Ming explains that most speech delays aren't autism, even when kids avoid eye contact or don't respond to their name. Get a professional diagnosis instead of guessing, then start therapy to improve communication and behavior.
So you're thinking, oh no, my child doesn't look at me, isn't responding to their name, isn't talking yet, isn't using single words. Is it speech delay or is it autism? To be honest, speech and language delay cases has nothing to do with autism. Most of the time, if your child is around 2 to 3, it doesn't really matter, at least from therapy standpoint. Why I say this is because right now, if all you are doing is trying to find out the reason behind why your child is not talking, that's not the right question to ask. Find a professional who can do a diagnosis for a child. Do not guess yourself. Speech and language is very difficult for you to pinpoint these aspects and suddenly say, hey, this is going to be autism. This is not autism. Most of the time, the assessment takes a lot longer. What can you do right now to alleviate those symptoms? Teach them something to make it easier for you to interact with them at home so that they don't cry, they don't do all these disruptive behaviors, they start talking instead of getting into tantrums and so on.
