My son is 3yrs old and was just diagnosed with ASD. We asked asked his speech therapist about getting him tested. Just because we saw flags. You can ask your pediatrician about autism clinics or specialist in the area. Your are the greatest advocate for your child. The younger you get him/her started in therapy and working with others if that's the wish of you and your doctor. Just know that they may not be close to home or if you do get an appointment it could take a while. Ours was 2 months wait to see the specialist.

Not sure where your located. In Ontario, specifically the GTA you could contact the Early Years Centers or Beyond Words your local community health providers can also help you with connecting you with your local specialists.

I can tell you from experience that it is tough for men in general to accept that there is something wrong with their child, and when you add a military situation to that it is often worse because of the military thought process. Plus on top of all of this Men just think they can fix anything and if they realize they cannot fix things they try to ignore them to try to deal with the feelings of not being able to fix things.

You cannot make anyone do anything they do not want to, but if you are going to try to push someone in the right direction you are going to want to start with the woman because she is going to be more apt to try. The problem you have is that if she is afraid to go against the strong military personality of the husband, it is going to be a battle.

I would try to explain that waiting does not do any good and the statistics show the earlier you get children help the better off they are as they get older.

You can get info from ASA or Autism speaks. But I would tread lightly, it's scary at the beginning.

You can't force anyone to accept a diagnosis and the peditrician should already be doing screenings any peditrician that refuses to do screening is strange because the m chat which is one of the major screenings before thirty months of age. If she has a concern about the child's development she could do a free assessment through your states birth to three program if you are in the us