We started before anyone said autism
The specialist wait was nine months. The first steps — early intervention, hearing checks, one notebook — did not wait with us.
Editorial example — composite story written by ActNowASD, not a verified parent submission.
Our son was two when the paediatrician said the developmental paediatrics clinic had a nine-month wait. She was kind about it, and she meant it as reassurance: you are on the list, you are not forgotten. What she did not say, and what nobody said out loud for weeks, was that nine months is a long time in toddler years — and that the wait and the first steps are not the same thing.
We spent the first month refreshing the portal and comparing our child to every cousin on Facebook. That did not help. What did help was a friend who had been through the same wait telling us, bluntly, that we could start things now.
What we did that week
We called early intervention ourselves. In our state, a parent can refer a child under three without a doctor’s order. Nobody asked for a diagnosis — they asked what we were seeing at home.
We emailed the school district for a written evaluation request, even though he was not in school yet. They told us he was too young; we asked them to put that in writing. (They did not — they sent the forms.)
We booked hearing and vision. It felt almost insulting — of course his ears worked — but the paediatrician said some of what we were calling “not listening” might not be behavioural at all.
We started one notebook. Dates, short notes, one example per page: the meltdown at checkout, the way he covered his ears at story time, the week he stopped saying a word he had used for months. Not essays. Evidence.
What we wish we had known sooner
The wait is not a holding pattern. Services can run in parallel with the specialist appointment, and they do not make the eventual assessment less useful — they give the clinician history.
Cancellation lists are real. We asked to be on one at two clinics and got a slot four months earlier than the original date.
We also wish someone had told us to look after ourselves in small, boring ways: one night of sleep traded for research, one argument with a relative about “waiting and seeing.” The list moves whether we are kind to ourselves or not.
The settled guides for this phase
Our reference pages — kept up to date, sourced, and written for parents.