My son is 2y4m and has essentially no spoken words. He seems to understand around 90% of what we say and communicates really well through pointing, eye contact, gestures, signs and noises. He has good joint attention, affection, pretend play and social interaction, but has always babbled very little and rarely attempts to copy speech sounds.
He also seems to get overstimulated quite easily. When excited/overwhelmed he can run around a lot, and he can have meltdowns or “shutdowns” where he cries, goes floppy and doesn’t want interaction. He has some strong interests/preferences (hats, particular TV programmes) but isn’t particularly rigid about routines or change, doesn’t have much repetitive play and generally copes well with noises/textures.
His fine motor/problem-solving skills seem good, although his gross motor development has been slightly slower (walked at 18 months and isn’t quite properly running/jumping yet).
Has anyone had a child with a really similar overall profile? Did it eventually turn out to be a speech/motor-speech issue, autism, sensory/regulation differences, general developmental delay or something else? And how are they doing now?
oh and yes he has had hearing checked and is in regular speech therapy