Is this Autism?

[Haze26]

My daughter is 2 years & 7 months old and she is speech delayed.
She communicates great in a sense but she is behind where she should be for her age group.

She had her two & a half review with the health visitor recently and she scored well on almost everything except speech. The health visitor then Arranged for a speech and language therapist to come visit, I was under the impression it was to assess whether therapy was needed.

However within ten minutes of the appointment the speech therapist said “ she’s showing signs of an autistic way of learning speech”. I was shocked and didn’t expect it and was close to tears. The only two markers for autism she has is speech delay & fussy eating. I asked the therapist at the end of the appointment if she really thinks she’s on the spectrum and she just repeated “ she is showing an autistic way of learning, yes”.

I understand they are qualified to informally diagnose I guess but really? Based on only two traits? I’m really worried for my child. Every child is a blessing but life really is hard enough without having a disability on top.

speech and language therapists can't diagnose on their own, but they are usually part of a team that will. Before my son got his diagnosis, we had 3 speech and language therapists all say that they were confident it looked like autism.
Language differences and sensory issues, including eating would tick some of the boxes. Have you been referred to a community paediatrician yet?

Thanks for replying. We were completely blindsided by the speech therapist concerns regarding autism.

im not completely ignorant to the condition we just didn’t see it. She doesnt stim, she doesn’t have intense melt downs. She understands things and takes direction really well. I can take her out the house without the use of the pram or a harness and she doesn’t get over stimulated. It is just her speech and a little fussy eating.

she’s made massive progress in her speech in the past two months but the past two weeks she’s really improved and she is showing more curiosity around food now. But clearly they see something in her that we don’t.

im worried sick and the support from the health visitor hasn’t been the greatest. No referrals have been made for anyone. All we have is our health visitor. Who is coming round to see us in the next weeks to discuss what we want to do moving forward.

I can understand you being a bit blindside d. Had nobody mentioned that speech delay and very fussy eating can be signs of ASD, especially when your LO has both?

Has you HV alrwsdy asked you to fill in the 30 month social & emotional Ages & Stages and if so, how did your DD score? If she hadsn’t i would fill it in and ask your HV to score it when she comes.

I would also ask your HV for a referral for a hearing test as Glue Ear can sometimes present in a similar way to ASD.

I would also ask to be referred to a Paediatrician for assessment. This is sometimes called the ASD Pathway.

If the HV wants to adopt the “wait and see” approach get her to make a follow up appointment with you there and then so that your DD doesn’t get forgotten. Preferably get her to see DD again in a couple of months.

Does your DD go to any kind of Childcare and have they every mentioned anything about eating, communication or how she is socially?

I was aware already myself that speech delay and fussy eating is typically seen in autistic children but that alone is also seen in typically developing children with no other symptoms.

we did her two and a half year ages and stages questionnaire a few weeks ago and scored well on all aspects except social and emotional. I myself suggested to the health visitor I wanted to pursue speech & language and that’s when she arranged for the speech & language therapist to pay a visit at home,

the health visitor said she would come back to see us in the next couple weeks to discuss further. The appointment we had with the therapist was awful. She asked me a series of questions regarding my daughter and then threw the words “she is showing an autistic way of learning”. Then they left. The may have just said “you have a disabled child, bye”. I’m heartbroken and I’m struggling to cope with this.

I m incredibly sorry to say, but to be honest you tend to get referrals for assessments, a diagnosis if appropriate and then the NHS leaves you to it. Certainly I had to feel the grief for a bit when my son was referred in 2022 and things do pop up to make me feel it every so often, but you do get that peace in time that it's only really you that's going to support your child especially until school starts.
I d recommend seeing if your childrens centre has a speech support group or a sen support group, other parents were really a great source of support when I needed it.

@Haze26 sorry to hear how you’re feeling OP.

Does your child respond to their name? What’s eye contact like? Do they point or engage in pretend play?

Hi Haze

More and more often I see posts and feedbacks like that when health "professionals" throwing this diagnosis to left and right, not thinking of consequences for parents mental health.
In our case after few of this comments towards my son speech/development and "possible autism" kind of "diagnosis" of health visitor i end up in heavy mental state and been moved to mental health facility (every person have different threshold of stress ,and those health "professionals" with their comments got me well)

Every delay now it means - Autism.
Every fussy eater - Autism of course.
Oh lining up toys(thats my favorite) - mate he is autistic no doubts.
Not pointing?Not reacting to his name?eye contact.... - autism

Well now new one ffs "she is showing an autistic way of learning" whats that even mean ??!!!!

Please find good developmental pediatrician - not this health/speech "professionals".

End up , my child's speech emerged at 3yo,now he is at school year1 ,doing just great.

Thanks so much for your reply. I almost feel heard. I have no idea how to go about getting a child development paediatrician on the NHS.

any insights into that would be so appreciated. I do feel like the health visitor has never tried to get to know my daughter, just ticking boxes and passing judgement. She’s so smart and does a lot of age appropriate things I don’t see a delay except speaking and she is getting there, she’s on her own path to learning. Is she behind? Hell yes but is she making progress, yes!

it’s so frustrating to not feel heard

Yes to all of those things. That’s why I’m so confused. I’ve researched autism online and also watched videos posted by other parents about autism and none line up with my daughter. It’s such a wide spectrum and no child is exactly the same but they do have traits in common which she doesn’t do.

@Haze26your HV can make a referral to a Paediatrician for you

hi
im in Australia and the process here is quite easy and quick . I asked for referral from GP and got an appointment with private developmental pediatrician just in few weeks time.
Interestingly,on that appointment he told me that he can’t see any autistic traits ,but at that time I was so convinced by those comments of “professionals” and also because I’ve been googling a lot , that my child is autistic.
Almost everything my son was doing/not doing I interpret in negative way according to “professionals” and internet guru opinions.As example : my son loved spinning wheels of his toy cars and according to one of red flags I read in internet it’s an autistic trait.
Sorry for going abit away from the subject of your post, but what I mean is there is hell a lot of bs info in internet as well as from some “professionals”.
i really feel for you and totally understand your frustration, cause I’ve been in very similar situation as you can see, maybe even worse.

when you saying that your daughter has speech delay— what’s that mean? Is she saying any words/sentences at all ?
my sons first words emerged only at his 3rd bday and wasn’t even words but just first letters or sounds of word like “o” for open , or “m” for more.

The SALT has handled that very badly – I'm so sorry you were blindsided in that way and then left with no sense of what the next steps should be.

There are patterns of language acquisition that are more common in autistic children, so it's possible she saw some of these in your daughter (but if so, she should have explained it!). For example, early words being heavily dominated by numbers/letters/shapes/colours/similar, with few of the common, high utility words most children start with (mama, dada, up, hiya, bye-bye, names of siblings, pets, favourite toys, favourite foods, favourite activities). Another example is words being used almost exclusively used to 'label' rather than communicate, so like naming things she sees, but just for herself, not caring if you hear her or not. Another is gestalt language processing, so learning phrases, sentences, or longer 'chunks' of languages and repeating them fairly exactly, rather than learning individual words and then learning how to put words together in different ways. Do any of those sound like your daughter?

The questionnaire @BunnyRuddington linked to is an additional one that goes into more depth just on social and emotional development, so it is worth looking at in addition to the general Ages and Stages questionnaire. I would also second pushing for a referral for a hearing test (in some places you can self refer, so worth checking if that's true for your area) and for a referral to paediatrics. Best to get on the waiting list as soon as you can, and if you no longer have any concerns by the time they offer you an appointment, you can easily cancel.

If she's in any sort of childcare, it's definitely worth having a chat with them about what they've observed. An experienced childcare professional has seen a lot of two year olds, and can have an excellent sense of what's in the broad range of typical development and when a little extra support might be a good idea.

Thanks for replying, is your son still suspected as Autistic or has he been cleared? So to speak.

im not very good at articulating myself in writing. My daughter can say a lot of words, she says the usual mummy, daddy, the cats name and her sisters name. She won’t always use them to get our attention but she will sometimes. Names for a lot of objects. She can ask for “juice”. Etc but no sentences as yet.

she’s using a lot of echolalia lately but this is a very recent thing, some days she copies what we say a lot some days not.

I feel like she’s been written off as autistic based on the fact she doesn’t speak fluently. I’ve not expressed any other worries. The speech therapist asked me if she has meltdowns different from the typical tantrums and I said no, then the health visitor said “you told me she panics and screams if she sees a fly”. As if that’s in any way comparable to an autistic meltdown.

when they left my daughter had a tantrum once I closed the door I just thought “damn it, that’s gonna prove their point”. she recovered quickly though 🤦‍♀️

Hi thank you, she has started echoing speech recently but it’s not constant. She will point to objects, name them then look to see my reaction. I do believe the speech therapist did see patterns of language common in autistic children because she didn’t observe her in any other way she was mostly speaking to me while the health visitor played with her. It was a very brief observation on her part. Plus the austistic way of learning comment she made seemed in relation to the way she interacted with the health visitor.

ive been so torn over this on one hand I don’t believe she is but on the other hand I’m like maybe I’m deluded and looking at her through perfect child spectacles. But surely if she was autistic I would see signs clear and mother’s intuition and all that.

did the speech therapist refer to GLP as a way of learning language? Does your little one can answer open ended questions or ask questions. How did she score in terms of communication in the asq ☺️

She sounds like she is a gestalt language processor, which is common among autistic kids but not all GLPs are autistic. It is a different way of acquiring language through chunks of sentences echoing lines from tv shows / etc . It goes through different stages 1 to 5 and it is noticeable as the child has some difficulty in answering questions .

They honestly didn’t say much at the appointment. I’ve seen about gestalt language learning online. But unsure if that’s what she’s doing? She repeats a lot. So if I say “what’s that?” She’ll repeat it back whereas before she would answer if she knew. Like for example I point to a cow and say what’s that? She would say “cow or moo”. But not really anymore. This echoing speech has only just started it’s not something she’s always done.

She scored 80 on the social and emotional ages and stages questionnaire. So in the grey I believe

Hi mama hope you are feeling better 🙂 does she have any spontaneous 3/4 word sentences.. does she ask questions to you ?

No sentences at all or questions. Just mamma daddy, names for people and objects and a lot of repeating at the moment.

OP try to remember that if she's autistic she's still your same wonderful child, it's definitely not always clear at 2/3 though either with or without mothers intuition. DS wasn't diagnosed till 10, it had never been even suggested until he was 9 and I had no idea despite having worked in SEN schools. Being clever and being well behaved does not mean a child isn't autistic - he's now working very happily as a software engineer.

I would suspect the SALT knows what she's talking about and there is a distinct possibility your dd is autistic. She hasn't diagnosed though, just said that her way of learning language is often seen in autistic children. DS didn't have a speech delay but he was a terrible eater too - I just thought he was fussy, it's so easy to put things down to this or that when they're young or an only child.

Remember also that autistic children can make progress, they can make loads of progress! Making progress does not prove or disprove ASD. She's still very young but I would start the diagnosis process asap as it is so long and slow.