Retrospective analysis of videotape recordings taken at 9 to 12 months of 11 children with autism, 10 with developmental disabilities, and 11 typically developing children found that nine behavioral items, in combination, discriminated the three groups 94 percent of the time. Results support early identification of autism and that infant…

The sequence of prelinguistic patterns in the infant and young child is described and explained to aid in identifying the nonverbal child's level of signal and symbol communication. Child-object and child-adult interactions are grouped into the following levels (with sample characteristic behaviors in parentheses): sensation (ceasing crying upon…