No finger following at 11 months
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Our son is 11 months old, and we are becoming increasingly concerned about some aspects of his development, especially around social communication.
One thing that worries us is that he does not follow pointing at all. At best, he sometimes looks at the finger itself, but not toward the referenced object. He also does not seem to do most socio-communicative gestures/behaviors for his age: no waving, no pointing himself, no showing us objects, and he also does not follow another person’s gaze.
On the other hand, he does raise his hands to be picked up, he imitates some ways of playing with toys when demonstrated, and he clearly expresses joy/pride when he accomplishes something.
We also wonder whether there could be some subtle motor issue. In general it is not very noticeable, but for example when we try to teach him to clap, he cannot seem to coordinate the movement and instead kind of flails his arms.
Otherwise, development seems mostly normal to us.
Gross motor seems on track: he crawls well, pulls to stand, and can stand unsupported. He is not walking yet.
Socially, aside from the concerns above, he otherwise smiles a lot, engages with us, and enjoys back-and-forth games.
Language-wise, he babbles a lot and produces many different sounds, but it does not yet really seem communicative/intended to convey meaning.
We became concerned as we saw that his peers around his age not only follow a point, but can point themselves. We did bring these concerns up with our pediatrician, but she was very reassuring and basically told us that things like finger-following are not really important milestones and did not think evaluation was warranted.
We are mainly trying to understand whether the above description raises meaningful developmental red flags, and whether we should push for evaluation/early intervention at this stage, or continue observing for now?