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SLI or autism?

4 replies

jussi · 02/04/2012 12:10

Hello all,
Feeling a bit confused so thought I would get opinions from here. Obviously you don't know my daughter but I just wanted to ask a few things.

Firstly, her brother is two years older and has autism (I know this doesn't automatically mean she does but could be a factor).

Basically, DD is 2.5 and has 2 words-baby and yeah. She communicates very well using makaton and gestures. She is very vocal and has different sounds that mean certain words eg. ur means more, ah means yes(even though she can say yeah) and ow means no.

She has had a hearing test which is fine, sees a SALT regularly who doesn't seem to think she has autism(but then one of her reasons is that she has great eye contact-well, so does my son). She has a paediatrician appt in a couple of months and while I don't want her to be diagnosed with something she doesn't have, neither do I want her to go undiagnosed if she does have autism.

My mind changes daily as to whether I think she has HFA or a SLI. She has a lot of sensory issues-especially touch-clothes, textures, hugging and kissing on her terms only, gets annoyed if a bit of food is left on her tongue, etc, etc.
Everything has to be on her terms, she has to be in control of everything, gets very frustrated/annoyed if I don't do what she wants me to do. She is sooo independent, has never let me spoon feed her. She is very self critical and gets annoyed if she can't do something herself.

She can role play really well and if you were to watch her for a few minutes you would think her play skills were fine but if you watch her over time then it is a bit as if she gets stuck with her play ie. repeats the same things over eg putting baby to bed, putting teddy to bed, picking them up , putting them back down. maybe this is normal for this age, not sure!

She also has a thing for circles, I wouldn't say obsessive but she does point out anything we see when we are out that are circles. She is very intelligent and knows her numbers, some letters and many shapes.

Her fine motor skills are really good but she is hypermobile and is very unsteady when she runs. (Physio says nothing to worry about).
She is anxious to begin with with new people but then warms up. She is inconsistent with other children, sometimes happy to play, sometimes goes somewhere else.

There are other things too but just realised how long this is becoming so to get to the point, does a SLI sometimes have other symptoms too or is it always just language based?
I do realise frustrations could be to do with language but not so sure about sensory issues, anxiety, etc.
Thanks for reading if you have made it to the end!!!

OP posts:
StarlightDicKenzie · 02/04/2012 13:02

Tbh I would get her assessed by a paed/team that are knowledgeable about autism. Not saying she has it but it can present very differently in girls.

I think if I were you I woukd want it investigated properly and then ruled out if possible.

Given you knowledge about autism and the fact that even you are confused I'd consider carefully WHO you chose to assess her for ASD and ensure they have appropriate expertise to be confident.

zzzzz · 02/04/2012 17:49

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

jussi · 02/04/2012 19:36

Thanks for the replies.
It is hard isn't it,not knowing for sure.what I'm worried about is the paediatrician seeing her feed a dolly and saying she's fine(which is what happened when we originally went 6months ago).

People also don't think she can be autistic because of her wanting to communicate via makaton or gestures.but then at other times I can call her name loads and she doesn't respond but then I wonder if that's just because she's engrossed in her activity! Sigh! She is very different to my son but some of the sensory issues are similar.

I realise I need to focus on strategies to help her rather than a dx at this stage but it does concern me whether we will get the right support for school ie.a language unit or autism specific? The salt said strategies would be the same regardless which I'm not entirely convinced about.anyway I could go on and on,but thanks again for your replies.

OP posts:
zzzzz · 02/04/2012 22:38

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

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