What are you actually seeing?
Ten questions about your child, written for the age they are right now. At the end you get a plain recommendation about what to do next — not a score, not a label, and nothing you have to sign up for.
Read this first
- This is not a test. It is not a medical screening instrument and it produces no diagnosis. Autism is diagnosed by qualified professionals who observe your child directly.
- It is not the M-CHAT. That’s a real, validated screening questionnaire your pediatrician may use, and it belongs with a clinician who can do the structured follow-up it requires. Here’s what it is and how it’s scored.
- Your answers stay here. Nothing you tap is sent to us. If you decide at the end that you want a call, you tell us your name and number then — and only that.
Step 1 of 4 · about two minutes
Why these questions, and not others
Most of what clinicians look at early on isn’t dramatic. It lives in small social moments: whether a child looks up when their name is called, whether they point at a dog just to make sure you saw the dog too, whether they bring you things for no reason except to share them. Those moments are called joint attention, and their absence is one of the earliest and most consistent things professionals notice.
That’s why the questions change with age. At two, the question is whether pointing and pretending have shown up. At six, those are long settled and the questions become about friendships that survive without an adult arranging them, about whether a joke lands, about what happens at 4pm when the effort of holding it together all day finally runs out.
One more thing worth saying plainly: none of these traits is bad. A deep interest is a gift. A child who notices every texture is noticing real things. The reason to get an evaluation isn’t that something is wrong with your child — it’s that a diagnosis is what unlocks support, and support is easier to get early than late.