Babbling suggests to me that he'll start speaking late.

I strongly second the use of sign even with that fact.

Is there Speech Therapy in schools for anyone who needs them? That's what I'd gotten. It wasn't anything to do with any diagnoses, it was just that I was hard to understand and needed speech therapy so I got speech therapy at school. (But I'm in the US)

As for the autism idea - he is young for that diagnosis. but if he's particularly attached to you that doesn't necessarily rule it out. We tend to go to extremes - most autistic babies go to not really interacting with their parents much at all, but some of us go to wanting to be held constantly. I was in that later category. It's a thing to look into as he ages.

Mostly I was curious because how people will try to help someone with autism is different than someone without, but its still important to remember that we're people, and that we will always be autistic and that we can be happy like this. It's not a curse, even though it is a disability.