Autism Spectrum Identification in Early Childhood Development (under 5's): Social Communication and Sensory Differences

This episode explores the Autism Spectrum in early childhood, with a focus on early identification, social attention and communication differences, and sensory processing. 

Learn practical strategies to support regulation and connection at home, plus tips for neurodivergent parenting, language variation, and getting referrals. 

A note: PDA is discussed as one context among others, but the core focus remains on understanding differences and supporting your child.

Key Takeaways:

• Autism Spectrum in early childhood presents with diverse social attention and communication patterns, including variations in eye contact, joint attention, and language development (spoken, non-speaking, echolalia, hyperlexia).
• Sensory differences drive behavior: textures, sounds, movement, water, and feeding sensitivities—understanding sensory processing leads to practical regulation strategies.
• Autism Meltdowns are signals of overwhelm; focus on co-regulation and predictable routines to reduce escalation and support regulation.
• Early identification and advocacy matter: use strength-based, neurodiversity-affirming language, document signs, and pursue referrals to access appropriate services.

🔗 RESOURCES MENTIONED:

Early Autism Identification Guide/Workbook

Explore these topics on your favorite player:

• ⚡ Regulation & Safety: Understand why PDA is a Nervous System Response here.
• 🗣️ PDA Foundations: Master the shift to Declarative Language & Safety here.
• 🏫 Education & Advocacy: Navigating masking and School Refusal here.
• 🧭 New to the Spectrum? Check out our latest episodes on the Autism Spectrum to find your path forward.

Transcript

Chantal Hewitt (00:00)

As a parent navigating the autism spectrum, you may have tons of questions and you're not sure where to look for the answers that will support you in understanding your child's needs and support you in how to advocate for them. Stick around because I am breaking down the three main areas that will help support you in identifying early autism traits within your young child

and exactly what you can do to increase your confidence as you advocate for them.

everyone, I'm Chantal. Not only have I been in your shoes as a parent navigating early signs of autism in my child,

I have also been supporting families in early childhood education, supporting teachers, supporting a community of parents for over a decade on how to support early autism diagnosis and not only how to support, but how to advocate fiercely for your child. Because here is the truth, the systems are not designed for supporting our neurodivergent children.

understanding autism, understanding PDA, pathological demand avoidance, understanding ADHD, in ways that look different from child to child. That is a generalization, I will say, because there are some incredible practitioners out there. However, we need to know which ones to trust, which ones are the best to support us, and ultimately how to support ourselves, because at the end of the day, we are the

biggest factor in our child's support. We need to be resourced. We need to be equipped. I plan on removing all of that societal noise for you.

Chantal Hewitt (02:16)
I created your own guidebook or workbook to understand early autism signs and how they show up in your individual child. Essentially what you can do is fill this out, work on it over a couple days, you can take some time, you could probably get through it in about an hour as well.

but what it will do is it will offer you a very clear indication on the traits that your child is showing you and how they align with autism in a neurodiversity affirming way and in a strength based way. also it is a tool that you can then print out and use and bring to your GP, to your doctor, to your pediatrician to help support a diagnosis or even a referral to a diagnosis.

I would link in the description below.

Okay, so there are three main areas that I look at and I will use the clinical language just so you have that. But also please know if I'm quoting something, it is most likely because I am not happy with that language, but I will use it because it is important that you understand what to say when you are advocating fiercely for your child and to support them in their needs. But I also will be commenting on

the strength-based language and the neurodiversity affirming language. So you will hear me say differences a lot because that is what it is. These are sensory differences, differences in social attention and communication, differences in play,

differences in behaviors that are unique to your child or to autistic children that have notoriously been seen as a deficit. So we are moving away from that, let's get right into this. I will first focus on social attention and communication because I think this shared interest

is a really big one and I find that between the ages of like one and two even nine, ten months and two years old it's quite easy to find what you're looking for if you know what you're looking for if that makes sense. Shared attention, joint attention,

Essentially what this is, is if your child is trying to share something with you, like share their interest, engage how you are responding to them, they might take this book and a neurotypical child or a non-autistic child would look at the book, look towards their caregiver, look back and kind of that back and forth reciprocal kind of serve and return.

However, an autistic child, typically will not do this. They may sometimes do it, but it is really important that if it does not seem natural, that you're not just pulling it going, ⁓ I saw them do it once or I saw them this, because it's actually going to do more harm than good when you're trying to identify if they are autistic. So for an autistic child, they may be pushing it towards you.

they may be keeping their eyes down at it instead of looking up at you. So it's that back and forth. That's what neurotypically they would be looking for when assessing for autism. So that's sharing their interest. They just share their interests differently. So it's okay that they're not looking directly into your eyes. It can be really uncomfortable for an autistic child, even an autistic person. It's even uncomfortable for me staring right at the camera, let alone...

looking towards somebody if they're in the same room as me so it is okay that your child isn't staring at you when they're trying to engage with you. It's not something that you need to force. So that is one area that joint attention. We also have things that come into play from quite a young age like social smiling, clapping, waving. So if you look towards your child and laugh

Perhaps you notice that they might laugh back at you or they might smile back at you. No tickling though. ⁓ So nothing physical to see if they are smiling towards you. And this one is tricky because your child will be different in how they communicate their feelings, their emotions, how they're feeling throughout the day. And it doesn't mean that it is wrong. It is just a difference and it is okay that it is a difference.

They may end up waving later on, but I would encourage you if it's been after a year, so after that 12-month point, notice if it's because they're observing other people who might be waving hello and goodbye and if it looks like it comes natural to them or if it doesn't.

Another area of that social attention and communication is that communication aspect. When we talk about speaking or non-speaking autistic children, it's quite commonly said verbal or non-verbal, I'm going to use speaking and non-speaking in this area, all communication is valid. In your child, it is a difference in communication that you might be seeing. I've seen children who are hyperlexic, which is they have this

insane ability to read from a very young age. They also are precocious language speakers. They might be gestalt language processors. So that's just a different way of communicating and understanding language. They may learn in scripts. You may have heard of echolalia where there's repetition, whether it's delayed. So if you said something like, look, there's a tree down the road and your child commented right after you.

Tree down the road, tree down the road. That is an example of immediate echolalia and delayed echolalia could be something that they've held on to. Maybe weeks, months go by and they still remember that phrase and it may not be used in context, but it is okay because it is how they are shaping their language and their communication with you and how that develops. So that's what you might see. You might see this big wide spectrum of really early language development and spoken words,

or you might see it take a little bit longer or there are a lot of situations with non-speaking autistic children where the communication does not come in the way that you might expect and that can be really challenging as a parent but there are other ways that support your child to communicate so please know that if your child is limited in their language right now like in their spoken language there

are other ways of communication that can really, really help them and help everyone within the family to support them and give them those best outcomes that I'm sure that you are after.

Another one that we, I think we hear of all the time is eye contact. So again, that's what that's shared attention. You might notice that sometimes your child makes eye contact. You also might notice that they look away quite often to process information, or maybe they're observing a really keen observer. If they don't directly look at you all of the time, that is okay. They don't need to. A lot of neurotypical children.

may also avoid eye contact. But if you're going, nah, most of the time my child makes eye contact or, mm, I'm trying to think. Sometimes they don't or sometimes, cause name response is another one as well, when they shift their attention. So you might also think, ⁓ sometimes they make eye contact. And yeah, most of the time, I guess they respond to their name. Just know, trust your gut. If you're questioning it and you're kind of leaning on, I can't answer that. Yes, they always will turn their head and respond when I'm calling.

my child's name, then perhaps that is a sign that you are seeing as well.

Pointing is another one. does your child follow point?

And when we talk about pointing, so if you're pointing to share interest with your child, they may not follow your point. They might just stare at your hand, your forearm or your finger, opposed to actually understanding that you are trying to show them something and that they're following that.

that could be something that indicates a difference

that's just a difference in how they're communicating

⁓

And sometimes I do hear a lot of families say, my child does point. And a lot of the times it's, it is really hard. It's hard to accept if you, and that's a whole other topic, the grieving of just not knowing what's happening with your child. And then also if you do think your child's autistic, how do you support them? It's really challenging. So many of our systems are based on deficit language, deficit

understanding, behavioral strategies or interventions or ABA therapy, things that were meant to have a child comply, irrespective of how it makes them feel inside. And it's really important that we know that and that we're attuned to that with our child because you might have a non-speaking autistic child who will struggle to communicate that with you.

or your speaking autistic child may also really struggle with communicating those feelings and those needs and they are so valid.

And I do just want to say that if you're going through this and you're going, I see this, I see this, I see this, but I don't see these things. That doesn't mean your child isn't autistic. Remember autism is a spectrum. It is a really big circle and there are so many different traits all around of what that spectrum looks like. And it will look different in your child compared to another child. Even if you have a few autistic children, I guarantee that

they're not going to be the same. There will be differences along that spectrum.

Another communication difference that you might notice is a difference in tone or pitch, often quite like a monotone or too high, too low. You might see that in an autistic child.

Okay, social attention and communication, that one is done. Now what we're going to do is we will move on to sensory differences. This is a big one. This is usually one of the first things that parents notice because a lot of autistic children, they're meltdowns or as parents may originally call them "tantrums" that has been quoted because meltdown is a more respectful term, within supporting autistic children within the autism community.

because it's actually referring to your neurology and It's not saying that the child or the autistic person is goal seeking. Like they don't have this ulterior motive to throw a tantrum because even a child who's throwing a tantrum is communicating something to you. I did just want to make that distinction.

So there are eight different senses that could be affecting how your child communicates and how they experience the world around them.

One of the most common ones are things like textures. like clothing, tags in clothing, the fabric of clothing, seams and socks. Anybody? That is a huge one. Probably one of the most common ones. But again, not all children feel that as well. It could be taste. It could be smell. It could be...

loud noises so if you see your child covering their ears that could be an indication that they are auditory sensitive. If you notice that they refuse a lot of food

that is also a big one Safe foods are a really important concept to understand. It is okay to offer things that you know that your child needs in order to eat. It is better that you create safety and trust in your relationship than to force them to eat a certain food that they could really be struggling to eat.

There's also the need for movement. So your child may need additional stimuli within their day. So you might notice lots of jumping, lots of spinning, tiptoe walking. And again, this isn't all the time. This is just, you might notice it. So it doesn't have to be all the time, but you might notice that there is a higher need and that once they have access to these things, like say a trampoline or I said trampoline as I stared at our trampoline in the lounge.

a trampoline if they are you notice that they're crashing into things or trying to jump off really high objects and really enjoying it they might love the swing or they might not so those are sensory seeking activities so your child may need more of those things in order to feel regulated

Another avoidance one that I didn't actually mention, which has just popped into my mind, water. If your child struggles in the bath with having water on their hair, like water in their eyes, water on their clothing, that is also a really common one. Also with messy play, some children love to get really messy, other ones really need to wash their hands right away. So that isn't them.

trying to be tricky, that is them actually not being okay with the feeling, perhaps, of what is happening. So just keep that in mind.

Okay, and now I would like to look at the third trait of autism that you might notice in your child. You may stereotypically hear things like hand flapping, lining up cars opposed to "playing normally". And if you are listening on the podcast, I have just quoted normally. All play is valid in children. Please know that. It doesn't need to look like reciprocal back and forth play.

A lot of the times children really enjoy solitary play and that is okay. They may really have an intense interest in something. My son, for example, there was dinosaurs for a little while. There was trains at one point and then sharks, like absolutely obsessed with marine life. It blows my mind. And also numbers. He's also very, very obsessed with numbers. And these interests, while the deficit approach would say that these are

restricted interests and like really intense, I think it's really amazing. So they have a different focus in their brain. They are monotropic and that is in comparison to polytropic, in a neurodivergent child, an autistic child, even someone who is ADHD

they most likely have a monotropic brain. So it's very tricky for them to shift attention when they are hyper-focused on something or intensely involved in what they are doing. So if you think if they have this intense interest and somebody pulls them away, that's really challenging. And a lot of the times that causes the "challenging behavior" or behavior that challenges parents or teachers that we see so often. There's also...

this desire for sameness or for routines to be upheld. And that predictability, it doesn't mean that your child is purposely trying to be inflexible. It is safe for them to understand what comes next and to sequence their day.

So with the play, you might notice your autistic child, they might love the process of play. They may love lining up cars. They may, you might even notice that you go in trying to play with them and try to like drive a car around and they might go, no, no, no, what are you doing? That is, you are interrupting my play. And you might have other people go, well, that's not play. You were just lining them up. That is their play.

And it is so important that we understand their play and that we, if they allow us, we absorb it with them. We allow them to invite us in if that's what they're really into. That is kind of the secret to connecting and playing with your autistic child is what is their interest? What is their main passion? And can you allow them to invite you into that? That's usually a really good cue that...

They feel really safe and that they're so happy to share that with you. If you haven't done that yet, if you're going, ⁓ I actually don't really connect with my child with their interest. I wonder if you could do that and just notice what happens when you do. I personally find it life changing, but that's just me. You might also notice that there's this rule following. So there is that rigidity that's maybe strict schedule following a timetable.

almost considered like social justice focused as well. Your "policing kids" or your ones that have to say, hey, they've broken this rule or they've done this wrong. That is also a trait that comes up as well.

so those are all my sticky notes of a lot of different things that come all over the spectrum of an autistic child, especially if you're identifying these early signs of a child. But to sum up, so these three things, differences in social attention and communication, sensory differences, whether they feel over or under stimulated by their sensory experiences, and then you'll see behaviors because of those things.

a lot of those behaviors parents find challenging, which is fair It's just about understanding what lies beneath the behavior. So that communication and then supporting your child through that. And then we have those intense interests, the deep focus and their style of play. So those things together are usually the biggest things that make up the autism spectrum.

It won't be everything that you may notice in your child. So if you are noticing something that I have not mentioned and you're wondering about it, comment below. Again, if you want my strength-based guide, which will support you in understanding if your child is showing early signs of autism, please look in the description and grab a copy. It will help with diagnosis and that pathway for referral as well.

And I did promise that we were going to have a quick chat about advocacy and how to be a fierce advocate.

Please keep in mind that a lot of professionals, are, they are, yes, there will be some sort of training there, I'm sure. Autism looks different in every child and sometimes they don't realize that.

Please know that you know your child more than anybody else. You need to fight for them because if you're not fighting for them, if you're not advocating for them, the doctor's not going to. Sorry if that was harsh but it is, honestly, it is the absolute truth. Within the guide there is a lot of language that you can literally use. it gives you

specifics of the traits that you're noticing. So then you don't even have to, I mean, you can do heaps of research, but you can go in and say, Hey, I filled this out. Have a look. This is exactly what I'm seeing. What do you think? And just make sure that they understand. You could even say, Hey, are you familiar with what autism looks like in a two year old? Are you familiar with the signs of autism in a seven year old female? That's another one.

females present so differently if they are autistic than their male counterparts. We're not going to get into that here, but please know if you are seeing any autistic signs in your child and you are wondering that they could be autistic, follow your gut, listen to what your body is telling you. If

things are getting really hard at home, that is probably a very clear indication that you are onto something. I also don't think that you would be making it all the way through if you didn't have some sort of concerns for how their differences are being supported in their day to day.

And a quick note from me, I am so happy to share that we have a growing wait list for raising PDA. This is my community that I started a few months ago and it is just incredible to be in that coaching space on a regular basis, have these group coaching calls, connect with members and just allow other mothers and fathers and just parents and carers who are

struggling right now to feel supported. If this is something that you're interested in learning more about, I also have my waitlist link. We open a new cohort at the end of March. This is a small group coaching community. Please check it out or email me if you have any questions at all. I would love to see you there if it is something that aligns with where you are right now.

Thanks so much for joining me this week on the Attuned Spectrum podcast. I'm Chantal and I'll see you next week.