Concern about friend's child

[worryingfriend]

Full disclosure, I've namechanged, I'm an early years practitioner and worked with the child in question for eighteen months. The child is now almost 5, a summer birthday and in reception. When he was at my preschool we had a few concerns about his emotional development and about his speech, but he was meeting his milestones just about so the SENCO determined there was nothing to worry about. I worked really hard with him and got to know him really well.

I'm friends with his mum now and see both of them often. Since leaving the preschool, the child's speech has got significantly worse. I can hardly understand a word he says. He also hates going to school and apparently often is hard to get out of the door. Potty training has been a real challenge for him also and he's still not always dry during the day.

I guess my question is, should I say something to my friend? It's mostly the speech issue that I've really noticed, it seems like he's gone backwards since I knew him. I don't want to worry my friend and I would have thought the school would have picked this up but whenever I've seen my friend and we've talked about how the child is getting on, there's been no mention of any problem in that area - while she talks about how supportive the school has been in getting the child comfortable, helping with toileting, etc.

Fully prepared to be called a nosy busybody etc which is maybe what I need to hear, just want some perspective. I can't emphasise enough how muddled the child's speech is. It appears that he has a good vocabulary, but he really is impossible to understand even knowing him quite well.

I might be out of line here but why did you befriend the mother of a child who was in your care in some form or another?

do you really think school haven’t flagged it if his speech is so unintelligible?

@wintermaiden fair question, she was on the preschool committee so we interacted often at work as colleagues while I cared for her child, we became friends outside of work after her child had left my care

Also, to be honest, it's not uncommon or breaking any rule for practitioners to be friends with former service users. In fact it's very common for former service users to want to keep in touch with the people who used to care for their children.

100 percent you should say something. Although to be honest now might not be the right time. Maybe she’ll notice herself when they are in lockdown?

I wish someone had suggested to us that Ds should be assessed. His reception teacher told us he was 'different' at his first ever parents evening. She didn't explain why or that we should look into getting him assessed, so we just plodded on through primary.

Unfortunately things started to go wrong when he started secondary. He was diagnosed with ASD in September last year aged 15. A late diagnosis has caused all sorts of issues, lack of support at school, mental health issues etc. I'm not sure why nobody flagged it up earlier.

Maybe you should approach it in more general terms like asking her how she is in the current climate/how she’s managing with schools being shut then if she says she’s struggling query if any further support or assessment has been offered?

I think sometimes people just don't have the frame of reference to know their child is behind in their development, that's why education workers are crucial.

Yes say something bit might as well.wait a few weeks now.

The child would have gone to school with reports from their previous setting. The new teacher has presumably had this unintelligible child in their care for 6 months. He will have been monitored and assessed by her/him. She doesn’t want to talk to you about it or she would have.