Is it autism or shyness?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We just started speech therapy and the therapist does not know for sure if it is ASD. But she says it is definetly a speech delay.
I wonder if an autistic child could also be shy?

Yes, an autistic child can be shy. Shyness is temperament not a diagnosis and not an indicator of anything but personality although extreme shyness (like extreme anything) can be an anxiety disorder.

So how would you differentiate between the two?

I am not the quoted PP, but I'm the one with the extremely shy ASD kid. I think the best way to describe the difference is this: A shy person will usually avoid contact with a person initially, but eventually he/she will "warm up" and recognize familiar people and at least tolerate and respond to interaction. This may take time, but it happens at some point. A person on the spectrum presenting with severe social anxiety will not even let familiar people in at times. They will avoid the social interaction with strangers at all cost and not respond to interaction or respond negatively, and this will happen even if they become more familiar with the stranger.

It took a while for my daughter to warm up to her therapist and she will still shut down whenever she feels it is too much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We just started speech therapy and the therapist does not know for sure if it is ASD. But she says it is definetly a speech delay.
I wonder if an autistic child could also be shy?

Yes, an autistic child can be shy. Shyness is temperament not a diagnosis and not an indicator of anything but personality although extreme shyness (like extreme anything) can be an anxiety disorder.

So how would you differentiate between the two?

I am not the quoted PP, but I'm the one with the extremely shy ASD kid. I think the best way to describe the difference is this: A shy person will usually avoid contact with a person initially, but eventually he/she will "warm up" and recognize familiar people and at least tolerate and respond to interaction. This may take time, but it happens at some point. A person on the spectrum presenting with severe social anxiety will not even let familiar people in at times. They will avoid the social interaction with strangers at all cost and not respond to interaction or respond negatively, and this will happen even if they become more familiar with the stranger.

It took a while for my daughter to warm up to her therapist and she will still shut down whenever she feels it is too much.

thanks. this is very helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 3rd child is verbal, but she would literally shut down any time a stranger (adult or peer) approached her or tried to interact with her. I kept thinking she was just painfully shy until I realized she never warmed up to most people, period. There were other things that led to her diagnosis: Fleeting eye contact, lack of pretend play, imaginative play, repetitive speech, repetitive play, restricted interests, rigidity. She's not my first to be diagnosed with autism, so around 26 months I realized that she too was on the spectrum. I would definitely get an evaluation done. It could well be just speech delays, but if you find a lot of behaviors that differ from the norm and it is pervasive, he might be on the spectrum. It's not unusual for a non-verbal child to be shy, as the child lacks the ability to interact, so either way I would have him checked out.

Would you mind giving specific examples of some of this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 3rd child is verbal, but she would literally shut down any time a stranger (adult or peer) approached her or tried to interact with her. I kept thinking she was just painfully shy until I realized she never warmed up to most people, period. There were other things that led to her diagnosis: Fleeting eye contact, lack of pretend play, imaginative play, repetitive speech, repetitive play, restricted interests, rigidity. She's not my first to be diagnosed with autism, so around 26 months I realized that she too was on the spectrum. I would definitely get an evaluation done. It could well be just speech delays, but if you find a lot of behaviors that differ from the norm and it is pervasive, he might be on the spectrum. It's not unusual for a non-verbal child to be shy, as the child lacks the ability to interact, so either way I would have him checked out.

Would you mind giving specific examples of some of this?

Sure: She would say the same phrase (usually scripted from her favorite TV show) over and over... whether I acknowledged it or not. Such as: "Look, it's a butterfly" (not pointing or even looking in my direction) or single words when she would see something... Those phrases always had the exact same intonation each time, even when I encouraged her to say them differently or with a different tone. Her intonation is flatter than it should be and it is often off and not appropriate. She echoes all the time. Never says yes. As far as play goes, she would always do the exact same thing with toys and they were not functional, such as open and close the doors on her little kitchen, even when I stepped in trying to engage in pretend play. She would bang items rather than stacking them (she's doing that now with the help of ABA), she would drop items (such as her favorite TV show characters) in a bucket, pour them out, put them back in in the exact same way over and over.

Her play is slowly evolving, but she has no interest in pretending something is a phone, or pretending there is lotion in a bottle. Will not imitate affectionate play with dolls or other things, does not pretend to cook or clean. She pretended to feed us for a little bit, but it was the same item (cookie or pizza) and she wanted us to make the same sound over and over... for weeks, even when I tried to steer toward engaging her in more back and forth.

She is not interested in books, and the very few she lets me read are the same ones and I have to read them in the same way each time.

She is on a bedtime routine (mainly because she has 2 older siblings with autism), and she is very rigid, if I leave out the smallest part, she becomes upset. She will say the exact same thing at the same time each night. It's like clockwork. She does not like changes to that routine at all, same goes for other things. She's not as rigid as my first, but that's because she's the 3rd child. So if we normally do dinner, bath, milk, book, bed, I cannot change any of that or she may not sleep for several more hours.

[Anonymous]

PP here one thing to add: if she was my first child I wouldn't have been as alarmed, I would likely have told people she is easy because she keeps to herself for the most part. It wouldn't have been until she is in school or daycare (she is in a nanny share) that it would have been clear that she is on the spectrum.

[Anonymous]

My two year old was extremely shy of anyone she didn't know. It took her literally weeks of near constant exposure to warm up to new people, and she hated having people come to our house, or going to people's houses. But she showed no developmental delays around people she knew, and was extremely talkative with them. By three, she had grown out of it. Still not the biggest social butterfly, but now she deals with unknown adults politely and is relatively outgoing to children. PP that suggested this indicates something wrong with the care child is receiving is incorrect -- it's just a personality thing for some kids. I have other kids that are the polar opposite. I would look at how the child interacts with people the child does know well in order to assess whether its shyness or ASD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My two year old was extremely shy of anyone she didn't know. It took her literally weeks of near constant exposure to warm up to new people, and she hated having people come to our house, or going to people's houses. But she showed no developmental delays around people she knew, and was extremely talkative with them. By three, she had grown out of it. Still not the biggest social butterfly, but now she deals with unknown adults politely and is relatively outgoing to children. PP that suggested this indicates something wrong with the care child is receiving is incorrect -- it's just a personality thing for some kids. I have other kids that are the polar opposite. I would look at how the child interacts with people the child does know well in order to assess whether its shyness or ASD.

I have a kid with ASD/Asperger's and trying to assess whether it's shyness or ASD by how he interacts with people the child knows well would not have worked. DS is great with adults in general and people he knows but would not engage with peers once he started school. He is not shy at all but would not engage with peers due to his social deficits. How a child interacts with people he knows is not always a good indicator of ASD depending on where on the spectrum the child falls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes he does respond to his name and will look at the person talking to him. If the other children are near adults he does not know, he will not approach them. He stays kind of frozen in company of stranger adults. Is nonverbal.

OP, if your kid is 26 months and non-verbal, please see a developmental pediatrician. You can call Kennedy Krieger or Children's and get on the wait list. Lots of things, not just autism, would cause the behavior that you're seeing. No one on the internet can diagnose your kid.

At a minimum, you'll probably need speech therapy. I'd call early intervention services for where you live and get the ball rolling with free speech therapy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My two year old was extremely shy of anyone she didn't know. It took her literally weeks of near constant exposure to warm up to new people, and she hated having people come to our house, or going to people's houses. But she showed no developmental delays around people she knew, and was extremely talkative with them. By three, she had grown out of it. Still not the biggest social butterfly, but now she deals with unknown adults politely and is relatively outgoing to children. PP that suggested this indicates something wrong with the care child is receiving is incorrect -- it's just a personality thing for some kids. I have other kids that are the polar opposite. I would look at how the child interacts with people the child does know well in order to assess whether its shyness or ASD.

I have a kid with ASD/Asperger's and trying to assess whether it's shyness or ASD by how he interacts with people the child knows well would not have worked. DS is great with adults in general and people he knows but would not engage with peers once he started school. He is not shy at all but would not engage with peers due to his social deficits. How a child interacts with people he knows is not always a good indicator of ASD depending on where on the spectrum the child falls.

NP. This is my AS child as well. Adults at my office find him quite personable, but with his own peers, particularly noticable at birthday parties, on the playground, in the lunchroom, he would be on the perimeter, digging in the dirt, not joining in, doing something odd and repetitive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes he does respond to his name and will look at the person talking to him. If the other children are near adults he does not know, he will not approach them. He stays kind of frozen in company of stranger adults. Is nonverbal.

OP, if your kid is 26 months and non-verbal, please see a developmental pediatrician. You can call Kennedy Krieger or Children's and get on the wait list. Lots of things, not just autism, would cause the behavior that you're seeing. No one on the internet can diagnose your kid.

At a minimum, you'll probably need speech therapy. I'd call early intervention services for where you live and get the ball rolling with free speech therapy.

What could those things be?

[Anonymous]

Mixed Expressive Receptive Language Disorder often looks like autism. Because the children have little receptive language but typical IQ they quickly figure out that something is off with them. Being "shy" is a form of protection.

Autism is a social communication disorder at its heart. MERLD is a language disorder. They are so close in appearance at young ages you need a professional to tell them apart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Mixed Expressive Receptive Language Disorder often looks like autism. Because the children have little receptive language but typical IQ they quickly figure out that something is off with them. Being "shy" is a form of protection.

Autism is a social communication disorder at its heart. MERLD is a language disorder. They are so close in appearance at young ages you need a professional to tell them apart.

It also could be social (pragmatic) communication disorder. Or auditory processing disorder, or ADHD. Or a combo. I would also go to an ENT and get his hear

OP, please see a developmental pediatrician. You really can't diagnose over the internet. Don't fear an autism diagnosis or any diagnosis really b/c the good thing is that there are lots of good therapist and school options if needed.

Just take it one day at a time.