"Don’t all toddlers do that?"

My son is about to turn 2.5 years old. I always thought of him as a pretty shy child but didn’t have some crazy worries beyond that.

Him being behind in his language development didn’t concern me either because he is trilingual and they say it’s normal for them to be a bit slower. He has a very good vocabulary (500+ words) BUT he still doesn’t say sentences, which is something that we brought up with his pediatrician often, but he said it’s normal due to the multiple languages, and him not being in preschool yet. We are actually starting preschool next week and the pediatrician said we’ll evaluate again next month because he expects school to speed up his language development. He actually recently started saying 2-3 words together in a row but it doesn’t sound like a sentence, it’s a bit staccato. Also his pronunciation is extremely baby-ish, basically only us parents understand him (example: nana for banana, dodo for yoghurt etc).

However, there are some more behaviours that I find slightly concerning. When I brought it up with my husband, he said this doesn’t strike him and don’t all toddlers do that?

Since the pediatrician said we’ll assess again in May, I thought maybe some of you could help me shed light on the issue. I have made a list of things that worry me, but also of "green flags". Did any of your kids show a similar pattern and then ended up getting an autism diagnosis?

🟢Green Flags🟢

• Good eye contact
• Seems concerned when other children cry / are upset
• Very sensitive to facial expressions, immediately notices and becomes upset when mum looks distressed/sad
• Points to share interest (eg airplane in the sky)
• Shows joint attention**,** brings objects to show parents
• Mimics a lot
• Responds to name
• Understands instructions
• Engages in pretend play (eg feeding teddy bear)
• Language awareness overall positive: good vocabulary, separates two active languages correctly (one-person-one-language), strong interest in learning new words, notices when parent uses the “wrong” language and corrects it, SOMETIMES describes situations with short word chains (e.g., "Mama stairs down")

🔴Red Flags🔴

• No consistent two-word sentences yet (mostly single words), speech sounds still “baby-like”
• Obsessed with certain objects such as vacuum cleaner or broom, in general loves tidying/cleaning tools
• Sometimes lines up toys, but not very frequently
• Sometimes collects objects in his hands and gets upset when they fall down, but again not something he does all the time or seems obsessed with
• Limited interest in other children and generally shy
• Scared of some loud noises
• Appears uncomfortable or scared in certain social settings (combination of: indoors + very loud/crowded + people he doesn’t know) for example a loud music class
• Frequent hair twirling
• Often plays with or focuses on irrelevant stuff (eg: dad tries to play basketball with him in the garden but he only wants to play with some irrelevant garden tool; or on the playground while he also plays normally, climbs, slides on the slide etc his attention is also often caught by some stones or some grass or something)
• He waves but only when actively prompted (could be due to shy nature though, he does it more with people he knows)