Worrying about DD 17 month development, please help?

[Littlemiss82]

Hi,

I am growing concerned about my DD’s development. She is 16 months and would love some advice please:

What she is doing:
-Waves, points, claps, follows a point.
-Can feed herself with a spoon but some days refuses and wants me to do it.

• walks, runs and climbs well

-understands what we say and follows instructions

What worries me:

• she had around 10 words (Cata for caterpillar, cat, moo, yeah, tig for tiger.) but as has stopped using these and is back to squealing. She is cutting canines and lower incisors so not sure if this is the reason.

-Started to become fussy with food and spits food out again not sure if this is teething.

• she flaps her hands when excited.
• she is scared of strangers both adults and children and will bury her head in my shoulder or cry. She is a lockdown baby so not sure if this is why.

Does this sound like normal behaviour or not? Her Brother who is 4.5 has just been diagnosed with ASD, so now I’m in panic mode and worrying.

Please help cx

I'm no expert but she sounds fine to me. From everything I've read hand flapping is a autism stereotype, most toddlers I know do it when they're excited.

@HeyDuggeesFavouriteSquirrel thank you for the reply. I’ve been on Dr.Google (I know I shouldn’t 🙈) and everything points to ASD. I’ve never seen any toddlers doing it so that’s why I was worried. Is the lack of speech/unclear speech a concern?

As I said I'm no expert (I'm sure mums who have further expertise will be along soon) but I believe the speech alone is not a concern as speech delays are common. Though at 16 / 17 months I don't think she's even delayed and I'm pretty sure Dr or HV would tell you to wait a bit.

I've been on Dr Google myself a lot with concerns for my son who is 22 months. He also has limited speech but his understanding was also limited and his name response was poor. But he's suddenly come along very quickly with a lot more understanding (last week couldn't point to body parts and suddenly can point to all of them!) and better name response. Just waiting for the words now, he has a few but is for sure behind his peers.

Thank you for replying. I worry about speech a lot 😢 just wish I could stop worrying about every little thing she does xx

She's fine. That's an average, if not slightly above average, number of words for her age. Some kids are just shy. Lockdown has nothing to do with it. I don't know where people are getting this idea that lockdown is 'stopping their babies learning social skills'... They only aquire social skills from their caregivers. They should be wary of strangers at this age. They don't learn socialising with other children/babies they only practice these skills. She sounds fine. Don't worry xx

I also think she sounds fine, and a brief pause in talking could be down to teething or focusing on another skill at the moment. If weeks go by, and she hasn't begun talking again, then I'd start to be concerned.

I do think babies and toddlers have been affected by the lockdowns specifically when it comes to interacting with more than their immediate family. Yes, some children are shy and most babies and toddlers go through periods where they are shy or anxious around strangers, and that's very normal. However, if a toddler has months and months when no one but mum, dad, and older brother come within 2m of her, she doesn't go to a shop, on a bus, to a café, yes, I think that will increase the odds that when all those things restart, she'll find at least some of them a bit much. It's a lot of change and new experiences for a little person – but in most cases, I'd guess they'll adjust fairly quickly (within the limits of their natural personality or any period stranger anxiety).

@skkyelark thanks for your reply, it’s been about two weeks since she was last saying a few words. She has had croup and was really poorly and still has a cough and runny nose. She said Turtur for turtle earlier on. She’s just so quietly spoken too. She is babbling and make noise.

Would you be concerned about the hand flapping?

She's fine.
I'm an ASD specialist teacher and as someone has said it's a stereotype. I know more non autistic children flap hands than I know autistic children who do. And I've been doing this over 15 years.

Don't underestimate how much being poorly can really halt speech development! My little one (22 months) had a really nasty ear infection and cold about two months ago, and she stopped using loads of words. I completely panicked and was worried it was the start of ASD regression, but within a week or two all her words were back and loads more to boot. I do still have some concerns about her social development, but my concerns are very different to the ones you have listed - from what I've read, she looks to be developing just fine. You're doing a great job. x

Poor wee thing – speaking probably is just too much effort whilst she's poorly. If she tried speaking when she had croup and it hurt, that might make her a bit cautious as well.

I think a great many toddlers squeal, flap, or jump with excitement. I think it's sort of the reverse side of tantrums – they can't contain the positive emotions any more than they can the negative ones (just one is a lot cuter).

You have described my granddaughter even down to having croup . Illness and lockdown has definitely held her back . Absolutely nothing wrong there .

@SpeechieE
Hiya, please could I ask what kind of social concerns you have and if that's changed by now? Xx

@Popping13

Hi! So my daughter is now 27 months and the concerns I had were to do with her ability to share interest, she wouldn't (and still doesn't often) bring things to show me, or to play with me. She often played alone and didn't really like interacting with others, unless it was on her own terms. When I posted this, she wouldn't really involve me in her play and seemed in her own world. Not long after this, she was diagnosed with glue ear. Over the summer it cleared up somewhat, she still has it in one ear and not in the other. Since then, she has started interacting with me a lot more. There are still some issues such as she doesn't really follow commands, or respond to her name, so we have now received a referral to speech therapy to work on her understanding of language.

I hope this helps :)

@SpeechieE
Hi! Thank you for responding.

This is very very helpful, my daugther had an ear infection in August, and her ears were checked again a few days ago and the GP everything was clear in there. Is it normally GPs that are able to identify glue ear, or is this for the audiologist?
HV has referred her for a hearing test and will be doing an assessment with us to check development. So we are just for that.

It was so heartbreaking to see everything just go into reverse, especially speech and communication.

Oh bless you, it's so awful isn't it. It was the audiologist who was able to tell me that my daughter had glue ear. GPs cannot always see glue ear, as it's behind the ear drum, in fact I took my daughter to the GP three times because her ears were obviously uncomfortable and they said they were fine. We were referred to audiology because she wasn't responding to her name, not because of my concerns with painful ears, and they said she had terrible glue ear, that her eardrums were bulging with fluid, and no wonder they were painful and it was inevitable she had hearing loss. Your audiologist will do a test called tympanometry where they check how much the ear drum moves, if the ear drum doesn't move then this will diagnose glue ear. It can have a huge effect on speech and language. X

@Popping13 also, how old is your daughter? When you say everything went into reverse, has she completely stopped speaking, or has she just paused learning new words? Has she lost any other skills, like eye contact, social skills such as smiling at you, looking to you when you speak? How was her language before she was poorly? Honestly, regression is really common when they're poorly, their bodies put more effort into feeling better and this overtakes development for a little while. You're doing all the right things, getting the HV involved is great, the developmental check will hopefully get you referrals if you need them, or allay your fears. It's a long, scary and lonely road when your child doesn't seem to be hitting milestones or starts to step backwards, you worry about the future, their abilities, your abilities, but the important thing to remember is that you're doing all the right things, you're a wonderful parent and it is much more statistically likely that she will surprise you with a bloom in development. And even if she does have any delays, or other diagnosis, those labels don't define her, she's still your wonderful little girl who will continue to surprise you and knock your expectations out of the park. :) Trust me x

Thank you so much!
I did wonder if they could see in the middle ear. I knew they diagnosed the infection because the drum was bulging out, and was told they can't see past it. Another GP said he can see inside and everything is fine.

She does pull a lot on her ears, so maybe something is still there.
Only thing is that she does seem to hear other things, like TV, certain songs, and will respond to her name sometimes if she is interested.

Other than that, she has stopped point, waving, clapping etc but has not other behaviour of repetition or anything else like that. I do know it's a wide spectrum, and no 2 people can be the same, so it's just so hard to compare things to get an idea of what's going on.

She is 20 months, and the regressions was slow, but it really came to a halt around the time of the ear infection, which was at 18 months exactly.

We were just going through videos of her from 12 to 17 months and she was a different child altogether. She interacted, lots of eye contacts, clear spoken words, she just seem more lively and involved in the world around her.
After 18 months, we hit a point where it was just silence however, since then, she has started babbling a lot, but eye contact is still hit and miss. She does not communicate what she wants anymore, where she did before mainly through words, not gestures. For example, if she wanted to watch TV, she would stand in front of it and look at me and say "raa raa" (the noisy lion).
I can't remember if she ever gestured for what she wanted but I know she used to look at dogs, or birds and say dog and boh. The words were just so clear.
Now with the babbling the other day she said "bubbo", which is another of her first words, when she saw bubbles on the TV. She hasn't learned any new words and doesn't really say many of her old words either.

I know at the end of the day, even if she is on the spectrum, she will only get a label, as there is no treatment nor a clue as to what tomorrow might hold. So it doesn't bother me, but I just want to know if these things happen and can get better or if there are other factors that might affect this other than Autism, which can be ruled out.

Hi how’s your little one doing please ?

Hello,

Had an op privately, grommets inserted and tonsils and adenoids out; saw improvements but didn’t rule out ASD, and was diagnosed in 2023. Talking lots but not much verbal communication.

happy to answer any questions. Please do not feel alone!

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer . I feel so alone and scared for my DD . She is 17 months and can say approximately 50 words and link two words together , clap , wave , point , sleeps well , follows command such as : stop and no , has been walking since 12 months . She looks at me and is very affectionate . Tantrums usually resolve in 1 minute . She eats well but prefers me to feed her ( no probs with textures . What concerns me is that when watching tv or out running doesn’t respond to her name but I say “ look “ she always turns around . If I ask her to pick “ happy ? Her favorite toy) up she does it but if I ask to get “ dolly “ she doesn’t do it . When excited walks in her tip toes but walks flats all the other times . She is very shy about other kids but watches them . Honestly I don’t know how to help her with her social skills , the self feeding with utensils and worrying crazy as I don’t know what the future may hold or what society will do to her 😥

@Vittoria123 hows your little one?