My son had another ear infection so took him to the doctor and whilst there I asked for a referral to see someone about his hearing and also a referral to a speech pathologist, because I am a little worried about his speech. He can say whole sentences and express himself well, but it is a little slurred and words are incomplete- example he will say cay instead of cake or lun instead of lunch. He will be three in 3 or so months. Then the GP flat out asked if I ever considered my son to have autism... I was stunned, because no I never did. He gets along with children well, even just before logging on here, he was pretending to make food with play dough and coming up to me and his older brother to see if we would pretend to eat his food. He loves being read to even joining in with his own analysis of what he sees from the pictures. He does have his quirks and some of those things are he needs to hold my hand before entering a room he is not always familiar with, he needs to put objects away before getting out another, he may throw a tantrum if he does not do things his way or if I try and do it when he can do it himself- but not all the time, he likes to make himself cross eyed by slowly moving his finger to his nose... But I never saw these things as anything more than quirks. When the GP started talking to me about autism and the new way of defining it, it just threw me off and looking at videos on youtube and reading about it, I am second guessing myself as a parent and everything else. I have booked in to see a pediatrician in a few weeks but until then I can't seem to settle myself. After a week I just cried myself stupid yesterday. I'm scared and anxious. I feel the dr's analysis of my son is wrong, I really do because I have seen him at preschool and I have seen him with his cousins and with people he is really good. But the online information is just getting to me and I can't stop this overwhelming buzz inside of me that is right now taking over.