Hi everyone. I have a baby boy who just turned 12 months old, but was born 6 (almost 7) weeks early, so age adjusted he'd still be in the 10 month old bracket, but almost 11 months.
We just had an early intervention screening because he's been a little behind in communicating with us, and they found that he has a Receptive language delay. His expressive language they found was ok. Cognitive he was right on the borderline but was still passing.
I'm pretty shaken up. I have OCD and I've been obsessing about the possibility of him having autism for the last few months. And while the therapist said she doesn't necessarily see a case for autism yet, I can't help but feel it's right around the corner.
For his positives... He likes to be held most of the time. He is doing pretty well with fine and gross motor. He babbles a ton, always making new sounds. He does mimic us sometimes, and he says a couple things pretty frequently (mama, wah wah), but not all the time. In a particular song he likes, there is a part that goes "lalala" and he recently started singing along with that sometimes. He is able to wave goodbye to people, and will often give you a high five if you put your hand in front of him, but that's mostly the extent of his gestures (he's clapped a handful of times, but it's rare). He likes peek a boo, and recently he even started burrowing his head into the couch and popping his head back up whilst smiling when we say "where is he"?. He likes to be chased in his walker, especially when you say "I'm gonna get you". If I'm carrying him around and point at things, he usually will look at them, I'd say 80% of the time. There's actually a song on YouTube he likes where one of the characters is pointing out body parts, and at the part where she points out fingers, he wiggles his fingers like her. He likes toys, and doesn't seem to hyper fixate on just one.
But the main issue they saw was that his name recognition was pretty poor, when he's involved with a toy or something it's rare that he cares about you calling him. He doesn't seem to understand what "no" means, in fact I'd say he doesn't even care when we raise our voice. When I say "ba ba" he doesn't care, it's not until he visually sees the bottle that he wants it. And when he wants something, he doesn't point or gesture to it, he just cries. He doesn't show us toys or objects if we ask him, no reaction whatsoever, just continues about what he's doing.
His joint attention is fairly poor also, although before about a month ago it was non-existent.. he's really just starting to look at an object, then back at us, then back at the object... It's rare but he has started to do it, and the evaluator actually noticed him do it too. His eye contact has always been hit or miss. He will look at people, but it usually happens at specific moments, like when I'm holding him and giving him a bottle, put him on his changing table, standing in his doorway of his room, or if I sing a nursery rhyme to him... otherwise he just seems too occupied looking at other things, but at the same time it doesn't seems like he's intentionally looking away.. it just seems getting and keeping his attention can be difficult. I suppose with a language delay that could make sense... The word a lot of relatives use to describe him is "busy".. he just always seems so into what he's doing, but unfortunately he doesn't seem too into other people. He will NOT let you sit him on your lap to read a book or anything, he just wants to be on the move, doing his own thing most of the time.
One thing the evaluator noted was that some of his toys are very noisy and that can distract babies from hearing language.. and then a light bulb went off in my head and I realized that from the time he was very young (about 4 months old) his babysitters have put shows on TV for him, and he's watched them I'd say at least 2 hours a day (sometimes 3 I'd wager).. and I've read that TV can definitely cause language delay in infants.
I'm trying to say positive, but I'm also really terrified. I have a sibling with severe level 3 ASD, and I'm just hoping if there is an issue we caught it early and EI can help him get through this with a good result.
Has anybody had babies at a young age with poor receptive language and joint attention and seen them blossom and do ok later on?