My 2.5 year old’s nursery have told me they think she has autism.
Hello everybody, I’m just looking for any advice/experiences please. I had a meeting with my daughter’s nursery today, she’s 2.5 years old and has only been going there since mid April for 2 mornings per week (10 hours in total). She’s also missed at least 4 weeks due to illness.
She’s an only child and hasn’t really been around other children at all as I don’t know anyone with young kids. This was my main reason for putting her in nursery. I used to take her to baby groups but they weren’t the type of ones which encourage interaction between the children, it was usually just sitting in a semi circle and singing etc. She’s around adults on a very regular basis so feels comfortable around them.
In the meeting, they told me that she:
Doesn’t talk to the workers in context, like she won’t always reply to them when they ask her questions.
She doesn’t have back and forth conversations with them which apparently the other children do.
They said she stims a bit. She doesn’t do this at home.
She’s very picky with her food. She’s picky with vegetables at home but I’ve honestly not made enough effort to try and improve her eating habits, it’s more of a just get anything into her sort of thing.
She won’t go near the other kids at all and doesn’t like it when they come over to her, she apparently spends her time there staying close to the adults. She’ll apparently back away and sometimes get upset if a lot of them are around her. She’s in a mixed group of up to age 4 though so at 2.5, I thought maybe she just feels intimidated? I’m nearly 40 and still get nervous in new and busy social situations and I don’t have autism.
I’ve looked into what her speech should be at her age and honestly I thought she was on track, she’s very chatty at home, she understands my questions and answers them and knows well over 200 words. She asks for things she wants like her toys or a specific food. She tells me ‘go to sleep’ when she’s tired, she also sings a lot at home which they say she doesn’t do there. And according to google, it’s normal for her not to be having full on back and forth conversations at her age. She was also late with walking, she was 1 year and 7 months before she let go of the sofa. But she’s met most of her other milestones on time. She doesn’t have anything that I would describe as meltdowns, she’s generally well behaved. She does have a tendency to keep saying “it’s ok it’s ok it’s ok” if she’s upset but she’s never been much of a crier and any ‘terrible two’s’ moments only last for a matter of 30 seconds or so before she forgets about it.
She seems to behave differently at nursery than at home which is expected but I guess I’m just asking if anyone would consider her behaviours an early sign of autism?
Thanks for reading and for any responses.