Speech delay with possibility of autism

Yep! My son was that way. Now he’s almost 4 and communicates better. Give him a bit of time I’ll say too. Keep supporting him as much as you can.

My little dude (almost 6) was diagnosed with a speech delay and developmental delays. He was diagnosed with ADHD at age 4. I feel like your pediatrician has a solid plan but never hurts to look into early intervention, speech therapy and OT as needed too. Good luck mama

My 4 year old has just been diagnosed with autism on Monday, we noticed his signs from before he was 1. It was just so obvious for us, but they really do make us wait ages! My son is extremely speech delayed too, I can’t speak on him growing out of it, but I just want you to know you are not alone. You know your son, fight for that diagnosis if you think he truly does have it. Never stop fighting for your boy, you are his voice❤️

Mine is the exact same. He’ll be 1 1/2 in a few days. I’ve signed him up for speech therapy classes. They want to test him when he turns 2.

Mine is the same and was born at 34 weeks, he’s now 23 months and communicates better (his pediatrician recommended we put him with kids more of his actual age and older, so he can see them communicating.) he’s still technically behind compared to other 23 month olds but for a preemie, our pediatrician said it’s common

We don’t have a definitive autism diagnosis but our speech therapist is watching for signs for us and says he has a few of them. As he’s getting older, the tisms are coming on harder. We are currently 30 months and he only consistently says go and up. Mom and dad when he wants to but for the most part he prefers being self sufficient. If he’s hungry, he goes to the pantry and brings me a snack to open. If he’s thirsty he gets angry at his empty water cup (we are working hard on water and the sign). We are just rolling with it at this point. We also aren’t telling anyone in our families that he’s in speech therapy because we already get enough grief for having the audacity to mention we think he might be autistic. Like autism is Beetlejuice and if you say it out loud it will suddenly appear 🙄. I’d rather catch it early and begin accommodating him so he has the best chance of being able to handle his tisms in a healthy way so he can better succeed at life.

Mine was like that around that age. I took him to a chiropractor that uses the activator technique and after about 6 months he was talking in sentences and hitting his milestones.

@Kayla see that’s what I think we are all waiting to see before giving a diagnosis. She told me preemies born before 32 weeks sometimes take until 3 years old to catch up to peers. His fine and gross motor are right on track.

I'm unsure of being a premie. Though my son was born with some brain damage due to not breathing, then low blood sugars, then jaundice, he was born 41+ weeks he didn't talk til he was nearly 4 years old and today at 15 years old he is still quite delayed we have seen speech and OT since he was 2 at first we did markaton sign language and that helped for a year or so we tried PECS but that didn't work for us but sign did. For us, it was slow and steady and still working on it. My son was diagnosed with autism at age 3 and global developmental delay at about 2 and a half years old.

My son was like this, he’ll be 2 in a couple days. And talks so much! not saying sentences but lots of words, we live away from family & friends and he doesn’t go to daycare but we recently went home to visit & just with him being around other kids he’s picked up so much!

My son is 19 months and used to say mama/dada. Now he doesn’t say anything at all…he just makes sounds. We had a regular checkup with the pediatrician and my son scored a 12 on his M chart assessment. We’ve been referred to speech, early childhood intervention, and his evaluation has been scheduled for June (soonest available)

Mine is now 2 and he was the same and was premature also. My HV referred us for autism assessment at 1 simply because of the other traits he was showing (hand flapping, head banging, sensory aversions). I will say however his communication is coming on more now tho, he’s attempting to say some words and hand leads a lot but we’ve had lots of early intervention. I don’t know where you are but here we have ‘talk in walk ins’ where you can speak to a speech therapist. They then referred us to a communication course with him. It’s more for the adults to learn new ways of communicating with them and it’s really helped us x

This almost sounds like my 3 year old son who was a little under 2.5 when he got the diagnosis of being speech/ developmentally delayed. I noticed he has drastically behind in his communication and social skills at around 18 month including using gestures like pointing. Long story short, with speech therapy and a lot of determination and work on doing what his therapist asked if us, my son is building sentences and expressing his thoughts and won't hush lol. Give him some time and do what you can do to help him along, a lot of fun and repetition will hopefully allow for him to blossom.

My son has been in speech since he was 20 months old. He’s over 2 and still not talking in sentences or requesting but his receptive language is advanced for his age He does say a few words. Obsessed with trains and trucks and tracks. Says those 3 words clear as day. I was worried before but I know speech will come eventually.

@Christina🤱🏼🍂☕️♈️ does your son use sign? My son wasn't at first and through Ms Rachel he learned some and that helped jumpstart him (along with tons of modeling and repetition) but it definitely will come eventually. Another thought I found my son learned things easier at times through song.

My stepson who has a speech delay turned 4 in March. When I met him, he was 2, and didn't say anything, but could sign a few things. We are currently working on trying to get him into speech therapy. He can communicate better now, but definitely not nearly as much as most kids his age. He has a phonemic collapse which makes communication difficult in addition to the speech delay. He has tubes, which have helped him to not have so many ear infections and probably has improved his hearing a bit as well. That surgery was about a year ago. His mom got him tested for autism, and he's "level 2 autistic" even though his father and I don't think he is, despite possibly having tendencies. He seems to have ADHD pretty clearly, though. Just wanted to provide a point of view.

Hey, I am going through similar my son has an early intervention appointment tomorrow for evaluation. I say keep working with him but also do your due diligence so you can make sure he gets all the support he needs