What can I do to help DD 11 mths who I'm worried may be ASD?

[Ellie4]

OK I know its way too early to do anything official but I'm watching her v. closely as ds1 is ASD. I'm starting to have worries about her being ASD as she is too quiet. She is very often is completely silent and when she is vocalising it doesn't seem like she is talking to me but is just making the sounds such as mamama, dadadada, bababab, rararara etc iykwim. She has not really done the babbling that other babies do. Also she does not look at you if she is close such as being held or being breastfed. It also seems that these last few weeks I'm having to work to get a smile out of her instead of her just giving them. There are other things too but I don't want to go into loads of detail as I just can't face being told " my dd/ds was just like that too"

What I am doing is giving loads of very big smiles and lots of praise when we have interactions. I say the sounds to her but she does not really repeat them back. What can I do at home to encourage her speech development, eye contact and joint attention. Many Thanks

I'ld be inclined to read up on language delay, and practical things you can do with your child to help improve language and communication.

you might want to look into baby signing - Mr Tumble, sing and sign dvds

www.ican.org.uk
www.hanen.org
www.teachmetotalk.com

Useful books:-
The Parent's Guide to Speech and Language Problems by Debbie Feit (general info but cheap and likely to be in library)
any of the Hanen books - You Make the Difference, It Takes Two to Talk, or More thanWords - pricey but full of useful guidance and practical.
Baby Talk by Sally Ward

The Hanen books are v useful in helping with the non-verbal side of communication as well.

Thank you TLP I've just remembered I have one of the Hanen books already somewhere.

I've also tried a tiny bit of signing from a very basic book so will keep that up.

If you are at home with her and have time, I would start readng up on ABA and consider whether you can incorporate some ABA with her yourself when she gets a bit older. We started with dd aged 3 but I know others who have done some from aged 2.

Hi I don't want to say anything wrong but before saying its asd u have to look att at other things.
When I was getting a dx for my ds 4 the doctors told me that at a young age asd and speech and language impairment look so similar!

Don't know if this will help?!

dd2 sn school takes kids from 2 years old.Its a special autism school. They spend alot of time copying the children in the early days and trying to make that conection with them. They do alot of physically play to try and get children used to being touched and focus on what they find intresting.
DD2 was referred at 22 months, got working dx at 2 and dx with autism at 3. The early intervention has been very good and i have no doubt made a huge impact on her.

Ellie4

you might like to have a look at this recent review of autism
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN NEUROPATHOLOGY OF AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS (caps are part of article title paste)

Thanks for your replies. Interesting article dolfrog esp that there is now part of ADOS that can be done from 12 months.

like samira I don't want to say anthing wrong either but have you checked hearing? imo worth ruling out, could your HV refer you for hearing check based on language delay?

Not in the UK but she had a hearing check at birth. Also she has not seemed like she cannot hear us or other sounds.

I would recommend looking into Intensive Interaction because she's so young. It's basically what any parent does with a young baby (very close, exagerated facial expressions, parentese, lots of copying her vocalisations etc.). I would take every opportunity to show her that eye contact or making a sound "works", try (I know it might be hard in day to day life) to react in an exaggerated (unless this scares her!), postive way every time she does anything that could be seen as communicating (even if you suspect she's babbling into thin air, looking through you rather than at you or tapped your arm by mistake- she'll soon make the connection between reaching out {physcially, verbally or with eye contact} and things she likes happening)

I would still get her hearing checked - all mine passed new born hearing test but since found out all 3 are genetically prediposed to glue ear, could hear enough to get by only littlest had 'significant' speech delay, ds1 found School really difficult due to how noisy it was, he would avoid eye contact because he was concentrating on his listening (he would drop head and turn good ear towards you to listen but as we didn't know why he did it it just looked like he was avoiding eye contact - lots of other traits too....) - in a quiet home enviroment I hadn't noticed anything was wrong with hearing.

my 7yr old ds has hf aspergers. I am not for a minute suggesting this is what is going on for your dd. However there are things we did in the early days to keep him engaged that my help with your dd. DS had very poor eye contact and lack of reciprical interaction (didn't smile back when smiled at, didn't take turns at verbalising etc). We sang alot to ds, the melody and rhythm seemed to really engage him.

We also would appeal to more than one sense so for example we would always touch him when we talked to him (a multi sensory approach is still the best way to engage him and have him retain what he is learning). For eye contact we would lie him on his tummy and then lie facing him.

I would try to get something engaging and use it to interact with him get him to try to track it with his eyes and use it around my face a lot. DS has had loads of stuff going on since he was very small and I was certainly very concerned about him and what the future held. I have relaxed a lot as although he has got aspergers and is struggling desperately at school I know him now and he is awesome. He has so much going for him and we work very hard to support him in the areas that he struggles in, through trial and error we usually will find something that clicks for a specific issue.

Whether or not there is something going on with your dd, you will find that as she grows you will develop strategies that seem to fit for her and for you.

what blue emerald describes re:non verbal conversational turns - i.e responding to movements etc is v much in line with hanen.

good point also re:using more than one sense, sometimes it's useful to tap on the shoulder to get attention, sometime's it's useful to show a photo to accompany the word - eg. if talking about aunty X, have a photo to hand.