Autism and speech delay

Hi. My nearly two year old daughter is showing traits of autism. They are all mild and subtle so far except understanding and speaking. No words and little understanding. She gestures a little now and pulls to what she wants. Near normal eye contact. Please can mums with non verbal children let me know what symptoms there child showed at 24 months old please. Want to know the chances of willshe will learn to speak one day. Either way she is lovely and my beautiful girl  Thank you 

  • Thank you.  I have emailed for some information. I think if the portage thing doesn’t work and I get no joy from early years intervention then I will look in to it. She ms two today. Hopefully we can get her talking soon ! I think I’m kind of doing some of the PRT techniques already. They seem to be helping xx

  • I actually accessed their London branch. Our gp recommended we look into their services. We didn't need a formal diagnosis but just called in for information. For our family it is affordable compared to some other services we looked into. They have no minimum amount of therapist hours. They do parent coaching during sessions so I am able to implement what the therapist is doing on my own at home making it a bit cheaper.

  • Just one quick addition to my comment. I realise now that blue sky autism is a private therapy based in Scotland. Can you tell me how you accessed it and is it costly ? 

  • Thanks you for replying. I really appreciate it. I have read these pages and have all the referrals in place. Peaditrician portage speech therapy early years panel. I think I’m just looking for some sort of indication as to if she will speak one day. It’s hard to accept she may not. She really coming on and repetitive behaviours I would say are mild. It’s just the communication side of things. Wanted some examples of behaviours of children that didn’t become verbal to see if they were similar to her   Thank you again. 

  • Thank you for replying. This is a therapy I have tried to look in to to try at home myself. But not a lot of info on how to do this yourself. All referrals have been made. Peaditrician portage early years panel speech therapy. Waiting on all. Want to try some things at home. PRT is not available here. Would love some tips on using the teqnique at home if you have time to share some useful info. She doesn’t understand a lot to be honest. She’s starting to but more understands the tone or melody of a song than the words themselves. She understands stop no etc. All the other things that flag as red flags are there but mild. Slight repetitive behaviours. Eye contact is a lot better these days and she’s started to point to what she wants. All this waiting for orofesssionals I just want to start helping her myself as much as possible . Xx

  • Hi NAS37026,

    I know you are asking for personal experiences, but I thought I would pop in the links to child diagnosis pages on the NAS website (see below), just incase you wanted some extra information.

    Wishing you all the best.

    Heather - Mod

    General information about autism:

    http://www.autism.org.uk/about-autism/autism-and-asperger-syndrome-an-introduction/what-is-autism.aspx

    If you were interested in finding out if your daughter is on the autism spectrum, she would need to have a formal diagnostic assessment. You may find it useful to have a look at the following link for further information about diagnosis and the benefits of getting one:http://www.autism.org.uk/about/diagnosis/children.aspx

    If you are looking for a diagnosis for your daughter, it is very important that you see someone with experience of autism spectrum disorders. Details of diagnostic services can be found on our Autism Services Directory:
    http://www.autismdirectory.org.uk/services/autism-services-directory.aspx

    You may also want to look at our section that provides advice for parents, relatives and carers of people with autism.
    http://www.autism.org.uk/living-with-autism/parents-relatives-and-carers.aspx

    It might also be useful to pass on information about autism to health professionals when seeking a diagnosis. The following page includes information for a range of health professionals:
    http://www.autism.org.uk/Working-with/Health.aspx

    You may like to have a read of the National Autism Plan for Children to see what you are likely to expect and what you can ask during the assessment . Please scroll down to the bottom of the page and go to page 3 on summary report, page 11 for full report for the Essential Components for a complete multi agency assessment:

    http://www.autism.org.uk/about/diagnosis/children/national-plan-children.aspx

  • Hi,

    My son was 2.5 before he had his first words. He tantrummed  often when he didn't get his way but did seemed to have some understanding. He didn't really play attention to other children and had a hard time sharing toys with his sister. We started pivotal response therapy with an organization called Blue Sky Autism and it has completely changed him in just two months! He now has over 30 words, can follow simple instructions, and his tantrums have drastically decreased. I hope this helps!