Is my daughter mildly autistic?

[emanuel]

My daughter is 3 years old, She can speak but has a limited vocabulary and struggles to form full sentences, she will simply state 'bread butter' or I want bread butter@ (and that is one of the few sentances she uses, she doesn't often talk, prefering to grunt replys and she tends to just babble when she plays with her toys.

She arranges her toys by matching them up and putting them in rows and does this quite often, although the rest of the time she will play normally for extended periods (mostly with her toy animals.)  
She will watch the same dvds over and over, all day if I let her and the rare occasions she decides to have a full conversation are usually when she repeats the dvd scripts to us and gets us to answer her with corresponding lines of script from the dvd.
She is a very fussy eater mostly eating just bread and butter grapes and sometimes bananas tuna chips or plain  pasta ( we have begun to give her bread and butter fortified with omega 3 in an attempt to boost her nutrition).
Often when she is absorbed in something (like watching dvds) she will refuse to respond or look me in the eye even when I put my nose to hers she will look past me at what she is concentrating on (although the rest of the time she is extremely affectionate and literally tries to sit on my head almost constantly when we are sat down together, whilst rubbing my hair and sucking her thumb.)
When not glued to her dvds she is extremely hyperactive.
She often gets distressed and screams at us to stop if we are in the car and one of us rocks or sways in time to music on the radio or try to sing along , although other than that she loves music and is not scared of noise.
She will spend hours behind the sofa trying to climb over the top of it - she refuses help in climbing over it and as soon as she manages to climb over , she slides back behind it again and starts the ritual again, she literally can spend a couple of hours doing this every other day.
Other than this she is a vivacious and engaging girl, not easily scared by people and loves animals,does she just have unusual habits or could she be mildly autistic?
I worry as she is due to start nursery soon and I don't believe she is at the developmental stages she should be at and will have trouble communicating with a teacher and pupils.

[BB321]

You can bring up your concerns to her pediatrician and ask for a referral for evaluation.  She may or may not be on the Autism spectrum, but only a professional team can decide for sure.  Either way, her limited language skills merit further evaluation and intervention before preschool.  

Good luck!

[mjthewriterdad]

I have a journal post on how to ask for an EEN evaluation for special education.  You are welcome to read it.  If she has some autism, it will show up in nursary school.  The staff should be able to recognize somethings wrong and make a refferal for an evaluation.  If she is evaluated as somewhere on the autistic spectrum, they can place her in a more appropriate school setting.