I always knew something wasnt quite right with her speech and knew she was delayed so at her two year HV check we were referred for NHS SALT but were warned it was around a year wait and we may find she catches up anyway.
Between Octoberish - January she did start to copy a few basic phrases that were always the same e.g 'Planes where are you?' But could not break the sentence down or say it in a different way e.g 'Where are the planes?'. She also then picked up quite an extreme noise sensitivity to other children especially.
She knew hundreds of nouns but never volunteered to say them. For example in a board speech book I could say 'Show me the tractor' and she could point, and then we moved to 'Whats this?' And she would say 'Tractor' but she didnt sit with the book talking aloud without me prompting her.
She then had a big burst of development around 32 months including sitting talking in her own little babble language and narrating some of her actions, always in the same manner 'In in in! pour it in! oh wow!' but eventually started to break these down and expand her language / change the sentance.
We started private speech therapy in March and it was the therapist who suggested autism could be the reason for her delay, especially given she also did not talk outside of the house (the therapist seems adamant its not situational mutism.) There is some high functioning autism in my husbands side of the family so I wasnt totally surprised but I feel like I never see other autistic children like DD? Like I said she doesnt stim, doesnt flap, doesnt line toys. A few times she spinned around tracking with her eyes and she can clench her fists when excited.
We started using ear defenders at nursery as well as home to help with the noise sensitivity and she started wanting to sit with her peers and play alongside them. She then stopped needing them and is now largely fine and can now go most places without fear.
The reason I think she is a GLP is that she will learn a sentence first rather than the words of the sentence, and there is very limited flexibility.
She does not ask questions unless its a learned phrase e.g Mama where are you, planes where are you, bus where are you' etc.
She has an excellent memory - we can read a book a few times and she will then be able to recite the book back to me while we read it, like she has memorised the speech from each page. Alot of it can still sound quite babbly where she hasnt used the speech independently elsewhere, so there can be filler. She may watch an instagram reel I make of what she has done that month and she can memorise it quickly and say each scene e.g beach! Mummy! Swimming! But if I asked her what was happening on the page of a book, she could not tell me unless I had already said it for her to learn.
She has SOME patterns in her behaviour, e.g there was a video I took of her when she learnt to say 'I want more pram' and it included her making a vroom vroom sound, so then every time she asked for the pram she would then also make the vroom sound.
She has some facial behaviours, such as a scene in Moana, every time she has to run to sit with her Dad and pulls a concerned face, but she knows it makes me laugh. But she will do it every single time.
She still has very limited functional speech, does not use correct pronouns, refers to herself in third person. She does not say 'I am hungry' or 'I want juice' etc. She DOES have shared experiences with me, great eye contact, very affectionate with us and her peers. Loves watching other children, follows her friends round even if she does not speak to them.
She has come on leaps and bounds with her speech though, this morning she got up and said good morning mama, and then 'cuddle mama' etc.
Sorry, ended up on a tangent there!