The latest parenting guidelines published by the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that children be screened for autism at 18 months of age and 24 months of age, even if they do not have developmental delays. The goal of this recommendation is to reduce the impact of autism on children by facilitating early diagnosis and treatment through comprehensive early screening. Current academic opinion also tends to suggest that early screening can help children with autism and other psychiatric abnormalities to achieve a better prognosis. Symptoms of autism in children: A major symptom in detecting and diagnosing autism in children is a delay in the development of language function. Children with this disorder tend to begin speaking at a later age than normal children. In addition, there are symptoms that appear before the infant can speak, and these are precisely the things that are often overlooked by parents. Some of the early symptoms that can be detected by the time the infant is 1 week old include: 1. Inability to make eye contact with the parents and the inability to meet their eyes. 2. The infant’s inability to respond and answer when the parent calls his or her name. 3. Inability to recognize parental gestures and to respond normally to external stimuli. Some atypical symptoms include: 1. At 12 months of age, the infant is not mumbling or expressing some emotions. 2. At 16 months of age, the infant is not yet talking. 3. At 24 months of age, the infant is not yet able to say more than two words in a sentence. 4. At any age, there is no language or social functioning. In addition, when infants prefer flashlights, keys, and ballpoint pens to soft things like furry animal dolls or carpets, sometimes, it can suggest the possibility of developmental delays and autism. But one of the researchers, Dr. Plauche Johnson, points out that normal infants sometimes have this phenomenon, and flashlights, keys, and ballpoint pens get their attention more than animal dolls, so it’s not a very accurate criterion. However, infants with this abnormal tendency are more likely to have childhood autism. A professor of pediatrics at the University of Texas Medical Center commented on the guidelines, “While there are no symptoms that can definitively diagnose autism in children, it is these symptoms that can draw parents’ attention to better proactive prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.”