 Hello everyone, I am Dr. Neeta Kejriwal. I am working as a consultant pediatrician in Manipal Hospital, Dwarka. Today I am going to address the parents. I am going to talk about a very important topic, a very common neurodevelopmental disorder that is autism. We commonly call it as autism spectrum disorder because the symptoms of these are different in different children. They are different in the same child and the symptoms are different in different point of time. So, why I am talking about this autism? Because we have seen a recent increase in incidence in autism, maybe because we are being more aware, we are recognizing it more and there are more diagnostic tools and it is very important that we recognize autism, we label the child as autism because there are early intervention therapy at home, school, at the therapy centers which can really help this child and can really improve the functional capacity of the child. So, there are some early signs which can tell us, which can guide us that the child might be at risk for autism, then we apply some diagnostic screening tools, then some diagnostic tools and the timely and early referral is very, very important. So, what happens when a child is born? We are bothered about the physical growth that is weight and height. We are bothered about the motor growth that is when the child has started sitting, standing, walking, running, etc. Then very important is the cognitive growth. So, the autism affects the cognitive part of the child. Cognitive growth means the learning, the social communication, expression, sharing, speech, emotions, all these things. So, these are very important to be functional in the society. So, what I want to tell the parents, the professionals, everyone that it is very important that we recognize the signs of autism early. All children should be screened at 18 to 24 months. Most of the time the children give us some pointers between 1 to 2 years that they might at high risk for autism. The red flag signs are like the social interaction starts right from the smile when the baby starts smiling at the mother and then there are gestures, the baby cries, the baby points towards things and then the nonverbal communication and then comes the verbal communication. Some of the red flag signs are the baby is not interacting, the baby is not smiling, the baby is not giving any nonverbal communication like no gestures, the baby is not responding to his name calling, the baby doesn't maintain eye contact. Then slowly the baby is not interested in back and forth conversation or back and forth play activity. The baby has no meaningful speech by one and a half year, not even a single word by one and a half year. Sometimes the baby repeats mama, mama, mama, the baby is telling mama to everyone so that's not a meaningful speech. It should be a meaningful speech. So this is there and then the baby is fixed to certain things like the baby is playing with a certain part of the toys. The baby is lining up toys, the baby is carrying the toy but not playing with it. Most of the time the children are playing alone, they are not interacting with other children, they are not interested in playing with other children. So all these signs point towards autism. They keep on repeating words, they have more sensory, you know they respond more to some sensory stimulus that means even for the small sound they get disturbed, they get scared. So all these things should be brought to the notice of the care provider, the primary pediatrician, the pediatrician can screen the child and then can refer timely to the developmental pediatrician, then you can be helped with a team of developmental pediatrician, occupational therapist, speech therapist and the child can really improve and lead a normal life in the society. So it's very important to recognize early and intervene early. So I urge all the parents to bring these concerns to us so that we can help your child.