u/137483638

Just curious what speech progression looked like for your children. I know all kids are different, especially ND kids. My son is 2.5 years old. He has about 70-75 consistent words that he uses for single word requests (ex. He will hand lead us to his water bottle on the counter and say “water”) or for general naming and labeling (example he sees a cow on TV and says “cow” or sees cars in a parking lot and says “blue car”). He is not currently conversational at all and does not call out for us from another room or anything like that. His receptive skills are delayed for his age for sure but not horrible. For example if we say “go get your shoes” he can grab them and sit by the door to put them on. He’s in early intervention for speech but to be honest it’s not often and they really don’t do much with him at all. We’re itching for the day we can get him in legitimate speech therapy but we live in a small town with very little resources for kids under 3 (we’re moving soon). In the meantime we try to work with him as much as possible. When did your kids go from single words to more functional speech? TIA!

I am sitting in my car crying, feeling hopeless after a play date. A little bit about my son- he is 2.5 and We are waiting on his evaluation results for autism. He is emerging verbal (about 75 words but struggles with speech functionally, mainly single word requests and labels things with speech) and I want to be clear that I am so grateful that he’s developed some speech. I don‘t take that for granted. He is extremely sensory seeking, loves to throw rocks and dirt outside, throw balls, crash his body into us, loves to be squished etc. he also can become highly fixated on things and it is very hard to redirect him, and we are struggling with him smacking himself on the head when he’s upset. I’m feeling so isolated and lost through this whole process. We just left a play date where the other kids all played and he sat by himself reading and playing with toys with zero interest in the other kids. When he wasn’t doing that followed me around whining and begging for another banana to the point where he was so fixated on it I had to hide them. Then we went outside and he became so fixated on throwing dirt in their pool no matter how much I redirected him. He is my whole world. He is so affectionate and sweet, and funny, but I’m so scared for his future. Seeing him sit in the corner alone breaks me. I don’t want him to be lonely or feel on the outside of things. Right now I see so many ways in which he’s behind it completely overwhelms me and I feel like I don’t know how we will ever help him catch up. he is in early intervention speech and OT and he has made progress but I find myself feeling so alone in this journey. It’s so hard to watch him fall behind. Thank you if you read this. I really could use some encouragement.