Pronoun reversal at 2.5

Ah, it's so easy to worry about things. I'm haven't heard about it being a trait of autism but my DS is now 13 and DD is 4 and both are NT (as far as we know with DD at only 4 but showing no traits). DS is doing well at secondary school and is popular and academic, if that helps at all to know how it turned out 10 years on.

I always thought it made sense for them to do this reversal as I'd call DS "you" and call myself "me" and he was just doing the same.

This is the cutest thing I have read all year 😍

Oh is this tip toes walking woman?

It was an early sign of autism for my child. But I think they carried on saying “can you give it to you” meaning them at 3+ years.

DS did have targeted SALT intervention to support with his use of pronouns, but that was much later at around 4.

At 2.5 he was using minimal single words to make the point, mainly verbs and nouns. There was a lot of pointing and grunting. I flagged it with the HVs and at that point he was on the low end of normal range. It was a year later before he slipped in progress enough for intervention.
He was a deeply frustrated toddler who melted down regularly and this persisted.

At 6 when he was signed off from SALT he was talking very articulately and the SALT therapist was astonished at the rate of progress from his base level at referral.

So important it had to be said twice🤣

Very normal part of language development at that age.

Don't over correct her as she won't remember yet and doesn't understand the correct grammar.

There's loads they do at that age but they do grow out of it.

'Me' is very common instead of 'I' e.g. 'me got the bricks', 'me can do it'.

My son used to say 'I can do it by my own self' 😂

Oh it's you again......
You have been told time and time again your chold appears to be developing normally.

Oh it's you again......
You have been told time and time again your chold appears to be developing normally.

Yes this is what we always did - I think it makes much more sense to a child as the 'labels' stay the same rather than changing depending on who's speaking or hearing the same label apply to different people.

My DC went from “My do it” about getting dressed and putting shoes on to, “I am doing it by myself” quite quickly, with no correction. “My do it” was much cuter.

I’m an autism specialist and it isn’t a trait of autism.

It CAN be a sign of autism but that would be at an older age and with various other traits - social communication deficits, restrictive and repetitive behaviours and speech and language difficulties. My almost 7yo DD has an ASD diagnosis and regularly still mixes up pronouns (among many other speech issues.)

My 3.5 yo DD who is NT has much more articulate speech than eldest DD and doesn’t mix up pronouns now but certainly would have a year ago - this is absolutely a normal part of speech development and unless you have various other concerns is not an issue.

Yes, my son is now eight and has to remind me to stop because it’s “total cringe” ha ha.

@Babymad1234 have you tried speaking in this way?
So you say “Can Clara give the shoes to Mummy?” Instead of “Can you give the shoes to me?

or “Mummy is taking Clara to the park today”.

Basically always talk in the third person.

It’s really really common, I see it a lot in my job (speech therapy). It is quite a confusing situation really as you will say ‘I’m giving you the toy’ and they think that they are ‘you’ and you are ‘I’ because that’s what you said.
You can try using names instead. ‘Mummy is giving the toy to you’, ‘I’m giving the toy to Sarah’.
And just modelling the correct information also will help. But she’s very young.
it ‘can’ be a sign of something like autism. But not on its own, and definitely not at 2.5.

This is one of the few cases where it’s hard to model correctly because the ‘you’ and ‘I’ swap. Unless maybe you’ve another person so the child can observe you addressing each other.

As others have said, it’s entirely normal. That’s why parents commonly, without even really thinking about it use ‘motherese’ with toddlers - referring to their child by name and themself as mummy or daddy.

It sounds like she may be a gestalt language processor, I would look into this. Nothing to worry about as it’s just a different way of learning language.

This would be true in much older children though. I would not be concerned at 2.5. At 3.5 I would want to monitor it and by 4.5/5, it could form part of a bigger picture that could suggests autism. But it’s a natural stage of language acquisition that is perfectly normal at 2.5.

Who is giving you this information?

As you can see from these posts, this is normal for her age. Please stop correcting her, it'll disappear soon enough so enjoy the cuteness while it lasts!

One of my DDs did this too, and for quite a while, but grew out of it naturally by the time she started school. I don’t remember anyone commenting on it particularly and she’s not autistic (in her 20s now).

On the other hand, my autistic DD was very accurate and precise with pronouns (and grammar generally) right from when she started to talk.

Not another thread about pronouns

I think it’s totally normal - don’t worry. I’m just thinking back and remembering that I used to refer to myself a lot in the third person, I think to avoid the confusion and I’m sure I read that using “I” confuses young children - so I’d often say “shall mummy help you?” or “now it’s mummy’s turn” or whatever. It’s a hard habit to break and occasionally I do it now still 🤣

I’m not an expert on autism although have taught several children diagnosed with autism, and i do think there is such a wide variety of possible autistic traits that are also young children traits, especially at toddler age!

You and I are as difficult a concept as “yours” and “mine” and I found the latter really hard to teach and my DS took a while to get it. He did just naturally get it after a few months.