What parents and pediatricians tend to look for at 18 months, at two, at three, and once a child is in school. None of this is a diagnosis, and no single item on this page means anything on its own.
Autistic children differ from each other enormously. Some of what follows will describe children who are not autistic, and plenty of autistic children will not show most of it. What clinicians look at is the overall pattern across social communication and behavior, over time, in more than one setting.
Read this as a guide to what is worth mentioning to someone, not as a scorecard.
The last one, losing skills that were already there, is worth raising with your pediatrician promptly regardless of anything else on this page.
Some children reach school before anything is formally raised, often children who speak fluently and do well academically. What surfaces instead is social: difficulty with unstructured time, friendships that are hard to sustain, exhaustion after a day of holding it together, anxiety, or a mismatch between how capable the child is and how much school is costing them.
Being identified later does not make the diagnosis less real or less useful. It usually means the child has been working very hard to compensate.
One, write it down. Specific moments are far more useful to a clinician than general impressions. A few notes on what you saw and when will make any evaluation better.
Two, get an actual evaluation. Screening tools and online checklists can flag concern, but none of them diagnose. A diagnosis requires structured clinical observation and a full developmental history, and it is the diagnosis, not the screener, that opens access to therapy and school supports.
Foyer evaluates children from 18 months through 10 years, virtually, in two to four weeks. See how it works or what it costs.
Clinically reviewed by Dr. Selena Levine, DO, board-certified pediatrician. This page is general information, not medical advice, and it is not a diagnosis.
A diagnosis can be reliable as early as 18 to 24 months in many children, and screening at 18 and 24 month well visits is standard pediatric practice. Some children, particularly those with fewer support needs, are not identified until school age when social demands increase.
No. Eye contact is one signal among many, it varies a great deal between autistic children, and plenty of autistic children make eye contact comfortably with familiar people. No single behavior confirms or rules out autism, which is why diagnosis requires a structured evaluation rather than a checklist.
No. Many children with speech or language delay are not autistic, and many autistic children speak on time or early. What tends to distinguish them is whether the social communication itself is affected: joint attention, gesturing, sharing interest, back and forth interaction. A speech delay in isolation is a reason to see someone, not a reason to assume a diagnosis.
Waiting is the one option with a real cost attached. Evaluation is not a commitment to a diagnosis, and a thorough evaluation that finds no autism is still a useful result, usually with recommendations attached. If something has been nagging at you, that instinct is worth acting on.
Three virtual visits, two to four weeks, a flat $1,499.