An acquaintance (friend of a friend) has a three and a half year old and has recently had a multidisciplinary assessment. The professionals have told her that her child is communicating and interacting like a nine month old and they are investigating a learning disability/autism. She is understandably shocked and distressed at this news.
Many of the people we know in common seem to have been very dismissive of the assessment both to her face and when speaking about it, with seemingly everyone having a story of a long-lost relatives who "chose" not to talk until they were at school. These late bloomers invariably all have Master's degrees and high earning jobs now 
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I am a Speech and Language Therapist and I know that there are "late bloomers". However, I also know that what this mum has been told is that her child is interacting and communicating like a baby when she is three and a half. I know that this is not good.
I am filled with a sort of rage when I hear these "reassuring" stories because they are so dismissive of the mum who wants to share her distress - although I don't see her regularly, I've come across her at a few Stay and Play sessions in recent weeks where she wants to talk to everyone about it and let it al out. I've watched these stories being told to shut her up, really. It is very disheartening?
Am I unreasonable to be so frustrated? To wish people could be reassuring without denying? After all, if someone has cancer, people might share stories of how someone recovered but they wouldn't endlessly tell stories about how a diagnosis was wrong, would they? Perhaps it's not the same thing?