Sep 8, 2026 · 39 min · 12 segments
Every parent has had that quiet 3am worry: is this normal, or should I be paying closer attention? Dr. Sara Khwaja is a Pediatrician at HealthBay who specialises in early growth and developmental…
Sara KhwajaGuestMary-AnneHostI can imagine Now, today we're talking about early child development and then kind of early autism awareness, essentially.
Now, my understanding of, and I think this is mostly British and I don't think it's done here as much, but neurodiverse awareness is something that typically we are told we're not allowed to label a child too early on in their life because they're still developing, they're still changing.
Right.
Which I don't necessarily think is the right approach.
I think if children are showing early signs of autism or learning difficulties or special needs, then parents need to be aware that it could be a possibility, mostly when it comes to actually parenting that child.
Because I've been around children with autism and...
They're very brilliant in their own ways, but they need to be parented in a different way.
And I think it's actually unfair on the child if the parent isn't aware and then has the chance to parent them in a way that suits the child more.
And again, it's not something that's normally noticed from birth.
So if we're talking about children who are developing autism, are children born with autism normally? Or is it something that develops within that first year of life? When do those signs start to come out?
So they are born with it, but it is difficult to pick them up in the first 12 months.
It's thought to be, the biggest contributory factor is thought to be genetics, not necessarily inherited genetics, but like a combination of you know, susceptibility, different genes interacting with the early brain development.
You know, they've stopped saying certain words or they've stopped pointing or stopped responding to their name.
Yeah, so first 12 months can be tricky, but this is why we have, you know, sequential visits for well checks, right? So during well checks, we are, as pediatricians, we're supposed to screen for autism, especially at the 18-month check, right? So there are standardized screening tools that can indicate well.
whether this child has some features and needs further evaluation or perhaps, as you said, parent training or some kind of professional intervention with therapists, right? So even if we don't see enough features or the child is too young for a label, for a diagnosis, that shouldn't stop us from putting a path forward for training therapists Little, little kids, they can't really bond very well with a therapist because they're very tiny.
So then the parents are the ones, you know, with the child most of the day and they need to be able to, as you said, you know, stimulate play and language and... figure out what motivates the child and get their development more on track.
So parent training is really vital and that's usually done by therapists, right? So speech therapists, behavioral therapists, occupational therapists, play therapists.
I can imagine Now, today we're talking about early child development and then kind of early autism awareness, essentially.
Now, my understanding of, and I think this is mostly British and I don't think it's done here as much, but neurodiverse awareness is something that typically we are told we're not allowed to label a child too early on in their life because they're still developing, they're still changing.
Right.
Which I don't necessarily think is the right approach.
I think if children are showing early signs of autism or learning difficulties or special needs, then parents need to be aware that it could be a possibility, mostly when it comes to actually parenting that child.
Because I've been around children with autism and...
They're very brilliant in their own ways, but they need to be parented in a different way.
And I think it's actually unfair on the child if the parent isn't aware and then has the chance to parent them in a way that suits the child more.
And again, it's not something that's normally noticed from birth.
So if we're talking about children who are developing autism, are children born with autism normally? Or is it something that develops within that first year of life? When do those signs start to come out?
So they are born with it, but it is difficult to pick them up in the first 12 months.
It's thought to be, the biggest contributory factor is thought to be genetics, not necessarily inherited genetics, but like a combination of you know, susceptibility, different genes interacting with the early brain development.
You know, they've stopped saying certain words or they've stopped pointing or stopped responding to their name.
Yeah, so first 12 months can be tricky, but this is why we have, you know, sequential visits for well checks, right? So during well checks, we are, as pediatricians, we're supposed to screen for autism, especially at the 18-month check, right? So there are standardized screening tools that can indicate well.
whether this child has some features and needs further evaluation or perhaps, as you said, parent training or some kind of professional intervention with therapists, right? So even if we don't see enough features or the child is too young for a label, for a diagnosis, that shouldn't stop us from putting a path forward for training therapists Little, little kids, they can't really bond very well with a therapist because they're very tiny.
So then the parents are the ones, you know, with the child most of the day and they need to be able to, as you said, you know, stimulate play and language and... figure out what motivates the child and get their development more on track.
So parent training is really vital and that's usually done by therapists, right? So speech therapists, behavioral therapists, occupational therapists, play therapists.
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