It is important to look at a combination of the Early Symptoms of autism .What are the Early symptoms of Autism and how are the early symptoms of autism diagnosed? a question asked by many parents.

By detecting early symptoms of Autism as soon as possible, children can be treated.At the moment Autism is not usually diagnosed until the child is 24-36 months old. However at the Kennedy Krieger Institute Baltimore Maryland extensive research is being carried out to diagnose the early symptoms of autism.

I have tried to explain these early symptoms of autism in a way to enable parents to do a symptoms checklist.

It is by comparing the development of normal infants to those with autism that subtle differences can be shown. If we look at a six month old infant we would expect to see the child smiling and reacting to their parents presence. By the age of nine months the same child would reciprocate their parents smile.By the time the child reached one year old we would expect it to be babbling and pointing to objects that attracted it's attention.At sixteen months a child can usually use single words and by the age of 2 years should be able to use two word phrases.

If we compare these observations to the autistic child we find that at the age of 6 months the child does not smile or react when a parent is present. They seem unable to recognise familiar voices.By the age of nine months there is no emotion or reaction shown to parents smiling at the child.Usually at the age of one year the autistic child does not babble or seem to show interest in people or objects around them.There seems to be no interest in learning or simple tasks such as copying the movements of others eg. waving or clapping hands.

As the child gets older the signs and symptoms become more obvious.their inability to interact is displayed by the child's wish to play alone rather than with other children.They can become very destructive and seem unaware of dangers around them.Sometimes due to their inatentiveness it appears that they are deaf, when in reality they are just not reacting.

Other signs and symptoms include laughing and giggling inaproppriately,repeating single words or phrases in place of normal response, constantly,finger rapping and spinning toys rather than playing with them.

Autism is a spectrum disorder and is often referred to as ASD. We must remember that all children are individuals so whilst they may display signs and symptoms of autism they will not always be identical to other children with autism.

DIGESTIVE enzyme capsules can help treat gut problems associated with autism, according to some doctors, scientists and parents of autistic children. There are numerous foods that some children with autism are unable to eat for example dairy, eggs or grains - wheat, rye and oats which contain gluten. Eating these foods can trigger episodes of extreme aggression or self-harm,

A 2002 study by Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital found more than 50 per cent of autistic children appear to have gastrointestinal symptoms, food allergies, and maldigestion or malabsorption problems.

These problems seemed to be linked with the social, emotional and cognitive problems associated with autism.

The autism-gut link is a contentious concept, but those researchers, doctors and parents who believe in it agree that the most problematic foods for autistic people are those that contain the proteins casein - found in dairy foods - and gluten, which is found in many grains including wheat, rye, barley and oats, Whilst no conclusive tests have proved that this helps some parents are reporting that lp299v is a useful digestive aid. For more information go to

http://www.freewebs.com/lp299v/autismandlp299v.htm