How old does the child have to be before you realize he/she is "special"? That is of course if they can't tell right away. I've heard of cases where parents couldn't tell their child was autistic until he was 2 years old! What would you look for to tell that the child has special needs?

A friend of mine has a son that is a couple months older than my own son, they were each others first friends. :) She was able to get a heads up early on, knowing that her husband had Asperger's Syndrome, and the doctor's had let them both know during the pregnancy that they had a high chance of having an autistic child.

Once he was born, there were no direct signs. I am pretty sure it shows up at many different stages, as there are a tremendous amount of different types of autism. If you look at the Wiki article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism#Diagnosis)for this, you can see how large the list truly is, and its not even complete you know. Its a hard thing to deal with.

For my friend, she has a child from a previous marriage (teen now), and her son will be 6 this coming Nov. He doesn't run around and bang his head against the wall or anything, as I said there are many different types. He does however show signs of being autistic, and sometimes its been really hard for her.

In the entire time I have known them, he has gone from a large "handful" to what doctors consider "Mild Autistic". If you watched him play though, I doubt you would really notice, with the treatment he has received, hes just like any other little boy. :)

We started to notice my middle niece acted different from her big sister at around 2 years (we didn't see her much back then). They came home for Christmas when she was about 2 years two months and we noticed she would act out, you would tell her that her behavior wasn't appropriate and she would ignore you and stand in front of the TV for the next hour without talking or she would randomly start yelling or babbling to herself in a scary manner. Of course my sister-in-law told us we were nuts, but we also told her ex-husband who agreed to get the kids tested. The oldest was then able to get help for forming letters (she writes left handed even though its awkward) and the youngest was able to help as well since she is mildly autistic. She's going to go to kindergarten next year and you'd never recognize her most days. She behaves wonderfully (if you make her) and doesn't act nutty in ways that would scare adults. But it took an objective eye to see, since their mom was with them all the time and had convinced herself this behavior was normal.

My youngest brother has signs of being an autistic child but he looks so normal. My father told me that when he had his first year birthday, he never even said any sound. My father thought that maybe he was delayed (me and my second brother started mumbling at 11 months). Then by next year, he can mumble but cannot pronounced any clear word. That is the time my father suspects that my brother is special.

It is really hard to know that a baby is a special child because when the baby will be delivered out into this world, all the physical aspects are complete and normal. You will only notice the difference mainly on speech then on the action after some years after birth.

I think many people are unsure how to react, weather its their child or someone they know. My older sister was diagnosed as dyslexic at an early age, and for some reason I don't know now, cant remember, I was at a slower pace that some in my class. I think a good bit of it had to do with when our mom was pregnant with us. So many people don't know the dangers of smoking and all that, I wish more people would educate about it, to learn, even if its not something that directly reflects in their life.

I think there are alot of signs to look out for, but it is better to try and research rather than just guess. There are many helpful clinics online and tons of support groups for parents of special needs children. I remember being picked on, kids can be really cruel, and I don't think anyone should have to go through that. If you can educate yourself, you stand a better change of learning how to take care of the child, the best way needed.