Hi all,
I’ve had concerns about our 2.5 year old girl for a long while. Actually concerns first started when she was 3 months old with mostly delayed early milestones. She uses only a few gestures and only very inconsistently. She claps mostly in context and v occasionally does a high 5. She used to wave but has stopped. Has lots of words but mostly nouns and to label things (or just random intelligible words/ strings of words but out of context) but no functional speech. She doesn’t seem to understand most of what I say and can’t follow one step requests. Until 1 month ago she made very little eye contact, hardly engaged with us (we almost felt like part of the furniture!) apart from hand leading when she wanted food or a book and showed minimal affection. She will also sings nursery rhymes repeatedly particularly when she is upset. She used to be a fabulous sleeper but this all changed from 18 months onwards with daily night wakings. For the last month I’ve played with her very intensively with lots of interactive games. Her eye contact is now miles better and she actively seeks our company. On the flip side we seem to be having more separation anxiety particularly at bed time and more tantrums as I can sense she is frustrated she can’t communicate her needs. We saw the child development team at the beginning of the year who thought she would catch up and is due a follow up soon although it’s been delayed due to COVID. Have also been in contact with the health visitors who are planning to trigger some extra support for us and hopefully a place at a specialist small group nursery. So my question is (for anyone that reads this essay!), did you have a child who was similar at this age? Did you eventually end up with an ASD diagnosis? What did you find helpful in terms of helping to teach receptive language and communication skills? Regardless of any diagnosis that may come, Im taking encouragement in the fact that she has engaged so much in the last 1 month but any extra info would be gratefully received :-)