is this normal play for a 2.5 year old?

[bugsymalonemumof2]

So I dont feel like DD plays properly so before taking my concerns elsewhere i thought I would watch her and write down what she does..

Between 3pm and 7pm yesterday

she had happylsnd, football, cars, boxes, bags, a tent and her toy kitchen out. her train set, playmobil, babies, books and blocks were also in the room but on the shelves still.

• lined her cars up
• organised her boxes inside the tent
• put cars from box to boz
• threw her football several times

dinner

• put boxes inside the bags
• carries the bags around the lounge and bought them over to show me
• put her shoes on. put her shoes on her brother

bedtime routine started

She didnt once ask me to join in
She only once showed me something
Didnt once ask for help but when I offered she accepted

she didnt looj at any of the other stuff. If i Take away the boxes she might play with her toys in the sense she empties all of the storage tubs out. throws them around. she does do a little imaginative play but its very rigid. she always brings me tea and food from her kitchen. she always cleans her dolls bum, puts a clean nappy on and throws away the old one then puts baby to sleep. its very set, if that makes sense.

She only has about 30 words but i cant work out if she is playing right for 30 months

go with the flow and follow her interests in TV and boxes. You could count boxes, or have a little box and a big box, or put something "in" the box, or make the box "jump" etc. IME kids with receptive language delay need a different, more stilted almost way of teaching language.

NT means neuro typical - no autism ADHD etc etc.
ND means neuro diverse which could be ASD ADHD dyslexic etc etc

yes, the books/websites about autism can be useful for language delay and vice versa.

this is a good website for free Speech/Language info:-

www.superduperinc.com/Handouts/Handout.aspx

So you need to start helping her yourself now.

This ^^

Because nobody else will. DX or not. If it is ASD then you will sadly not get anything much on the NHS.

The SN board is a mine of knowledge for things you can do at home to help DD.

its not really the wait for a behavioir assessment more the wait to at least rule out hearing problems. she will be nearly three and if it is a hearing problem rather than ASD then it would be really beneficial to know that sooner rather than later!

Agree with the posters who say early intervention is important, research shows this can make a massive difference.

There is a lot you can do, especially in terms of speech and language. I know the waiting lists are frustrating but even if she was getting SALT imput now, they would probably only see her an hour a week so it's very limited what they can do. You are with her the majority of the time so have a read on what techniques to use and start that. The same with ASD early intervention techniques. Even if it turns out she doesn't have any issues, the things you do are still really helpful to NT children.

I interpret your query slightly differently.
Is that the ONLY way your child plays?

For other people saying that is normal pay, yes it is, as part of a wider range of play but if it's very restricted then it can be an indicator of something she needs help with.

At our assessment my dd was given a box of toys and was told to play while mummy chatted with dr. 5 minutes later she said 'finished' and had put them all neatly back in the box. We got a tick for that.

Also the repetitive play, is the script the same every time for the tea? Eg if you changed it, would that be a problem?
My dd was very like that at 3.

Speech fell off the charts, drs were talking special school, 2nd % receptive speech. (Better for expressive as she could repeat stuff back really well)

She's 7 now, mainstream, on target or above on everything, had a friend sleep over last night. Not saying she's out of the woods as that's a nice snapshot but not the full story iyswim.
We've had a fair bit of intervention, several hours a week for 4 years to get here.

But do proceed with assessments, and don't listen too much to well meaning friends and family saying 'that's normal' - it may be in isolation but it's the big picture that counts. I brought in a 6 page document categorised (by triad of impairments) of EVERYTHING I was worried about.
I think they dx'd me first

I recommend Hanen too. You can get a SALT to give you an intro to it then do it yourself at home.

MrKaplan had it spot on - the indicative thing is if it's the only way she plays and how she reacts if you try and change the play.

Also, things like if you pretended toy cars were food/drinks, and tried to play kitchens that way, what would she do/how would she react?

Would she ever get objects herself that weren't the right object to pretend with? So if you were somewhere with very few toys and playing a particular game, would she use another toy as a subsitute? What would she do if you used the wrong toy as a subsitute?

She knows very clearly in her mind what goes with what, like if we tidy up and i try and put something not kitchen related away in her kitchen she will take it out and put it where it should be.

She does certainly have 3 or 4 different ways of playing but they arent any different to how they were 6 months ago and she always does the same things with them.

the other thing I noticed recently is i bought a really simple orchard pairing game designed for 2+ but even if i i just lay out two pairs (so 4 cards in total) she wouldnt be able to show me which were the same. I dont know if she should be able to or not

th closest we got to using other objects was a remote for a phone! she cant do it with anything else but that kay just be a speech thing?

And the receptive and expressive speech thing can be difficult to unravel!

My ds had poor receptive speech - except it turns out he didn't he just had no interest in what we were saying!
Ds is expressive speech is poor too - except it isn't as such. He can talk for hours very clearly on his specialist chosen subjects but isn't interested in social chit chat and finds it hard to engage.

So for us what worked was teaching the rules of 2 way conversation and showing the benefits of communication to him.

So if he said 'drink' his needs were met. Photos are great for this and also signing too. They support verbal communication by giving a prompt.

You'll learn to love laminating! Laminate photos of a few things she likes/needs and teach her to use the photo to give you instead of dragging you to something. Repeat the word when she does. E.g. - if she gives you picture of drink say drink. You can build eventually to asking her "do you want a drink?" When she brings the picture and her being able to respond with yes. The idea is she works through asking for drink to forming a sentence such as "I want drink".

The other thing I got told was ignore forcing please and thankyou. They are just social niceties and irrelevant in the actual exchange and just add to more learning being required!

We found a lot of times dd didn't seem to be able to do something, it was actually a slight variation on how she was interpreting the situation eg:
So the test - build a tower of 7 blocks - she 'failed' - cos there were only 6 red blocks and she won't mix colours. Physically she had no issue with building.
Or point to all the animals except the cow. She would point to all the animals, pause, then the cow, cos she can't leave something unfinished. Result: lower receptive language score than was probably accurate.

Also they didn't use the word please which she usually needs to understand a request has been made and she is expected to respond in some way. Tiny subtleties. Huge difference in how people interpret her capabilities.
That said she STILL can't do even a basic jigsaw without help. Strange little gap where other puzzle stuff she's fine with.

So for your dd
She may not yet get the concept of same.
Or she may just not like moving the cards. or she didn't understand you wanted her to do something.

If it's the first one, there are a ton of free apps out there for the same/different thing. A good SALT will have some recommendations.
I'd probably start with pairing up all the cards nice and tidy lines and leaving one set wrong. Guaranteed to get my dd moving .

My son plays exactly in this way, only with cars though (lineing them up, putting them in a box then out etc etc all day long)
He was very behind on speach (but is getting better).
He never went through any sort of separation anxiety and will happily go of with anyone.
He doesnt like anyone near him,is quite voilent towards others.
He has been assessed and they are waiting untill he is in nursery as 2 is very very young to dx.
I have an autistic 10 year old who pressents totally different so no to are alike.

TRansporting. Sequencing. Organising. Enveloping. Kicking balls. All very normal schemas at this age. She's learning the basis for future play.

I found this series on TV fascinating. In this episode the little girl is being evaluated for Autism.

Sounds like normal play but why don't you maybe try and interact with her a bit more. She might not know how to play the kinds of games you think she should be playing. I always remember showing my son how I pretend the little people could talk to each other. He thought it was the funniest thing ever and we had to do it again and again and again! It's funny how we assume they will know how to do these things. Is her brother a baby? If so then maybe the interaction is what's needed for her speech?

Her brother is a baby.

she doesnt like playing with me, she perfers playing alone.

she goes to childminders 3 days a week and gets lots of interaction and play oppourtunities there too. they have said theres nothing obvious but i tend to find she copes better with smaller groups

i actually find the baby has helped as she only started playinf with her babies once he arrived and she saw what i do with him day in day out! before that she had no interest in babies

I have an outreach worker that I'm working with closely for behaviour management of DD and last week she brought with her picture cue cards as we tried reward charts but she couldnt get the concept of it at all.

I know this picture cards are a big resource for ASD but do NT often benefit from them too? or is this my support workers way of saying she thinks ASD too?