My 20m old bo6 doesn’t know I am his mama

[Injackane]

When we ask our boy “Where is mama?”, he doesn’t know what to do, just stares at us. The same with “Where is dada?”, but, if we ask “Where is nose?”, he points at our nose. He sometimes point to our mouth. He doesn’t point to his nose ever.

it is like he doesn’t get concepts of mama and dada. He understands and says “up” and “down” words, connects them with the physical actions, but why he doesn’t understand mama and dada, and why he never called us mama or dada?

At what age kids learn the concept of mama and dada?

We had some autism worries 6 months ago, but he has improved heaps in imitation, and acquired few words and some eye contact. I read recently that understanding the context of the words is where autistic kids struggle, so we are back to the “Worry-land”.

[CadyEastman]

I've had a look at the 20 month Ages & Stages and that asks about saying Mama & Dada. I'd fill ot in and see how he scores. You can either score it yourself or ask your HV to.

[Injackane]

Just to add, speech therapist says our boy is 6 months behind his language development. We started the speech therapy 4 months ago, when he was also 6m behind, so our boy is progressing, but is delayed. I assume that explains why he doesn’t say mama.

[CadyEastman]

If he's behind with speech and understanding by 6 months, has he been referred to a Paed yet? I'd be wanting to know why and preferably have him seen before starting school

[Injackane]

@CadyEastman , the protocol here in New Zealand is to wait until he is 2 years old before the paed assessment.

The therapist and our GP doctor think it is only a communication delay, not an autism, because he engages well with us, his eye contact is good, he understands instructions, can put context around the few words he knows, communicates to us some of his needs, no repetitive behaviour. …
His hearing is good.

The therapist said he has had previous cases where the boys are so physically superior in their development, way ahead in motor skills, that their brain was solely focused on those skills, and neglected the language. Those boys tend to be language delayed, but as long as they progress in a normal pace, they catch up eventually.

Still, he doesn’t say mama or understand I am the mama . Yesterday, after I kept saying whole day mmmmm mmmm maaa mama mama to him, he started saying bababa to me consistently in response. It’s like the mmmm sound is hard to him to say, and maybe he doesn’t like me enough to work on the mama word. He is complete daddy’s boy, run to daddy if he is hurt, loves cuddling with daddy.