Autism or speech delay?

[jvg]

My 3.9 month old boy started showing signs of a disobedince at a day care gradually after he was moved to a 3-5 year olds classroom.
Most kids in his class can almost converse like adults (and was teased a lot by older kids and now seems anxious ina setting with kids his age or older unless he knows someone and
on a one to one basis he may imitate a kid his own age and play (only if he knows and likes  kid and he is quite picky) he will imitate but does not initiate play)
he is still trying to put together sentences that are somewhat getting clear but are not very conversational, he still is not into pretend play (but when I start saying I am driving a car, he does get excited and starts saying "driving a tractor, tractor in a farm"
He does not understand how to pedal a cycle but can run and jump fine. He is now after 2-3 attempts also able to hold a scissor and cut a paper (if I hold the paper). He can draw an oval or a rainbow with crayons (just started a few days ago)
He knows colors, uppercase letters (some lowercase as well), can write C, and can say numbers from 1-20 without prompting and up to even 70-80 (with prompting "thirty-one, forty-one, fifty-one"). He can count toys etc as well upto 10 easily.
He moved to a new school which has only 3 to 4 year olds and still appears to be not listening to tachers, does not like circle time, pulls hair or bites when upset...the teachers are saying that he needs a lot of attention and may have some neurologic issue and we need to get him assessed
Eye contact is not an issue at home but at school it is not there he likes to stay by himself (play dates work ok and we can convince him to share toys) and if he likes a child he seems to be happy if they are around at home and may even run around with them
He does make a lot of sounds like car sound, mixer sound, etc....but he somehow appears to think that that may make his speech clearer if his words are not enough
He appears to be very disturbed if I say "I'll cry" or keeps staring at a child who cries and saying "baby is crying, got boo-boo, give ice pack"
The teachers are hinting something about him being on autism spectrum, we are getting him evaluated, but every day and night (till we are able to get him evaluated) is appearing to be a nightmare and we are worried sick and perhaps in denial...is he autistic? PDD? OR does he have delay in speech comprehension? Would be very grateful for your response to this.

He's always liked to pull hair and still does not realize that it can hurt...but when told he seems to understand.

[venustiana]

The fact that you wrote this message tells me you are not in denial, overwhelmed yes. I would be worry too. It is good that you are getting him tested. There are so many things: autism, language delay, developmental delay, social delay etc, combination of few of them. It's hard to suggest things to do when you don't really know what the problem is. All I can say is take 1 day at a time, take a deep breath, be patient (I know is hard). When you get a diagnosis then you can start thinking about a plan of action. Also he is old enough to be tested by your school district, I'm almost positive he will qualify for special ed. They start teaching and training kids at 3yrs. old. Good lick, God bless.