making choices

[amymouse]

Hello, wondering if anyone can help!
DD (3.7) is being assessed for ASD/social communication issues. She is very stubborn and we have lots of trouble with things that are not on her terms/initiated by her. Until very recently, the most effective way to help her make choices or actually follow commands was to present 2 things "X or Y" as she ignored any open ended questions and has trouble with expressing "yes" (oddly enough, no problems with "no"). Her nursery are really good and have also started doing this and trying a "now and next" board to help her transition between activities. However, in the last few weeks she has seemingly descended into indescisiveness and carrying out anything has been met with more resistance than usual and she will fight and fight and cry out choices. If she starts one thing, within seconds she wants the other and will then either be rooted to the spot unable to do anything or physically lash out, which she never did before.
Her speech is still delayed in areas so I suspect there may be a gap in communication of what she wants to express but am a bit lost of knowing what to do.
She might also well be just be being a fusspot of a 3yo and I am reading too much into things but either way, something is not working ideally...

Do you think a choice board would help?
So similar to the "do you want x or y?" strategy, but presenting the options visually, using photos or symbols.

If you were to use a velcro board, you could limit the choices to the number you think she can cope with. Might make her choice making a bit more concrete, and also allow you to offer more than 2 choices at one time, and for her to focus on them more successfully?

Thanks both,
Singy I think nursery use a choices board; she is very visual so maybe it would help at home. As far as I can tell she does understand verbal language sufficiently, but maybe a visual clue too would help back things up. We're stuck at the place where our paed brought up ASD, but the people who are supposed to help coordinate support like SALT and the Early Years team in the community think it is a lot of rubbish and that our paed is barking and I am fibbing and being over-anxious. That said, after observing her recently they have started muttering about social communication and social anxiety...both to my mind which also warrant decent support.
Polter the anxiety thing makes sense. The "X or Y" thing started because she was getting so defensive about tasks like getting dressed, joining in with things etc, so it started out as a way of helping her independance so she could eg. choose blue trousers or green trousers. It has made me wonder though if it maybe went a bit overkill and got applied to too many situations when it wasn't always needed. She still mimics a lot of language and gets 'stuck' on things if you like and it has crossed my mind that where she appears to be utterly reliant on having choices presented, it may actually be her 'playing back' what she has heard before which she does a lot whilst anxious. I think maybe I need to rethink some things; it feels so trial and error and I feel so guilty during rough patches about getting it wrong. Do you just sit out the screaming and "no nonononon no no"s?!

All day today she just hasn't wanted to engage with me, let alone anyone else, and has sat quietly on her bed recieting her favourite story from cover to cover. She knows it and others word perfectly but can't use that language to ask for many things at all yet or tell me if something is wrong maybe I need to give SALT a kick up the bum. Again.

Yes, I MUST start the diary. I keep meaning to and keep forgetting. Yes, I've read up on echolalia and it just screams DD to me. She is definitely getting better, but still so much of her speech is lifted. A lot of it is things I recognise from myself or books, so it is really subtle but I can tell. She nearly always resorts to "learnt" phrases in social situations and when she is unsettled or anxious, she will just repeat the same few things over and over all day. Given she has only been speaking clearly or putting any words at all together for around 7-8 months, her total vocab now is HUGE because she parrots so much, but the words she will use spontaneously either singularly or in short sentences is only a small fraction of things she can physically say. From what I've read echolalia can be directed into really helping learning and in social skills so I'm keeping fingers crossed it may be one thing, that though comes across as quite quirky now, will actually really help DD in the future.

Fact Files = bedtime reading! Thank you

Good to know other very experienced sounding parents are also still winging it! So easy to get stressed in your own cocoon and assume everyone else is super-mum (or dad).