricted/repetitive play
• Insistence on sameness

Secondary years

• Impaired gestures
• Unusual prosody
• Failure to understand nonverbal behaviors of others
• For some, there is much improvement in symptom severity
• For others, there is more functional impairment around puberty

Disclaimer: Information contained herein is furnished for informational purposes only and is not an endorsement of any of the methods/approaches listed.