- Take a deep breath!
- Say a prayer and remember you can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens you.
- Discuss the signs you are seeing with someone you trust; your spouse, a friend and/or a family member.
The goal here is not to get an opinion from them but to ensure you are heard. This in itself will be
a big burden lifted off your shoulders. - Visit your child’s pediatrician and if you have not already, talk to them in details about
what you have observed. - Contact your state’s early intervention center and set up an appointment for your child.
They will set up a time and have their specialists observe your little one and provide
recommendations based on their observations.
For my daughter, once she was observed, they recommended OT (Occupational Therapy), DT
(Developmental Therapy) & ST (Speech Therapy).
Note that you do not need a recommendation from your child’s doctor to reach out to early
intervention. So just in the case your child’s doctor brushes everything you say aside which is
very common believe it or not, or mentions “your child is too young, let’s give it some more
time”, know that you can always reach out to early intervention yourself. - Early Intervention does not diagnose. If you need an actual diagnosis, you will need to
get one done officially but you will qualify for services right away. - In my experience, the wait to get an autism evaluation completed was going to take up to
a year. Do not let this scare you. There is so much that can be done during the wait
period. If there is a wait period.