When did your DC (Asd) start to talk?

[Timepasses]

My ds has just turned 3 but still only speaks the same 5 words (not in context) since age 2. He has SALT & portage and we are waiting on an Asd diagnosis. Would like to hear any similar experiences. Thanks in advance.

Anything that wasn't echolalia didn't happen till he was about 5 and had been at a SN school for 6 months.

I'd given up on him speaking anything not from a book or TV.

He had SALT/Portage/SN nursery inclusion place etc.

DS1 - 14 months. Mostly labelling for years, though, despite acquiring a large vocabulary. He was also (and still is, to some extent) selectively mute.

DS2 is almost 7. Some days he is quite chatty ("do dat again" "dit dere!" "Goooooo!") and other days we get nothing at all.

3.5 - nothing yet - She has been babbling for 2 years now

Ds had about 10 words when he was 2.5, and about 100 words a year later after lots of SALT / Hanen approach. He jargoned (babbled nonsense) a lot, and still does a fair bit. Now he's almost 5 and seems to have 'got' what communication is a bit more, and is beginning to make little sentences, and his language compares to an NT child of about 2.5 ("No shoe on", "I want milk", "ow Daddy head"). But it's been a hard slog. He only really grasped what names were in November. Finally hearing him call me Mummy still makes me a bit goose-pimply.

Also DS goes to an ASD school and has had weekly SALT since he started in the autumn, which has helped tremendously.

Ds(7) Didn't start saying any words until he was 3.5 and didn't actually start talking until he started reception, he had portage, SALT and a SIPS worker in nursery but thankfully he was put on an intensive speech and language therapy course when he started reception and had a therapist come to meet myself and his support worker at his school for an hour every fortnight to check his progress and update our 'things to do' with him. He had 2 15 minute sessions with his support worker daily and 1 15 min session at home with me. It was a great help as I had basically given up on ever having a conversation with him.

He still has SALT and it is written into his statement, although his speech is very formal and most times what he is saying is in context he does still copy phrases he has heard from tv and is very repetative. Still, I will take that any day and when he is on the ball is a very funny and interesting little chap, I find it refreshing to talk to someone who thinks a little differently

Thank you for your replies. They have made a little more hopeful. Can't wait to hear 'mummy'. It is heartbreaking when he is poorly and he can't say what's wrong

Age 4, seemed like a synapse flicked and he went from 20 inaccurate sounding words that we could understand, to talking in sentences a week later.

We've never had mummy.

Best I get is (DS2 is into roaring everything, at the moment - too many leapster dinosaurs!)

half my post got eaten! Best I get is a roared MMMMUUUUURRRRMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!

Oh yes, I got called 'daddy' for a while. And dd's name. He called her 'mummy' for a year or so. Actually, for a long time he called some people by their name, but I was just a blank.

I like the roaring, ouryve. :o

DS2 had about 20 words, all concrete labels at 3. At nearly 4, in the summer holidays, all the Hanen stuff seemed to get through and he started using short sentences. PECS worked well with him as well, he seemed to get the point of communication. Lots of echolalia, all delayed echolalia, no immediate copying, from children's videos mainly. "Troll in the dungeon!" was a particular favourite.

At 13, he speaks in a strange, high pitched voice, but is perfectly understandable. He still doesn't 'chat.'

My eldest started to talk when he was about 7. But only a few words and mostly noises in a sort of talking pattern, if that makes any sense. Words started to come, then small simple sentences. He talked at a toddler level for a few years and now - at 13, 14 in a couple of months - he talks quite well. I suppose he talks at about a 6 year old's level, perhaps. And in an odd way. People often say that it sounds like english is not his first language.

My youngest (now 12) has always been able to speak, from the usual age, he just doesn't want to. He was exclusively echolalic (delayed echolalia) for many years and it's only in recent years that he's been using speech to communicate and it's still only to give information on a need to know basis . He doesn't have chats with me. He is still mainly echolalic. He has a good vocab and brilliant grasp of grammar etc, he just doesn't WANT to talk to us. him actually giving a bit of unessential information is a major event that has me jumping up and down with joy!