is she like every other toddler?

[Evesmama]

obviously being Eve's mum, i am very proud of her and think she's the first little girl to do everything, but i was wondering wether i am right or is this usual for children her age?

she can count to 13?
she takes dirty pots, dummies etc out to kitchen and puts in sink(have never asked her to do this, she just does it)

she turns tv and sky box off when we go out of her own accord

and her sentences are along the lines of..mammy, please..put.dora..plora on telly??is this a lot

however, she's only just gettin the jist of using a fork/spoon with her meals?

what does anyone think?

JIMJAMS: Your ds1's journey sounds so confusing! I wonder how you first suspected autism (so often I understand people worry about delayed speech). Was there anything you noticed aside from playskills? My ds says "okay" and "no," doesn't really say yes too often. Also, he doesn't answer questions 100% of the time. He answers most of the time but sometimes I'll ask him, "do you want more green peas?" and he'll just ignore me and ask me for juice or something else. Again, it's not too often that he'll ignore me but there are times I give him a choice (do you want A or B) and he just won't answer. Does this sound familiar or is this typical with toddlers?

HULABABY:
I just had to post because your child sounds a lot like my son! Ds is now 23 months and very verbal and I always am saying that verbal is "his thing." He speaks hundreds and hundreds of words, small sentences, knows his letters, #s, colors, shapes, etc. (and has for months). However, he just isn't into puzzles AT ALL! He's all right with the ones with pegs where the pieces just fit in singly. But jigsaws - even those 2 piece ones - are of no interest to him. He either tells me "Mama put 'gether" or just throws the pieces or ignores them and goes onto something else. I think his fine motor skills just aren't up to par. Does this sound normal at 23 months? He uses a spoon, draws with a crayon,etc. loves playing with balls and cars and musical toys, blocks, plays pretend, plays playdough. But he just doesn't get the puzzle thing.

leelee the only reason I suspected autism was because I came across the checklist for autism in toddlers (CHAT) test when he was 17 months and realised he failed because he didn't point. i told a few people who told me I was being ridiculous. After all he was clearly sociable (although I now know too passive) and bright.

To be fair even when he started seeing experts he was missed. So for example at 26 months he saw an autism specilaist SALT who said that he "definitely wasn't autistic" and diagnosed him with mild language delay.

I suspect the reason he was missed was because he was a) passive and b)relying heavily on visual cues and c) has a ridiculous memory. Things like his ability to remember rhyme seems to be unaffected as well. So although he couldn't say yes or no (still can't) he could recite (with extremely porr intonation- but good enough to understand what he was saying) all his nursery rhymes and many books (providing they rhymed). He could also fill in missing words in familiar books. All of which served to hide the extent of his language problems. He was also able to read odd words- which hid the problems.

That sort of thing isn't all that unusual in autism. The book George and Sam describes an extreme example in george. As a toddler he seemed stunningly bright and his language was exceptional- but it hid the very severe language disorder he had- his memory for learned phrases compensated for it very well.

IN the case of ds1 most people who work with him come to the conclusion that he is bright- some have said "very", but that is coupled with very severe learning difficulties and for some reason very limited language. It's entirely appropriate that he is in an SLD/PMLD school, whereas had someone told me that when he was 2 I would never have believed them.

evesmama - i think they just vary so wildly at this age. My dd is 20 months too and clears stuff up all by herself - bowls, plates, her changing stuff etc and has been using adult cutlery for ages BUT she doesn't say any 'proper' words (apart from bye, mama etc) and can't count, and of course I'd love it if she could.

Sounds like she's concentrating on verbal stuff and ignoring physical things, just like my dd does the opposite.

Thanks, Jimjams. I guess it's true when they say that no two cases are alike. Glad to hear that he is doing well in his school. Did he have any spontaneous phrase making (more juice mama or come on mama or play playdough, etc....) as a young toddler (say 18 - 24 months) or was it all repitition of phrases? Also, what do you mean about relying heavily on visual cues? When he was dx'd with mild language delay at 26 months, what was missing from his speech? Thanks so much. I am trying to figure this whole thing out and put my worries in perspective, etc. Lately, I am feeling much better about ds's development but it is so hard to know exactly what people mean when you read something - sometimes I find myself thinking, oh, ds does that all the time, and then when I get some more clarification, i realize, there I go again, it actually seems quite different, KWIM? Ds points now (finally) often, but not usually "on command." He might point to something interesting and tell me what it is but he rarely points when I say, "where is the (whatever)?" Our dev. ped. has chalked this up to personality which half the time seems to fit, and then I wonder if I am jsut making excuses. Thanks again.

I think they maybe develop in different areas at different times. We recently went to a birthday party, several of the others threw their hands up in horror as the children (all around 22m)were given their drinks in paper cups. One tipped his straight onto his plate, and the others had theirs very carefully held by mummy. I knew what would happen - surferbaby just picked hers up and drank from it and put it back on the table.

I cringed as it seems no matter what problems the others have, going to sleep, waking, feeding, tantrums, I just don't have any problems with surferbaby. It's a standing joke, she's known as text book baby.

But we then went to the soft play area and she was very tentatively climbing about, while they all climbed like monkeys and whizzed around her. I was so relieved!

pointing out something of interest is the most important form of pointing. I can count the number of times ds1 has done it on one hand.

what i mean about relying on visual cues is that a certain image my have cued a reponse. It's hard to explain but I have recently read a book written by an adult who appears very like ds1/ She is effectively non-verbal as an adult, and as a child learned language through written word, although she had no idea that the written word ball was the same as the spoken word ball. I suspect ds1 is doing something similar.

DS1 may have spontaneous phrases but they would never be understood. M ost of his "speech" is just intonation. So the only phrases that are understood are repeated ones- set pharases. He only speaks using set phrases. But to be honest mainly he doesn't bother and drags us off if he wants something. We try to re-direct to PECS as that works well - and can be understood by everyone so will be more use to him than speech.

Although at 2 he appeared a bit odd (bit quiet and thoughtful really- an people used to say he was an academic type- because of the reading etc and the memory) you would never have placed him as severely learning disabled. There were hints that something was amiss-but they were very subtle. I don't think any children in his school reach even level 1 of the national curriculum (and they stay there until they're 19). ALthough at 2 he "passed" a test for his local private school they'd run for the hllls now!

I'd recommend george and sam by charlotte moore- she talks about this sort of thing a lot. And george is interesting as he seemed so amazingly bright but she points out why it was actually signalling something else entirely (even though they didn't realise at the time),