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Hi! I am new to this site and just created a post under "Parents Discussion" but I think this is a more appropriate place to post! I have a son who is 31 months and is speech delayed. He has not been diagnosed with autism yet but I do suspect that he may be on the spectrum. He is verbal but delayed. He did not start speaking until he was 26 months and he now has about 200 words and can combine words into two-word phrases. However, it is all descriptive or to get his needs met, not conversational. I am also noticing problems with the way he is using some of his words. For example, he has begun to use the phrase "that way" and now he uses it to refer to all direction, such as, I ask him where he got hurt and he pointed to his leg and said "that way". I just don't know, something just doesn't seem right to me. His SLP thinks he is fine and doing great. Would this be considered a delay that is indicative of an ASD? He seems to want to communicate and will answer questions but just doesn't use very many words and can't put more than two together. I have other concerns but speech is his biggest delay, in my opinion. He is also lacking in imaginative play, which I've heard can be due to a delay in expressive language. He plays with his toys but in the same way pretty much all the time. He will use imaginative play if prompted. He has good joint attention and eye contact with people he feels comfortable with. However, he does look away ALOT when at the store and strangers try to talk to him. He looks away and smiles and looks at me. He is an anxious child and is aware of dangers and avoids them. He is interested in other children and will notice them when out. He does seem to keep a distance though (he has a slow to warm up personality) but will sometimes parallel play or even play with the child, such as building a tower together (he's done this twice). He's never played with the same child more than once so it's hard to tell how he truly is socially. He doesn't have any sensory issues yet except that he likes to wear sunglasses outside but doesn't HAVE to. He's pretty mellow and doesn't have too many tantrums and he can be redirected and, if not, he calms down within 10 -15 minutes. Recently, when he dances he has started to flap his hands. He's only done this a few times and only when dancing and he tells me to dance with him too so I don't know if this is stimming or if he thinks that's how you dance. Something else that really made me think something is up is that when his father leaves for work for days at a time he doesn't really seem to care. Also, my mother lived with us for his whole life and when she moved recently he didn't even ask where she went. Granted, we took her to the airport and so he knew she was leaving but it just seems odd. He is very attached to me and doesn't show others the same kind of affection he shows me. I know this all a lot of information but I am just looking for some guidance. When I mention that I think he may be autistic to anyone they all tell me I am crazy. Do these sound like autistic traits? Would intervention help? I do have him in speech therapy but would ABA also help with imaginative play and social skills?

Take it from someone who never got diagnosed or received services until late in life, it is never too early to have your baby seen by professionals. Get help early and your kid may be able to avoid some of the misery many of us had before the diagnosis became known.

my sons speech therapist was never concerned about his issues either. He got speech from 15 months on, he had a cleft lip and palate at birth and was getting speech due to that. He was delayed, but had words. I understood him, and when he started to really TALK it was mostly delayed echolalia (words and phrases he heard from tv, books, songs, etc) and I was worried, but the ST told me it was fine cause he was using it in context not just saying it for no reason.

My son also jumped only when excited and would then flap his arms. I was told that was fine too, cause he only did it when jumping in excitement. Fast forward to 8 years old, he still jumps when excited and flaps when jumping. Cute at 1, not so much at 8...lol.

I could go on and on. Go get your eval! Don't be surprised if you hear he is fine. I always did. Mommy gut always said there was something more going on, and it took till he was almost 6 to get diagnosis.

good luck!

I agree. Your son sounds very much like mine at age, except that mine had no speech delays. So, he might have Aspergers. Don't let the possibility of a label worry you yet. Yes, get him checked out, and he may qualify for speech help, but don't be surprised if they don't dx him with ASD and later you find he is on the spectrum. There is such a wide range of normal development at this age, professionals will be cautious about dxing less obvious cases. If you qualify for speech therapy, that therapist will watch for more signs as he grows older. I could be wrong, but I don't think there is anything to intervene about at this age except speech. There is still plenty of time to avoid the misery that Harrycontests refers to.

I would spend this time enjoying, playing with and getting to know your son really well. I bet he is really smart and is a very interesting kid. The more you know about your son, the better you will naturally develop the best ways to work with him. And later you will work with professionals better the more you know him. The spectrum is very wide, so he is unique. Get to know his strengths and weaknesses, and continue to learn about ASD. Don't be surprised that he presents as normal to other people. My son wasn't dxd until almost 9yo. By then I had learn a ton more than professionals could help with. (Though I bet your son would be dxd far earlier than my son.)

Your son sounds a lot like mine at that age. We did take him for an Early Intervention evaluation at 31 months, and even using the ADOS he did not qualify as autistic at that time. (The psychologist even told me, "He's not autistic, just strong-willed.") He really didn't start to have tantrums and meltdowns until age 3 (at the time we figured his terrible twos just came late), and began to have problems in preschool (with circle time, throwing sand/blocks, not cleaning up, not following directions, socially ostracized) at age 4. He was retested with the ADOS at age 5 and diagnosed with Aspergers. At 5 we also noticed that you couldn't really have a back-and-forth conversation with him because he jumped from topic to topic like a CD player on random-skip. We saw a dramatic improvement in his conversation just two months after starting ADHD meds at age 6 -- hard to say if it was the medicine or a coincidence.

He started in a preschool program (2 mornings a week) at 28 months, with the hope of helping his speech, and I don't think it did much for him, verbally or socially. He also had private speech therapy from 30-36 months, and seemed to catch up to the milestones for age-level expressive language quickly (although looking back he was not having true back-and-forth conversations). The only thing I wish we had done differently in those years was to keep him in speech longer, perhaps switching to a social language group at age 3. The Hanen programs "More Than Words" and "Target Words" might also be helpful. Perhaps we could've also started OT, at 5 they determined he had a fine motor delay that wasn't obvious to me.

One thing I wish someone had told me is that having a mild language delay like you describe (a little late with single words, phrases by 3 years, and a clear desire to communicate) is often associated with a later diagnosis of ADHD or dyslexia. (A recent book on dyslexia described my son's speech delay almost exactly.)

So it might be worth contacting EI for an evaluation now, but keep in mind that if he doesn't qualify for services he may need to be re-evaluated in a couple years time. Do enroll him in preschool at age 3 and get an eval if/when they start reporting problems (if you can get a preschool teacher to write an email about the problems she sees, it can be very helpful for the evaluation.)

It's hard to find books relevant to mild ASD in the toddler and preschool years. These are the ones I like to recommend for age 3-5:
Asperger Syndrome and Young Children: Building Skills for the Real World by Teresa Bolick
The Out-of-Sync Child: Recognizing and Coping with Sensory Processing Disorder by Carol Stock Kranowitz
Raising Your Spirited Child Workbook by Mary Sheedy Kurcinko (get the "Workbook" version)

One more tip -- when you look for preschools, try and find one that has a very small class, 8-10 is ideal, no more than 12 kids physically in the room. DS did very well in the small setting, his preschool problems started when he switched to a class with 24 kids in the room with 2 teachers. (And his elementary school problems were dramatically reduced by going from a gen ed class of 24 to an Aspergers school class with 7 kid.)

I also have twin daughters who are 3.5, who recently switched from a class of 8 to a class of 16 (we moved), and for one of them the larger class has been difficult to adjust to.

Thanks for all the input!

I did have him evaluated by EI when he was 27 months. He qualified for services but not due to his speech delay (since they looked at both receptive and expressive together). He qualified because he was behind on adaptive skills. That was mainly due to the fact that we baby him way too much . They did not think he had autism. So he has been receiving speech therapy through EI for about 3 months. He's made progress with gaining a bigger vocabulary and putting two words together but he is not age appropriate by any means, even though his SLP thinks he's almost there, it is very frustrating. He does not use ANY pronouns and still refers to himself by name. His two-words are pretty much things like "big car", "red hat", "mama sit" and "more juice" (he puts a lot of other two-words together but that pretty much sums up the type of phrases he uses). He just seems so far behind and I am getting worried that speech therapy is not going to help. So does he sound like he has echolia? I mentioned this to the SLP and she said no that he is understanding what he is saying so that it's really not echoing and that he sometimes gets confused on the concept of what he is saying. Should I be worried that his speech will never take off? Does this happen or do most progress to functional speech? I think about this non-stop and just don't know how to help him. I brought him to a private ST and she was no help. She said she did not think he was on the spectrum and that he was age appropriate because he is putting two words together. She wanted to work on his articulation. I could care less about articulation at this point. He will be evaluated when he turns 3 by the school district. I've already been told by EI that he probably won't qualify for special needs preschool. Does anyone know how to find a private preschool for special needs?

Also, what makes him sound like HFA vs. a more severe case?

Thanks!

It sounds like your son has enough signs to go ahead and have him evaluated. I would trust your mother's instinct. If you feel there is something just not right, then I would act on that. Do not worry what others think. No one knows your child better than you. It sounds like you are doing the right thing by getting him speech therapy now. His speech should continue to improve over time. It sounds as though he at least has a desire to communicate and play with children a little bit. That is a good sign.

My son is now 8, and we knew by age 1 that he had something going on. Mainly because he was a delayed walker. Once we had him in physical therapy, all of the other red flags started appearing. He has been receiving therapy since he was a year old, and he is now doing fairly well with speech and academics. However, he still has ZERO desire to play with other kids. He also flaps his hands and does a lot of repetitive activities. He is VERY loving to myself and my husband, and to other close family members. He is also very friendly to adults and his teachers at school, but does not interact with the children very much at all.

I agree with Zette. I would go ahead and enroll him in Pre-k at age 3. The only way you will be able to see if he is different is to put him with other children. If he has AS, it will probably start to show up in the school setting.

I know this is a rough time, the not knowing for sure. I believe all of us have been there. But I think the first step will be to be brave and go ahead with the evaluation for your own peace of mind.

Also, Wrong Planet is a great place to come to express your concerns and to find out info from parents who have experience with ASD.

Hang in there, your son sounds like a very interesting little boy, and you will love him no matter what!

Regarding the echolalia, with due respect, your SLP is dead wrong. My son had a very sophisticated database in his head of phrases he would plug in when he deemed them to be appropriate. (Most of which he got from his somewhat pedantic and definitely verbose mother. )Often they conveyed what he meant, and sometimes they didn't, when he did not have stored phrase that fit.. This was how my son eventually developed more sophisticated original speech. I did not know until I learned about echolalia on thios board that that was what it was. In delayed echolalia they can store these phrases. Think of it as a verbal PECS system. He wants to say something, doesn't know how to express it, and looks into his mind for a phrase that suits the situation the best. He understood what he was saying, he just could not use his own words.


He had very idiosyncratic speech and to a much lesser extent still does. He will use seemingly off-topic original "catchphrases" to indicate things like wanting us to stop talking about something. He has elaborate scripts and roleplays he likes to "direct" for a lack of a better term.

This is about where DS was at 31 months, he seemed to be stuck at two or three word phrases. He had a clear intent to communicate (eg "more juice", "light on", "open door"), had lots of individual words (I stopped counting once he reached 50, but would guestimate 100-150 around 31 months), and was not using echolia. (The only time I really saw it happen was during his AS evaluation at age 5. He didn't know the answer to the psychologist's question, and started saying "Let's build a word," from World Word.)

During the six months of speech therapy, the therapist would introduce a concept -- words ending in -ed or -ing, plurals, his/her, for instance, and he would pick up the idea in just a couple sessions. I often had to tell her, "I think he's got -ing down, and is ready to move on." By 36 months he was speaking in full sentences. I took him to the elementary school for an eval, and all they cared about was articulation in single words.

You could look see if he could be a "peer-model" in a special ed preschool that integrates typical and ASD kids. Church-based preschools (I've seen good ones run by Presbyterian, Methodist, and Lutheran churches) often have small classes and a developmental (rather than academic) play-based focus.