Child delay nodding yes or no

[Whatisthislifeiffullofcare]

Hi
Has anyone any experience of this. Child has speech and language delay, assessed at first meeting with paediatrican as having development delay, some autistic traits- but not going forward for autism assessment - not seen as main problem. Just realised recently ( I know 😳) she didn't nod yes or shake head no. Recently has started to do so but very deliberate iykwim - maybe 1\2 slow head movements. No obviously physical problems except hypermobilty. She's 3 years 7 months. Speech therapist didn't know what this was.

do you mean your child cannot respond appropriately to yes/no questions (either verbally or by nodding/shaking head).

My daughter was late with bit too. She was 3.5. She does have ASD/learning diffs and generally very delayed speech and language).

I don't think it means something on its own. It was just one of many things where DD was very delayed.

Thank you for replying. She says no and a colloquial version of yes. Just curious about the nodding (and a lot of other things - as no-one has yet decided/said what the main problem is) she has just started to do it with encouragement but it's so deliberate . Maybe one bend of the head ( as if her head might fall off) .

She seems to have trouble retrieving words and sentences can be disordered. Some days worse than others.

Could it be part of a sensory processing issue? Proprioception is the sense that lets you know where your body is in space. If you have issues with it then, unless you can see the body part you are moving, you do not know how to control the movement of that body part.

With proprioception issues you have to build muscle memory to learn how to move parts of the body/ maybe she is doing that with her slow, deliberate head nod?

Ah that's interesting. Thank you. I understand what you mean and would make sense. She is like a little jigsaw at the moment. It is difficult to make sense of all her little bits.

I was wondering about proprioception too. DD was quite late to shake and nod I think (she was verbal before she did all this gestural stuff). It's only now I have a DS who is probably neurotypical that I see how early he is doing all the gestures (even though he's actually behind where DD was in speech - he is much more of a gestural communicator).

DD is hypermobile too. So there's another element in the mix to disentangle!

It is fascinating but difficult to try to work out what is actually going on!

DS had trouble with this - in fact even now at 7 he still has difficulty nodding (shaking his head was easier). In his case I attribute it to his dyspraxia.