GLP and autism

[Claire123ee]

Hi fellow parents
I am a mum to a lovely 21 months old and would like some input on GLP and how it presents please . Needless to say , we have seen GPs and Hv and have gone nowhere .

What she can do

1. follow my point and use all the gestures
2. 100 plus words with two words string together
3. She can identify things in books and family photos correctly
4. She can answer simple questions but very sporadically and she always says yes .
5. Follow simple commands like : stop , wait for mummy and no
6. Answer positively to simple instructions: feed dolly or brush dolly’s teeth , pick up that you and bring it to mummy , bath time ( she runs to the bathroom)
7. She pretends cook and brings us books to flick through/ read , bring dolly for a walk and pretend mix with a tea cup . She is very gentle with dolly and gives a Cuddle all the time .
8. She is very affectionate and her tantrums never lasts more than a few seconds
9. Sleeps through the night since she was 12 months .
10. She brushes her own teeth and can point to all of her and our body parts

I am wondering if what I am about to list is cause for keeping an eye on .

1. she started walking at 12 months on the dot and started tip toeing on and off since she was 15 months ( doesn’t do it with shoes ) . We have taken to an orthopaedic and he gave the all clear
2. She can count to 10 and tries with her fingers as well .
3. She is a bit of a picky eater but eats all vegetables, especially raw ones like carrots , celery and cucumber and loves fruits like bananas and apples but still pull faces when trying new food
4. She is a bit of a nervous one but parallel plays with others kiddos and waive and engage by smiling and talking with people outside her family .
5. My biggest concern and the point of this post is the echolalia : she tends to repeat the last word of what we say but I was told it is normal for toddlers .
6. Scripting ? I don’t know if she is scripting . I will give you an example , sometimes she says “ what’s that’s? It is a quack , good girl ? Whilst holding a duck and pointing at it . Is this normal ?

I guess I’d like to know how GLP works in girls as I know it presents differently . Is it all done by memory for kids with GLP . I saw an instagram mum explaining how her GLP daughter was having many words and identifying things in books before she was two but none of it was her own language but It was learned from memory .

Any advice massively appreciated

What’s GLP?

I work with this age. She sounds entirely normal.

She's 21 months. You are massively overthinking this. I see nothing there that isn't pretty normal in toddlers (I spent my career in autism) and you really need to stop and enjoy your child.

Are you generally an anxious person, or had someone/something sown the seed about this?

GLP is gestalt language processing, it’s a different way kids process and learn speech.

OP nothing you’ve described sounds like GLP or autism. Repeating the last word you say isn’t echoalia, that’s just common toddler speech. Echoalia would be if she repeated the phrases you say, rather than saying what she means/feels.

Hi, word for word she sounds like my son, the only exception being the toe walking. Due to his incredibly complex and serious medical history we’re under the care of basically everyone you can name, and no one has flagged any concerning issues with speech and development - the ‘scripting’ you mentioned in particular is bang on what my child does. He sees SALT once a week and they’re helping him by encouraging his ‘scripting’ with different contexts to basically expand his language use, but they aren’t worried! They have also all told me they think he is neurotypical- I work with his age group and I haven’t 100% reached that conclusion myself, but it’s too early to tell for sure, but his speech hasn’t been a direct pathway to diagnosis if that makes sense! Nothing you have said sets off alarm bells to me, but a speech and language therapist might put your worries to rest, as they have mine (mostly!!)

Mother of an autistic child here

From what you describe this a sounds like age appropriate behaviour for a NT child.

But is there any other reason you have concerns such as family history? It runs in our family and I noticed signs in my son very early. I was told not to worry for a long time… lo and behold we finally have a diagnosis age 4 1/2.

I learned 2 things from this that feel relevant here:

(1) If you have concerns, it doesn’t hurt to take yourself seriously and get a second opinion from people who actually know and can see your child in the flesh. It is your right to do this. Put your mind at rest.

Write down concerns (maybe video things that give you concern re behaviours), go and speak with a specialist- not just generic GP. You can find free to access specialist by searching online for e.g. SEND stay and play in your area. You can also press the issue with the HVs at her 2 year check and effectively demand an appointment with SALT (NB waiting lists for SALT can be really long, you may have more success at a stay and play where you can receive informal observations from early years ASD specialists)

(2) good parenting for autistic children isn’t likely to be damaging for NT kids - indeed it’s likely to be helpful (it’s also likely to be more work for you as a parent but maybe not massively more if you do indeed have a NT child)

Many of the strategies and techniques we are being taught now and that are being used by DS school are being used with NT kids because they work very well.

If you educate yourself on what might work for an autistic child and begin using strategies you’re not going to be doing anything wrong, you may indeed be doing a lot right - regardless of whether or not your hunch turns out to be validated.

I always joke that the great thing about autistic kids is that they literally come with a manual (after diagnosis and usually at considerable cost). You can read the manual without a diagnosis 😜 try the AET website and the Beyond Autism websites.

it can be hard to know which manual to read of course - there’s a lot out there.
Many autism charities use a jigsaw piece as their symbol - and for me that’s appropriate- finding the “right match” of strategies from parents and teachers is essential to my autistic son’s success, and the wrong fit is actively detrimental, but this wrong fit tends to
be more the “he will catch on” approach that might be used with an NT child rather than any autism specific strategies. When we have the exact right match of strategies he soars!

Thank you so much everyone for your answers 🙂 no , no family history on both side . I wish I could take her to be seen by a speech specialist but my health visitor doesn’t want to refer me so I guess I will just have to wait and see what comes next . I might try a family hub but I remember my hv not knowing what a GLP was . Is it usually referred as Asperger’s or high functioning ( I know terrible labels )

Even if your child is a gestalt language processor, it doesn't necessarily mean she has autism. It's a way of learning. Unrelated to the disused term "aspergers" or autism with low support needs.

Thank you for this . I thought it was always associated with autism . She is my first and don’t really know how speech should progress

She sounds like an entirely normal 21 month old, especially as you say 100 plus words with two words string together, that’s entirely normal language development i.e learning single words then joining into 2 words/short phrases.

With GLP children will repeat whole phrases they’ve learnt first (that’s the echolalia) and then they tend to progress to single words.

I have 1 DC with ASD and she used to script a lot as a child, but you’d know it if you saw it, she would basically become a character from her favourite show and repeat phrases over and over and over (and refer to us and her younger sister as the other characters).

I also have 1 DC without and both of my DDs have and haven’t done things on both sides of your lists. She’s still very little and not presenting with any clear ASD traits, she sounds happy and like she’s developing well so I really wouldn’t worry.

I use both Asperger's (it's what DS was diagnosed with) and high functioning - both are frowned upon by some people but I find them correct (for ds) and useful. Now everyone falls under 'autistic' not matter what their capabilities or difficulties are, it's ridiculous IMO. I don't know much about GLP though.

The problem you have OP is that your dd is still very little. The fact she toe walks might be a thing or not. Her speech patterns may be a thing or not. I would read up on Autism/Aspergers and write down a list of things you've noticed (because you will forget over time!) and add to it if you notice other things. This will be really useful if she does ever get assessed. If she's high functioning it's quite possible she'll end up masking and the differences might not become more obvious until secondary school. DS wasn't picked up till then - and only was due to his teacher going on a course and having an inkling.

I would absolutely keep an eye but I would try not to stress, just enjoy your lovely dd she sounds adorable.

You are waaaay overthinking this OP.

Forget about GLP and autism etc... she seems completely normal.

Stop reading books or googling.

Just enjoy your DC

Nothing in there points to Autism. She sounds like a completely normal 2 year old. I don't have experience of GLP, but lots with Autism including 3 Autistic DC. Not all kids it obvious at this age, my DD wasn't obvious to much later, so it's worth keeping a list of concerns, but not if doing that is going to rule your mind. 2 of my DC have had extensive speech therapy for speech delays in both receptive and expressive speech. One of the methods working with very young children is repeating what they say back to them with clear pronunciation so they'll hear the difference and eventually hopefully copy you. I wouldn't be worried by echolalia on its own at this age. If you do want to discuss the echolalia you may be able to see a private speech therapist without a referral, but you'd have to pay of course.

Eta: just remembered what that technique is called, it's recasting.

Hi , thank you for your answer and good on you to start SALT . Were you able to get a referral or went private ? If so , what did it prompt a referral? I am only asking as my little girl , according to the HV and GP , is not presenting any traits at all . Is your DS the same age as my DD? ☺️

I’d be more than happy if my son were able to do all of that at that age. Yes he’s a boy not a girl yes, but for example he is a gestalt language processor, speech delayed, hyperlexic and autistic. His language acquisition has been many single word gestalts, still at the age of three he rarely strings two spontaneous words together. He has gestalts that are short phrases, that are scripts, so ‘bye bye’ ‘all gone’ it’s (whatever it is)’. Everything is factual and I do not ask him questions given he doesn’t understand reciprocal language yet.

Some NT kids can be a combination of both analytical and GLP, and yes echolalia is common at that age in typically developing children. I don’t think you need to be overly concerned, I hear my son’s peers do exactly the same thing all the time and they’re mostly NT. Makes notes if you’re concerned, but there’s so many typical things there that I really wouldn’t be concerned. the imaginary play, the shared interest, the back and forth conversation, the joint attention etc. all signs she’s not autistic. To be diagnosed autistic there has to be three main atypical presentations: rigid and repetitive behaviour, atypical language development (can be either overly advanced OR delayed) and atypical social and emotional communication and processing.

I don’t know why you’d want your child to be autistic it really is a different and more difficult way of parenting, I see this all the time on here and it’s quite tiring. Just being honest.

i have just read about GLP (never heard of it before) and from your posts your daughter doesn’t seem to have any signs of it at all! I think you need to stop going down rabbit holes on Instagram, stop worrying and enjoy your daughter

Your DD isn't presenting any traits of anything, despite you looking for them really, really hard. There will be kids with GLP and autism doing these things at 21 months, because all kids are doing them - autistic or not. This is not evidence and the fact you've latched onto that one answer, rather than all the others reassuring you, shows you aren't coming at this from a healthy place.

Instead of GPs and HVs analysing your healthy, completely normal DD, go and talk to them about you health anxiety.

Otherwise enjoy your baby, enjoy her changing and developing without googling each milestone to see how it compares.

Our NHS SALT is only just learning about what GLP is, and this is where she was able to identify it in my son. Private speech therapists may be more likely to knowledge about it. Meaningful Speech online is helpful if you wanted a simple no nonsense overview of it. In simple terms GLP is a whole > parts way of acquiring language whereas analytical is parts > whole learning. Most NT people are analytical learners and only take the information they need from their environment, which leads to flexible, buildable language skills. An autistic GLP will likely take everything in from the environment and take whole chunks of information in, and will use this to break down and place meaning to at a later stage.

My DS has GLP and autism.

When he was 21 months he had very little speech, but when he 2-5 this is what he was like:

1. Showed little understanding of what was said to him. Couldn't follow instructions, answer question or make choices.

1. Could talk, but most of his speech was recited. He could recite books, whole scenes from TV (e.g. Bingo, Peppa Pig etc).

1. He would attach phrases to objects e.g. the street light on the road outside was called "all dark night" because of something DH once said when holding DS up to his bedroom window at night.

1. As he got older, he showed some understanding of what we said, but had limited means to communicate back. He once accidentally hurt me, and DH told he he should say sorry, so he recited a scene from Bing where Bing has to say sorry to Flop. I think that was his way of saying sorry!

Funnily enough learning to read massive helped his independent speech - which goes against conventional wisdom that speech skills come first before you can learn to read!

He's 10 now and his speech is fairly normal, but he's not alway clear and sounds like younger child. He occasionally gets a little jumbled. He still struggles to follow instructions sometimes.

HI OP, my eldest is DS is autistic and a gestalt language processor. He could do pretty much none of your list at 21 months. He had probably 6 words and his understanding was almost non existent. I don't see anything concerning in your OP.

For us the echolalia, when it came, was very pronounced - repeating entire questions back to us (not just the last word). Total pronoun reversal as well. Scripting was the ability to recite an entire Peppa pig episode word for word whilst not being able to answer "What's your name?". Interestingly his pronunciation was always perfect first time.

(He's now nearly 7 and doesn't stop talking, still reverses pronouns here and there though!)

In most areas it's extremely hard to get SaLT intervention from the NHS before the age of 3. I strongly doubt a child with 100 words before this age of 2 would qualify anyway I'm afraid, which is probably with the HV doesn't want to refer.

I don't know how to say this without sounding a like a patronising dick, but you will drive yourself mad with all the developmental stuff (I've been there) so just step away from Google and try to enjoy your DD, who sounds lovely btw.

So he is a bit older. We initially had SALT through the NHS, but the appointments were few and far between, and he was eventually discharged from them as sessions weren’t deemed necessary for him anymore (though they very much were necessary, he just didn’t meet the threshold). The referral happened very quickly, when he was eventually out of hospital he started with the NHS so around just over a year old, but again that’s due to his medical history which we’ve discovered causes medical professionals to act with alacrity (we never had to wait more than two hours for a GP appointment for example). I really don’t know if he’d have been referred without his medical history to be honest. Anyway, I work with children so knew his speech was still way off where it ‘should’ have been, so we went private, and he still attends. The appointments have me by the throat. They are financially a huge commitment for us, but the difference they make to him is just unbelievable, so we make it work for which I am very thankful!

She also can’t make a choice between two options that i offer her

GLP has been popularised by instagram and Marge Blanc who makes money from selling a therapy package based on it (the NLA). There is a soon to be published systematic review that has found that there is no evidence base supporting the idea that children need the NLA and in fact the idea that children are either GLP or not is in fact problematic itself. If you have concerns about your child’s language development talk to a professional such as a health visitor or a speech therapist. Please don’t diagnose your child based on instagram posts (or mumsnet posts!)
For people interested this is an example of some of the concerns raised about GLP as a concept. - less flashy than instagram but perhaps more measured.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11113044/#:~:text=The%20term%20'gestalt%20language%20processor,of%20NLA%20lacks%20empirical%20support.

Seriously, just stop. You are massively over thinking and over researching instead of just enjoying your child. I really don't know why you're doing this to yourself.

They're is absolutely no reason for you to be looking for something to be 'wrong' with your child. I speak as a career long teacher of autistic pupils, and well educated in child development.

Even if you approach a private SaLT they will probably say that it's too early for them to assess her.

My now 21 year old was a late speaker for who went from saying very little to speaking in whole sentences. My dad reckoned that she was simply absorbing the words everyone around her were saying. All LOs develop at their own pace. Your DD is still very young; enjoy her, read to her and talk to her.