Is DD Autistic???

[sammythemummy]

Hi dear ladies,

This is my very first post after lurking as a guest for a couple of months.
I have a dd (only child) who is 2.11 months (going to be 3 very soon) she is extremely speech delayed (one word/ SOMETIMES 2 words sentences), she is very echolailic (is that a word?lol)pretty much repeats everything I say, although she will use those words on her own appropriately. Shes very good at communicating via pointing, gesturing, nodding for yes, shaking her head (she uses yes/no verbally as well). Her SALT said that she has good and bad interaction (at the beginning of the assessment she wouldnt face SALT but was warming up to her towards the end thus she made a interactions then). She interacts fine with me, she also plays next to children in playgroup and will interact with them when needed (chasing, passing toys to them and helping each other with building bricks, cooking together etc). She interacts with adults at times but at others she will ingnore them completely ( i.e. if the stay&play cooridator comes to play with her she would carry on doing what she was doing and only glance at her a few times).

She is loving, likes to be picked up, she babbled as a baby, met all her milestones, has no sensory issues, eats well.

Reason why I think she may be on the spectrum:
-You can call her name 3/4/5 times she will not pay attention to you, but other times I can call her once and she will respond (will look at me and say "yes").

-Her interaction at times can be bad, as explained above, when adults play with her she can carry on as normal and not include you, unless you do/say something interesting then she may look at you.

He receptive language is awful by the way! She can only understand simple instrustions brush your teeth, whats your name, put that in the bin,clear that up, dry your hands, hold my hand basically all sentences I practised with her...but ask her what colour that is or how old are you and she will not understand a word.

Sorry to have made this SO long but I really wanted for you to get the whole picture. Oh she just had an ADOS test, havent had the feedback yet but the dr said he felt the test was positive :s

Thanks for reading my rambling

Hi sammy and welcome to the board. No one on here could or would tell you if your Dd has Asd. Only certain proffs are allowed to do that.

Having said that she must have some red flags or she wouldnt have been sent for an Ados.

Whatever happens when you get the results remember your Dd is still your lovely little girl and nothing can change that.

Keep coming on here for support and advice, it is a great place full of knowledgable people.

Good luck

My first step would be to get her hearing checked including a screen for glue ear. Even quite mild hearing loss can impact on speech develop and social skills

I was going to say hearing as well!

Thank you Ineedmorepatience- This place is awsome! It really kept me together because I was a mess a few months ago, crying in the night, constant worry about her future, worried of her going to nursery/school, I still do worry but reading people experiences on here and seeing that life for them won't be that negative- gives me lots of hope. The mums on here are incredible as well!

She wasn't sent to ADOS, it was a training course for trainee psychologists and I took her there because Iv been waiting for her to be seen by the child dev team for months and just wanted to see if anyone could point out that she has traits.

Btw her imagination is amazing, she buildings stuff (slides with cushins, beds for her dollies0 she will feed her dollies, change their nappy, put them to bed, put her toys in cars and take them for a ride etc..

I know that you lovely ladies can't give me a diagnosis but I wanted to see if any of your dc were diagnosed with ASD despite having good interactions and imaginative play?

Iv had her referred to audiology and her hearing is excellent!

She sounds much more communicative and social than my DS with ASD was at the same age, but that could just be girls for you. Her language delay seems the most significant thing in your description. I'm glad you are getting the assessments and hope that you get some answers ASAP.

Have you looked at the Hanen books, More than Words and 'It takes two to talk?' The first is ASD specific and the second more generally for speech delays but they are really great programmes to be trying at your DD's age.

Crossed with you, sammy. Have a look at www.winslowresources.com/it-takes-two-to-talk.html while you are waiting for SALT appointments. My DS's SALT couldn't recommend Hanen highly enough.

Thanks Ellen, Iv been reading that girls with ASD do not display symptoms as much as boys.

Iv been meaning to purchase those dvds, heard they are very good.
Has anyone come across "teach me to listen and obey"? Its aimed at helping with receptive lang disorder.

It sounds like more specific language disorder. You say she plays well and imaginatively. Is this repetitive at all? So she does the imagination think with dolls but tends to stick with what she knows. She is very little still but I think you should mention it to health visitor and get a referal to paed and speech and language therapist.

my Dd (5) has autism and the speech and language difficulties you mentioned sound similar to those of my Dd when she was 3. but she had no imaginative/pretend play at all.

so yes, what flapping said - is the play very repetetive and follows the same script? my dd would take the dolls nappy off, put it on, take it off, put it on etc for ages - nursery took that as fabulous pretend play when it clearly was not.

have you had a assessment by a Salt and a dev paed? if not get referred (via Gp bypass the HV)?

sometimes speech and language disorders can appear ASD-ish so worth looking into this as well.

oh, and the Hanen books are fab.

Hi,
You could undertake a screen to give you more idea if she is likely to have autism and then take this to your doctor for a referral. I have one which may help. My mail is [email protected]. If you drop me a mail happy to send it to you. Also the process of getting a diagnosis is covered in my book 'Securing Appropriate Education for children with autistic specrum disorder. A guide for parents and professionals. If you look on amazon I think you can even look at the chapter without having to buy it!
Good luck

She doesnt sound like my autistic dd at that age, dd didnt point smile wave goodbye she had no words and she didnt interact with people wouldnt even let me her mum hug or kiss her no eye contact. She doesnt sound like my dd but the autisim spectrum is very wide so only a professional will tell you for definate.

First of all, thanks for the responses!

I am on the waiting list for her to see the child development team who will (hopefully) give me a dx but I will still need to wait months for it. We had our first assessment at the SALT who only saw her for an hour and told me she will put her on the waiting list for the parent-child-interaction (I dont really know how that will help).

We have been attending a small group led by a SALT at our children centre- it has helped me in terms of encouraging lang development but I feel she needs 1:1 with a professional- but will she ever get that? Or do I go private?

zzzzz (sorry if I havent put the right amount of z's) Thats what Iv been trying to do, so lately we taught her how to say her name when asked "whats your name?" but some things are harder to teach- like what do you want? and other qs that I cant actually think of now!

I have tried teaching her to defend herself because I have noticed that kids can be pretty violent n aggressive, Iv been experiencing this alot at playgroup lately and it fills me wih worry that she wont be able to stand up for herself When chldrn have pushed her about she will look at me or come find me with a sad face. How do I teach her what to say without the other parents thinking im weird?

Another red flag that I forgot to mention- the last month she has started to flap her hands when overly excited- she hasnt done it in a few days but have caught her doing it quite a few times in the past month-month 1/2. She usually does this when Im blowing bubbles which sets her off in hysterics, will pop them with her hands, kick them, stamp on them, and will clap or flap her hands whilst jumping.

Di any of your dc stop being echolalic?
What should my plan be? wait for the CDT to give me an assessment but carry on working on her receptive language?

Chocjunkie- Her play will differ, so she will sometimes take her dolly for a stroll in her stroller, will put her on the baby swing, will get lots of kitchen tissue and wrap the baby in and and put her to sleep- will say "baby sleep".
She will then get an orange and say "ball" and kick it towards me or my dh and play football. Will play with the trains on the train tracks, she will then get an empty toilet roll and pretend its a tunnel/bridge and makes the trains run under them. She will put toys on top of animals and make them ride on it.

Something I was told on a course recently was not to say "What do you want?" Everytime your child seems to want something. It made real sense to me because Dd3 finds it really hard to ask for what she wants or to ask for help. So instead of always saying "what do you want" try saying "I want......." and see if she can fill in the last word. If not you say "I want juice/food/bubbles". If she can add the last word consistantly, try just saying "I w....." and see if she will add the word want too.

I really wish I had known about this technique when Dd3 was little as I think I would have been able to teach her to ask for things, instead of me having to guess what she wants.

Good luck

Yes echolia stopped when he was about 4. Actually cranial osteopathy helped a lot. I would pay for private salt if you can afford it. A lot spent now may head off all sorts of things at the pass.

Also, get her sight checked by a behavioural optometrist.

ineed thats for the suggestion

flapping im glad your sons echolalia has disappeared, hope the same happens for my dd. How did cranial osteopathy help? I didnt know it could help with speech disorders.

And also, could you expand on the sight test please?

Zzzzz im sorry to hear your ds redeveloped echolalia, must be so frustrating for the both of you, hope he recovers soon!

He sounds SO lovely...i cant wait for the day dd is actually able to have a conversation where she doesnt constantly repeat my every word.

Btw my dd is bilingual, so her vocab is half n half but she understands instructions mostly in my mother tongue

I think dropping the other language is usually not recommended. we dropped the 2nd (and 3rd language) for Dd and swapped to English when she was 3 as there was zero progress in English. however, her s&l difficulties are very severe and she cannot even cope with 1 language, let alone 3. but consolidating her language environment definitively helped her.

Your DD sounds a bit like mine was at that age, but more advanced and much more sociable :) although I like my little cat who walks alone ;) she sounds like she has good shared attention though, and pointing is v good.

One to one speech therapy really helped us (we got it on the NHS), we did a bit of PECS too which helped with requesting things, although she dropped it fairly sharpish once she worked out that she didn't need to use the pictures to get what she wanted. DD now uses nice three part sentences regularly, and can follow simple directions which she couldn't until a couple of months ago. She is three and a half. I would say that she's gone from basically not speaking at all to quite chatty (if limited in her grammar and understanding) in the last six months or so. She always knew a lot of nouns but didn't use them, whereas now she seems to know more verbs and pronouns and will use them in sentences. Part of this is almost certainly going to nursery and listening to lots of other people talk, and part of it is because we read a few books and started interacting with her in a more productive way. I really really liked 'Engaging Autism' which is very useful even if you think your child isn't on the spectrum (I don't really think mine would get a diagnosis), Learning Language and Loving It was brilliant, but very focussed on early years learning and designed to be used by teachers and CMs.

DD would struggle to understand simple questions, so we cue her in. I ask her 'what colour is the ball?' and then I might say 'Is it red?' and get the colour wrong on purpose so she can correct me. I'm sure someone on here told me to try that and it works really well.

Echolalia can be fun though, DD loves learning little phrases (I video myself saying them on the iPad and then she watches it and learns them). We teach her to say all sorts of silly things for fun. You can also teach her little dialogues like 'how are you? I'm fine thank you, how are you?'.

DD is pretty bolshy, so we don't have a problem with teaching her to protect herself or draw the attention of an adult, but we did do quite well in teaching her how to say what she had hurt if she fell over or something. We say 'DD has hurt her....' and she fills in the blanks. If she doesn't respond, we list body parts saying 'DD has hurt her knee? DD has hurt her foot?' and so on.

We did manage to teach her only to use the third person accidentally, so now we are making a real effort to speak more 'normally' around her so that she can start using pronouns more correctly.

mummytomog Your dd sounds like she progressed very quickly! How long did you have to wait for the 1:1 SLT?
Do you think nursery was key in her development?
Did you have a routine with her?

One last question, does it get easier????

And how do you guys discipline receptive delayed children? My H uses the time out routine, which is all and good, but wehn it comes to explaining why I don't think she understands a word he says. Btw he is adamant that theres nothing wrong with her and she'll grow out of it.