Do I discuss this sensitive topic with my friend or not?

[turtlelove]

Hi everyone (NC)

I have a friend who is staying with me temporarily at the moment. She has a young child.
Having observed them closely for a couple of months now, I have a reason to believe that her child (of older preschool age) may not be neurotypical. I am not a SEN practitioner by any means, but my own child was under observation by a paediatrician for the same reason for some time, and I educated myself widely on the topic. To summarise my concerns, her child seems to show strong (textbook really) signs for ASD. I assumed first that she is well aware of this, but now, some comments from her made me think she's not, and possibly not even aware of the existence of the condition itself.
We are not British, and childhood developmental issues are still a bit taboo in our culture (usually blamed on the mother doing something "wrong" during her pregnancy, or written off as bad or neglectful parenting). I absolutely do not want to stress her further, her current housing issues are totally bizarre and already putting her under an enormous pressure. She's a truly amazing mother, and I am afraid she'll just take it as a criticism of her parenting. I also might be wrong, as I said, I am not a professional. On the other hand, I do feel certain responsibility towards her child. On the third hand, the child will be starting formal schooling soon, and will certainly be assessed by professionals. Arrrgh.
At the moment I am leaning towards keeping quiet and minding my own business, but please do tell me if you think I am unreasonable.

My friend was in a similar position with her family.

Her 4 year old step neice showed signs of Asperger's.

The 4 year old was the youngest of 5 children and very much pampered, the whole family accepted her as she was and just thought she was a bit unique.

My friend suggested to the child's mum (her SIL) that some behaviours of the child were not typical. It's like SIL was too close to see it.

It put a seed of doubt into SIL who took her to the GP.

It led to the 4 year old being assessed and diagnosed with Asperger's. The family are now grateful that my friend had the courage to bring it up as it helped so much when she was diagnosed to receive the right support.

You're coming from a good place. I would suggest it as in saying "do you think X shows some signs of X?" And go from there.

Thank you @BumpInTheNite. I guess I am just trying to find excuses for my own cowardice - it just feels like I will be giving her a kick from a position of "superiority" in what is already a difficult life situation.

It's in how you handle it, I think.

My best friends niece is the same age as my DD. Literally from the moment I met her when she was 6 weeks old I could tell something was wrong, I cautiously asked my friend if the baby’s hearing had been checked because she didn’t react to sounds the way a neurotypical baby did (or like my baby did of the same age).

I met up with my friend’s sister a lot over the next 4 years for play dates and it became more and more obvious that her DD’s behaviour was different to other children of the same age, even more obvious when you observed my DD with her.
It became the elephant in the room and instead of noticing something was different with her DD she began to imply my child was a genius (she is a bright girl but more normal than anything) and eventually my friend’s sister began making snide remarks about my DD e.g. “Well of course she can write her own name, she’s a genius” but it was never said in a pleasant way and implied my child was a show off.

One day in the company of her sister (my best friend) my DD came over to show my a picture she’d coloured in and my friend glanced over to see her DD eating her crayon, removed from all the other children and facing towards a wall not interacting with anyone.
F’s sister made a snidey remark about my DD again (for doing something totally normal for a 4yo) and my friend looked at her sister in total shock and said “Have you taken niece to the GP yet? How long are you going to leave it, she’s 4!”

Turns out everyone else had noticed too and friend’s sister was in denial about there being anything different. She doesn’t talk to me very much anymore and friend says her relationship is strained with her sister at times.

Basically OP I very much doubt your friend is unaware there may be some SEN, she’s more likely to be in denial. Nobody likes to think of their child as being different or having something wrong with them, but pointing it out to her could cost you your friendship. If the child is at school / nursery then I doubt these behaviours haven’t already been picked up on