Autism? Speech delay? Thoughts please?

[Anonymous2356]

I have a coming up 16 month old girl who has never babbled, hasn’t said any words yet. On top of that she doesn’t point at things, play peek a boo, she started to clap for about two days then nothing, gone, forgotten. Doesn’t make much eye contact with people and seems to ignore people calling her name. I’ve always had a gut feeling that something ain’t quite right. She loves things that she can spin wheels etc, which I know is a sign of autism.
We were both stuck with her abusive farther for just over a year before fleeing, I know she heard stuff and witnessed stuff she shouldn’t have and I think health visitors were thinking she was quite due to the situation we’ve been out a few months now and still not a lot happening, she can now obviously be a toddler and make loads of noise but she’s pretty mute.
the health visitors have said she’s too young for diagnoses, but we have got a speech and language therapist coming out but I have this awful gut feeling. Her farther has another daughter who has severe Asperger’s although he says it hasn’t come from his side. There’s nothing in my family like this and as my mum said me and my siblings were talking by a year at least with mama, dada and babbling, but we were late walkers 18 months plus. Whereas my little one was walking just after 1st birthday and now doesn’t stop physically climbing everything.

any thoughts? Personal experience?

the best advice I ever got to encourage my son to talk ( he didn’t start to speak until about 5 yrs old ) was to play and interact whichever way it got the child’s attention and helped involve them in play. Whether that be roll a toy car off a table to catch and act surprised when I caught it or let it fall and act shocked at the reaction of it falling it’s the little things like that that can really help start meaningful interactions

Your HV is right, it may be too young for a formal assessment but the waiting lists are long and she shouldn’t be informing your concerns.

I’m glad though that a SLT will be seeing your DD. Has the HV also referred her for a hearing test? If not I’d ask the HV to do that too as low hearing can affect speech.

Spinning things at this age is fairly normal too. Have a read of this on rotation schema.

As well as asking the HV for a hearing test I’d also ask her if there are any local groups for DC with speech delay, our area has a couple of sessions running in different places.

I’d fill in the Social & Emotional Ages & Stages and the 16 month Ages & Stages.

You can ask your HV to score them or you can score them and show her the results. Has your HV already booked a check yp with you to see how your DD is progressing?

Thank you for your reply.

Funnily enough I took her to soft play today which she loves and she was actually attempting to say something but she does this a few weeks ago it was ka ka ka and then she stopped and hasn’t done it since.

I booked her into see doctor next week to check for glue ear? And also her dad had his adenoids out as a baby so wondering about that as well. Probably just clutching at straws to find something to help her.

The local groups for children with additional needs only say for kids over 3 so a bit of a wait.
I’m just going to try and take her to loads of toddler groups and she obviously loves soft play. And then hopefully she can go to nursery at 2 which I think will be really beneficial!

Many thanks