Limited interest in sharing or playing with others.Limited demonstration of emotions, eye contact, or gestures like waving or pointing.In very young children, the first characteristic of autism may include: Unusual interest in looking closely at objects, touching, smelling, or tasting objects.Strong interests in certain areas or objects.Insistence on specific routines/strong resistance to minor changes.Repeating behaviors like hand-flapping, rocking, jumping, or twirling.Differences in speech patterns (ex: saying the same things over and over in exactly the same way).Limited meaningful or functional communication.Differences using eye contact, gestures, facial expressions, and body language.

Differences with back-and-forth conversation.

Differences in interacting with other people and making or maintaining relationships.

See below for additional signs and characteristics. These characteristics typically appear early on in development (18 to 24 months), often before children enter grade school, but may not become fully noticeable until social demands increase (24 months to 6 years).

Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests or activities.

Differences in social interaction and communication.Core characteristics of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) include:

Flat affect autism