I have posted before about my ds2 who has various developmental delays, but we don't have any type of diagnosis. Just as I think he is doing better and really coming on with his language, he scares me by not seeming to understand anything I am on about. He woke up this morning and trotted into our bedroom and got into bed with us. It was his 3rd birthday last week and I said to him that he would be able to tell them about it at nursery today. So he said "It's my birthday tomorrow". I said "You've had your birthday last week - you had a party - do you remember who came to your party?" Blank look then "Linda" - who is one of his carers at nursery. We also went out to the zoo on Saturday as a birthday treat. So I asked him about this "Can you remember where you went for your birthday treat?" Doesn't seem to have much idea what I am on about, says "Linda" a couple more times then eventually says "to the farm". But then when I asked him what we had seen at the zoo he really perked up and described the lions and how they were asleep and the tigers which he had particularly liked. Then he finished his milk and said "It's all gone. I'll get you some more when we get home" which is what I have said to him a few times when we are out. When he behaves like this I feel like he's on a different planet to the rest of us.
Other times he seems so much more with it and he does have a lot of "spontaneous" speech that makes perfect sense - I mean speech that he has just produced of his own accord which is appropriate to the situation. When we were discussing where we would go for his birthday treat last week, he chose the zoo and particularly specified that he would like to see lions and elephants - we had a really sensible conversation and I thought we are really making some progress here. But after times like this morning I think perhaps he is just really good at regurgitating the correct phrases in the right place and we only notice the times when it doesn't quite work.
As I have said in other threads I think he might be dyspraxic as he has co-ordination problems, problems with jigsaws and shape sorters, his motor skills are behind. I have read that dyspraxics sometimes cannot seem to answer a simple question, but I don't know if this is more than that and he has some sort of language disorder. I have wondered about autism but he really interacts, he understands turns, he plays things like hide and seek, he copies his brother like mad - he really wants to communicate and join in with things.
I don't really know why I am posting this - mostly because I am worried I suppose and just to ask if anyone has any experience of anything similar. He is being monitored by a SALT and paed but when I try to explain this type of thing they don't really seem to understand what I am trying to say. His speech is unclear in terms of articulation and I don't think they really believe he can talk anywhere near as well as he does so we don't get beyond that.