It's no different than a photoperiod except for the 1 trait of 'automatically' going into flower without a long dark cycle.
So, if you see preflowers, it's probably been in flower for 7-10 days or more depending on how developed they are, which these look closer to 10 days than 7. Treat it as you would any marijuana plant 1-week into flower.
A lot of the rhetoric about autoflowers is misguided or plain wrong. they are just plants. nothing magical about them. MAybe, with such a short, forced vege phase, they are less robust to poor feeding procedures? More likely, people should treat their photoperiods like their autoflowers in that regard, lol.