Hi all,
DD is 4 with a Dx of autism. She is doing very well and had no speech delay as such (more speech differences: e.g. reversed pronouns and not asking for things she wanted). Her issues are mainly social communication and associated anxiety (not too much sensory: though I think she has some proprioception and interoception issues).
DS is 18 months and doing so many of the things that DD wasn't doing ("red flags" though we didn't know they were at the time). In particular he points at everything - at things he wants and things he wants to draw our attention to. He points at things many many times a day (whereas I'm not sure DD had ever pointed at this age). He is into everything - emptying out boxes, getting things to stand on so he can reach what he wants, exploring hidden places - all things DD never really did. He seems happier to play with other children his age than DD was too - e.g. will point things out to them and doesn't mind getting stuck in and taking something away from another child or giving something to them (whereas DD would always try to find her own space to play at that age - and at most would watch other children playing, but not try to join in).
However, on the other side, he still only has maybe 5-6 words and they are very indistinct. Quite an odd bunch. He has words for "bird", "squirrel", "poo" and "fish" but doesn't say Mama or Dada yet. He has good understanding of instructions (e.g. he will go and get into his chair or get his shoes and try to put them on if you ask him to). But whereas DD at his age could point to probably hundreds of things accurately in a book ("where's the cat?" or whatever) DS is patchy at best in his ability (or motivation?) to do that.
Given DD's diagnosis I'm obviously thinking that he could be autistic too, given his speech is behind. But he is so different to DD, and is doing well in areas that we were told were "red flags" for her, that I'm just not sure. Do you think it would be a good time to take him to an SLT - or is it worth giving it a few more months to see how he gets on?
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Speech delay with autistic sibling?
9 replies
LightTripper · 20/09/2018 10:00
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