Hi guys,
I am desperately worried about my eldest daughter (28 months old) and am unsure what to do. I was hoping for experience-shares from others that had been through or knew toddlers with Global Development Delay (GDD).
We noticed she was behind at around 20 months and have since 23 months been doing ABA therapy as the advice was regardless of whether it was ASD, early intervention was key. We have seen some great progress and our consultant does not think she would meet the criteria for an ASD dx however either way we are still very worried about it all.
Her main challenge is social skills and responsiveness. We have been advised to keep her in ABA therapy full-time with a view to her starting mainstream preschool in September. However we are noticing recently that when we take her to the supermarket (Her only change of scenery for the past 5 months) she is more socially engaged. She looks us in the eye, laughs, looks at the people and points more. She has rarely seen other toddlers for a year and I am wondering if this is a sign she should be in a nursery at least a couple of days a week.
She would either sink or thrive and I am anxious about the possibility of her sinking. She is very sensitive and stressful situations have often led to setbacks. I wanted to start off with ‘stay and play’ so that I could stay with her to ease her in but in my area there aren’t any options like this currently until June.
To give an idea on my LO I have written down some notes below.
Positives -
Receptive skills. She can follow instructions such as ‘give this to daddy’ and ‘don’t do X’.
When you say the name of things she will point accordingly in a picture book. She knows 200+ labels.
Motor skills are good - can eat with a fork, drink from an open cup, kick a ball, throw a ball overarm, almost get dressed.
No sensory issues.
No stims (Aside from hand flapping when excited and watching tv)
Sleeps through the night for the most part.
Eats well.
Good concentration and problem solver. Can finish a puzzle for 4+.
Reasonable imaginary skills - likes wearing a tiara in the mirror, cooking, tea sets, dollhouse etc.
Enjoys cuddles.
Doesn’t lose skills or forget learnt words.
Can imitate pat her head, stomp your feet etc. She can also do these when we say ‘stomp your feet’ etc. This may be just because of ABA.
Is well behaved. Only has minor tantrums when she can't have something she wants.
Worries -
The main area of concern is her social communication and responsiveness.
Its hard to get eye contact but it doesn’t feel as if she’s averse to eye contact. (Enjoys eye contact when I sing her favourite nursery rhymes.)
Eye contact, shared emotion and responsiveness is lacking in general.
Responds to her name occasionally.
Expressive language is minimal. Only has a few words - ‘up’ when she wants out of her chair, ‘ok’ amidst babbling, ‘bubble’ ‘ready, steady, go’ when playing with toys.
Can imitate words when prompted just can’t pronounce them well - ‘hello’ ‘bye bye’ both of these are accompanied by little waves. ‘Pease’, ‘Daddy’, ‘Thank you’.
Rarely points to share attention.
Was coming to her name but has recently stopped doing as much. This appears to be more defiance than unresponsiveness which I have taken as a good sign and more in line with typical ‘terrible twos’.
Some other background, aged 14 > 22 months a combination of stressful factors may have contributed to or triggered issues. There was the isolation of the Covid restrictions where we had to stop seeing anybody. I went through a stressful pregnancy which resulted in premature twin sons being born at 25 weeks in August and we moved house twice. There was a lot of stress in the house throughout this period but perhaps it is just a coincidence.
Sorry for the long post. My question is due to the fact that her deficit is mainly social should we put her in an MS nursery 2 days a week or will she benefit more from the ABA therapy. Thank you for any experience shares 