Characteristics a Child May Display with Autism

I recently had an article published on Associated Content about my son having autism. I wanted to do a follow-up and talk about the signs and symptoms, and what it was like for me before he was diagnosed with autism.

I gave birth to my son almost 10 years ago. He was a normal and healthy baby. As he grew older and began reaching 1 to 1 ½ years of age I began noticing some differences in him. He just seemed really rambunctious and there were days that I felt like pulling my hair out. Tyler would be into everything. I couldn't take an eye off of him for more than five minutes it seemed, without him being into something. I thought at first he was ADHD. Another thing that I began to notice about him was that he was not answering me when I would call his name. He would sit with this blank stare and act like I was not talking to him. I started to wonder if maybe he was hearing impaired. He also had a very hard time interacting with children and other adults. If we went to a social gathering Tyler would go crawl under the table and sit there, and that is where I would find him.

After this realization hit me that maybe he was deaf, I scheduled him for a doctor's appointment. His pediatrician set him up an appointment to have his hearing checked. Because Tyler was so young when having this done, he was about 3; I had to sit with him in a room. The room was set up to have all these different sounds coming from different sections of the room. If he looked at the part of the room, from where the sound was coming from, then chances were he was not hearing impaired. Now if anyone has ever had this test done the noises aren't that loud. When they started the test he would look at where the sounds were coming from but then started screaming and crying and holding his ears. The test had to be stopped. In the end it was discovered that he was not hearing impaired.