Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects communication, social interaction and behavior. The diagnosis of autism is called Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in the latest diagnostic classification system. At one end of this spectrum, there are severe cases accompanied by mental problems and neurological diseases, while at the other end there are cases with mildly affected language and interaction skills and different behavioral characteristics. Studies on the frequency of autistic spectrum disorders point to increasing rates. Efforts are being made to raise awareness for the early recognition and treatment of the disorder.
Early diagnosis of autism is closely related to both the increasing interest and experience of specialists working on this subject and the awareness of families. Since early diagnosis also provides early intervention, it positively affects the treatment process. In this process, the support and education given to the family is also very important. It is often difficult to diagnose autism in young children and it is necessary to evaluate the child many times in order to make a reliable diagnosis. Better recognition of early symptoms, close monitoring of the infant’s communication level and emotional attachment developmentally affect the prognosis positively. In order to evaluate the symptoms seen in the areas of language development, social interaction and behavior in children before the age of three in clinical evaluations, the developmental characteristics of this period and the early indication of the disorder should be known. For this evaluation, besides taking a detailed history and clinical examination, screening tests are also used.
List of autistic features in children younger than 36 months
*No rhythmic interaction with mutual speech sounds
*Less noise
*More than vocal material being interested in visual material
* Finding areas of interest that are very different from the stimuli that their peers play and/or show interest in
* Lack of mutual smiles required for social interaction
*Failure to make eye contact or face to face avoiding looking
* Having a sleep and eating disorder
* No greeting
* Serious facial expression
* Lack of clear attachment pattern
* Acquiring object permanence or fear of alienation later than their peers
* Inability to play imaginary
*Lack of joint attention
*Lack of fine motor skills
(980070) 2) *Relatively peer-to-peer development of gross motor development; However, toe walking, lack of fluent movement, and hypotonia are among the most common early symptoms.
