In thinking there probably is something not quite right with how ds is developing

[Worriedaboutitallstill]

I’ve posted here to get a range of views, as to be honest I think it will help to get it out anyway.

DS was 2 in December. For the first year he seemed to be developing ‘normally’, he hit all his milestones, no concerns raised by nursery (he started at nine months) or HV (she did a check at 10.5. Months but we haven’t seen or heard from her since.) I’m explaining that because she hasn’t seen ds at all in a year and a half so probably isn’t the best person to ask.

The first thing I noticed that made me a bit concerned was that I went to a first birthday party with a group of toddlers the same age and all were pointing at things, ds wasn’t, I should add here that ds was smiling, engaging, laughing, just wasn’t pointing. Mentioned this to dh who said not to worry, he was fine. Im not sure when he was pointing regularly but he definitely was at around 19 months maybe? He still does and makes a sort of ‘uh’ sound.

So the next thing I noticed was aggression, a friend visited when our children were both 16 months and ds was awful. Every time her child picked up a toy ds would snatch it from her, he pushed her, he wouldn’t let her look at anything. I also noticed that she was way more advanced than ds. My friend read a book to her dd and she was able to point out the different animals and so on. I thought maybe I hadn’t done enough with ds, I’d read with him but hadn’t said look at the rabbit, there’s a bee. I started doing that and making animal sounds. I think he picked these up again maybe a few months later, at around 20 months.

Also started getting reports from nursery about aggression, specifically biting. Utterly mortifying, but nursery reassured me it was normal. It did taper off, I still get the odd report now but it is occasional whereas before it was nearly every day.

He has lots of words but doesn’t put them together and I never feel we are having a ‘conversation’, maybe that’s normal for this age. He’ll just say things like daddy, car, socks. Still shows aggression to children, lots of pushing. If I say no sternly he cries but then goes back and does the same thing. He regularly just completely ignores me, other times he engages with me but deliberately disobeys, I feel this is more normal somehow, like if I say ds please don’t pull the curtain he’ll grin and pull it some more. If I have to physically stop him doing something or take him away he goes wild and thrashes around manically. He used to attack me sometimes, which was horrible, he’d grab the skin on my face or neck and twist it or yank my hair.

So - my worries are that he seems much later to do some things than other children (pointing, identifying things) and how aggressive he can be, mostly. I know people always look at the parent and let’s face it the mother and I am so upset to think something I have done or not done has led to this. I’m really worried about him not having friends because of how he is and I veer between thinking he’s fine, it’s all normal, he’s fine but maybe I’m not and I need to improve my parenting, and thinking maybe he is ND in some way.

Nursery did do a report recently as he moved up a room a couple of months ago, they did note that he struggled with his emotions sometimes but also said no concerns re development. But nursery don’t know everything? I wish I knew.

I would look at having his ears checked again. Hearing problems can lead to behaviour issues due to frustration.

Best of luck.

Ah thank you everyone. I probably have been a bit worst case scenario above. I do fret and worry. And it’s so hard not to blame yourself: too much screentime, not enough chat, have I read to him enough, do I engage with him enough? And the huge variation in others is normal but also can worry you as you think yours is fine and then …

He can say a lot but he can be lazy and point and ‘uh’ rather than saying what he wants so I’m trying to encourage him to say the word. Also trying to encourage verbalising feelings but I think this is a skill even much older children struggle with and so I’m really just modelling.

OP, your son may be autistic or not, but I'd recommend getting on the assessment pathway as soon a possible, because if he does get a diagnosis at some point that will entitle him to a range of benefits and resources, and the sooner the better for that.

In the meantime can I please, please request that people reflect on the language that they use around autism and ASC. Autism is a difference not a disease and the language of red flags and abnormality is not ok. A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself whether you'd use the same language for other traits that are "difference but not disease". If someone said that they thought their son was gay, would you tell them not to worry because he'll probably turn out normal? Would you refer to "red flags for homosexuality"? I hope not.

This point is not aimed at the OP's concerns about her son's aggression, which is indeed a concern. But it's important to distinguish between autism as a trait and the undesirable behaviors that can sometimes be associated with it. After all, some undesirable behaviours (lying, manipulation) are strongly associated with neurotypicality, but we don't pathologize neurotypicality as a result of this. If the OP had posted with concerns about lying, others would (rightly) suggest ways to address the behavior, not speculate on whether her kid might "end up" being neurotypical, and reassure her that he probably wasn't.

Wonder if he could have any pain in ear. Also, he could just be like my DS a kid who can't stand the overwhelm and pressure of busy groups, too much going on etc. Sounds like speech is slightly delayed which can cause frustration. I definitely wouldn't encourage cuddles for physical contact. If he's pushing in frustration as a way of saying 'no' then try to teach him to be less hands on. It sounds like he needs to learn about boundaries and kind hands & feet. You need to show him how much pressure to use by doing excercies with bare hands & feet and reinforce when pressure is low, it's a kind hand or foot. Can you show him a thumbs up or down gesture to try instead of trying to speak, if he's not at that stage yet.

@Twofoursixeight the last thing I would ever wish to do is to sound as if I am being unpleasant about those with autism. But I do think it’s romanticised a bit on here. I love DS so much and nothing will change that.

But I know two people pretty well, both with autism, both high functioning.

The first - it’s just sad, no other word for it. He lives alone, is incredibly vulnerable to scams and to vultures generally, can’t keep the house in any sort of order, can’t keep himself in any sort of order (won’t bath or shower) alienates people with behaviour they deem strange, talks too loudly, doesn’t understand social niceties. I can list a thousand examples big and small of this but if I give you just one - lost all his friends in one swoop by making a highly inappropriate joke in a group setting.

Person 2 is a colleague and although she is married with a child (who also has autism!) is another one who loses friends and is constantly in trouble due to not knowing social cues or boundaries. So quizzing a childless colleague in a way that could be deemed aggressive about why she didn’t have children is an example.

Autism isn’t a disease. But equally I do think (and this is not aimed at you and please don’t think it is ) MN hugely minimises what it can do to a person and their family, there are a lot of posters on here at the moment claiming to have autism and I am sure some of them do. But I do think that a lot of the dialogue about autism has been taken over by exceptionally confident and articulate people with autism who want to decide how others can and should feel about it.

The thing is @NurseCranesRolodex he isn’t non verbal, far from it. He has quite a lot of words - not as many as some toddlers true but I’d hazard a guess at maybe 200. And new ones are coming all the time and he can communicate his needs (if ‘stuck’ ‘poo’ ‘wet’ ‘more’ can be said to be this!)

But with recent pushing cases it’s literally been nothing - kids he does actually like - or used to anyway, was hugging them a couple of weeks ago. Literally just THERE

He is still a young 2 year old. Nothing you describe sounds necessarily out for the ordinary. Children's rates of development vary massively. I'll bet you are comparing him with the more advanced children and ignoring others!

I was once in a swimming changing room and could hear a child behind me talking articulately in full sentences. When I turned round, I recognised the family and realised the child was 2 - the mother and I then talked about how very advanced she was for her age.

Until one of mine was a few months off 3, she only ever used two words at a time. I got a referral to a speech and language therapist who pointed out how good she was at making her needs known to me, via non verbal means. She told me not to worry and by the time she was 3, her speech had moved on out of all recognition- full sentences etc. So can he communicate with you? My dd could also be aggressive, due to frustration. It's normal at age 2. I don't know about the pointing, so can't help there.

I think he’s 2 and you’re massively overthinking!

YANBU The violence is worrying. As others have suggested perhaps he needs speech therapy so he can communicate his needs effectively as the violence may be out of frustration.
Have you tried the "naughty step" as a way of disciplining him? As he's 2 it's a good time to give it a try. We did it with ours and found it surprisingly effective.

Posted too soon. We ignored all guidance because I work with young children and know how differently children develop. One of my sons didn’t speak coherently until 4 years old! And he’s now by far the most academically and socially intelligent of my children (they all have their strengths but I’m just pointing this out not to compare them but to show how any concerns were a waste of time) - no concerns about him now at all - he was just a late starter because he was busy taking it all in.

Not necessarily anything unusual there - 2 year olds can get aggressive and it can seem to come on suddenly, because anything can be sudden when they're still very small. He's too young to have a normal baseline of behaviour to make this a concern, I'd say.

At his age he does not understand what you're saying about the curtains. It's not deliberate disobedience. At best he understands 'curtain'. You need to move him away to show him what you mean and start to help him understand the word no. I see no red flags here but keep on reading lots and talking lots to him. But do simplify your language.

I had a hitter / pusher at that age OP. He's now a kind, gentle 13yo boy. It was just a phase (a really stressful one).

In some areas you can self refer but you may need a referral from the GP or health visitor. Maybe call the HV next week and ask how to get a hearing test and speech referral?

The bulk of first words tend to be largely nouns anyway so that wouldn't worry me.

First thing you're going to need to do because it will come up on every single referral form is get his hearing checked out - if he's had persistent infections and gunked up ears, it's quite likely to have knocked out huge chunks of what spoken language he's heard and certain frequencies of speech sounds that will need time to catch up. And yes, he's peak "awkward" age for getting it done as all the audiologists are likely to tell you!

He's still a very "young" two really and it does sound like he's pointing to request stuff along with his "uh" vocalisations so in that regard I wouldn't be worrying too much right now - if you're still concerned though, jump through the early intervention hoops and waiting lists to get as far up waiting lists for SALT as you can do as early as you can (paediatric SLT is a fucking mess right now - I have friends with caseloads of 150!). Two year olds are tiny little illogical beings at the best of times!

And even if he HAS autism - it changes nothing about him as a little person at all and it's not the be all and end all of it all... DD2 has an autism diagnosis and I'm an autistic SALT myself (I don't work with kids myself but obviously we trained for both paeds and adults).

Oh and when I say first words tend to be nouns... I'm not including DD2 whose first one was "Let it go" as she was a toddler during peak Frozen!

It sounds like it could all be within the normal range. Boys often develop later than girls, and aggression and not being able to manage emotions is very normal for toddlers, especially while they're not yet talking. I wouldn't worry just yet.

My grandchild - now 2 and a half - is being assessed for autism and is having help to assist him with communication/speaking.

The feeling is that he did not really understand a lot of what was being said to him -leading to frustration all round - and that keeping language very very simple and repetitive was a better way of getting him to understand boundaries.

Oh he definitely knows what you mean if you say not to do something! But then ignores.

Maybe I should be distracting except you honestly can’t - plus you do react in the moment as it were and if he’s going for another child the instinct is to get him to stop. I don’t think naughty step would work; even if he complied with it he wouldn’t understand why he was there or anything like that. I mean, I’m not sure how bothered he even is about praise, although I do praise good behaviour which is fairness is frequent too.

I also know two autistic people very well as they are my children. The older one is "high needs", the other is probably less so, but he's young so it's hard to say. I may be on the spectrum in some ways myself, but am not diagnosed.

I stand by my plea to abandon the language of red flags. I'm keen not to sound like I am attacking you for this, as I remember feeling very fragile around the time of noticing something was different about my oldest child.

My plea is actually partially related to making things easier for parents. Raising my younger child has been so much nicer precisely because I rejected the narrative of autism as pathology and was able to just enjoy them. I'm fed up of reading posts from distraught parents who are terrified that their kid's life is over, and I think that language used around autism is partly responsible for that. My child has abilities (e.g. very precocious with numbers) that would probably make the average "neurotypical parent" feel totally shit if they were encouraged to compare their own kids on those dimensions. I'm glad that they don't have to.

I'm definitely not doing this to promote a romantic view of autism, but I understand how you get this impression because there's a lot of it about. Funnily enough, my partner and I were just talking about our frustration with the many "high functioning" autistics online who display ignorance about the struggles of individuals with higher needs (and those trying to parent them). Parenting a child with high needs can be crushingly hard, and the focus on "superpowers" can be alienating.

What I am doing is reiterating my plea for a distinction between autism and undesirable autism-related behaviors. My oldest child has a lot of the latter and it's hard for all of us, but autism really is a spectrum and lives can go many ways . Being autistic can certainly be very hard. But again, there are other traits (e.g. homosexuality) that make life harder (especially in unfriendly environments) and it would still be offensive to say that you were devastated simply because your child had that trait. Especially if that trait is part of their identity.

Your friends both have autism-associated behaviours that have made their lives really hard. But many people with autism do have good lives and some have exceptional abilities. My own two children are radically different. So by all means worry about your child's undesirable behaviours, or about him having higher needs, but don't worry about him being autistic per say.

Not sure I've done a good job articulating all this. I'm extremely tired!

Do please get his hearing checked out again. Language development is crucial at this stage because learning to communicate with others, learning that you can make your needs known through words , and learning to negotiate and socialise using language not physicality is all part and parcel of a child making sense of their world. And a child who can’t hear, or only hears intermittently misses out on all this learning. Not only do they quickly fall behind their peers in developing more complex vocabulary and speech but they become increasingly frustrated at not making themselves understood which can lead to anger and unwanted behaviours. Even worse they can give up trying to make themselves understood and become withdrawn and introspective and don’t even attempt to communicate with others.

Has your child had a recent hearing test? If not do that now. Ask about a referral to speech therapy as well. When you ask him not to do things by saying "please darling don't pull the curtain down" he might only pick up the "pull the curtain down" and then be angry when you try and remove him. Try using finish or stop with a hand signal then you can use that for multiple occasions.

I've not read the whole thread but I would ring you hv and ask for his 2 year assessment (he should have had it by now). Explain you are concerned. If you are concerned about speech you can ask gp or hv to refer to salt. Also speak to your nursery senco and raise your concerns and ask them to observe your child .