Been anxious because my 24 month kiddo is behind milestones and it’s making me think she may be autistic (vent)

TLDR: My kid is behind milestones and it’s making me freak out a bit.

So my wife (I’m dad) took her to doctor appointment and said that my second daughter (24 months) is behind on talking. According to my wife, our doctor referred her to speach therapy which we’re going for an assessment on Wednesday. As far as I know, autism was NOT mentionted (I wasn’t there). On a side note, my close friend just said his two year old was diagnosed as autistic very recently as well and now it’s on the brain.

For background I’m an RN and do home-health for special needs kids. Of course now I have to do a lot of home-research to see what signs and symptoms are. She was premature born by about 5 weeks. She did awesome in NICU though. They thought she’d been in there for 4 weeks but after 1-2 days, they took her of oxygen, and then she was out within 5 more days with great vitals.

\- She was meeting 1-year milestones quite well, she walked a bit late but by 18 months she was climbing everything. \- She doesn’t talk much at all, she got the first 5-6 words down pretty good but after that she just stopped repeating a lot of words she says. She can repeat some words after us but tends not to. \- She doesnt’ seem to point very much at all, I do see her point at things at books now and again. When she wants something on a counter, she just climbs up and grabs it or pushes a chair to reach it. \- She doesn’t really answer her name. \- Also she doesn’t seem to hold prolonged eye-contact. She’ll hold it for 1-3 seconds but then she’ll get absorbed by something else she sees. \- I don’t think I’ve seen her do any amount of stimming. She’ll spin in a cirlce once in a LONG while but nothing of waving her hands or rocking back and forth. \- She doesn’t seem upset by loud noises or by groups of people. \- Her playing does mimic some things she sees. She’ll grab a toy cell phone and hold it to her ear and I have seen her pretend to put her toys to bed once which was adorable. \- She’s completely fine playing by herself but I’ve seen her play with her older 4-yo sister on occaision. They’ll run and chase eachother a bit or do a bit of peek-a-boo and she’ll laugh and play with her sister for a good 15-20 minutes or so. \- She has about zero routines that she’s incredibly attached to. Nothing that makes her incredibly upset.

I’m definitely a thinker-type person, I can tend to get into my head a bit. I feel like no one can 100% with confidence say YES or NO that there isn’t an issue. I’m generally afraid that my kid is autistic and all the things I see with my pediatric patients at work is just going to be my life for the next 30 years.

Thank YOU for anyone who got this far! If you have any encouraging words of advice or nice thoughts to talk me off the ledge, everything is appreciated : )