My Granddaughter (GD) is two in the next few weeks. Her homelife is difficult as her parents sometimes row and her mother is diagnosed with several mental health issues. During her pregnancy was very stressed and took anti-depressents. My GD birth was long and laboured and her mum coped the best she could. At first My GD was fine fed well, slept well in fact was a angelic baby. Two of my sons show traits of the autistic spectrum but are undiagnosed.
My concern started at about 4-5 months her development with sitting up was very late in fact she was almost 6-7 months. She was about 16 months when she finally walked. Crawling was very slow. Her speech is very poor and even now rarely used single words to express her feelings. She has some but not many. She does babble but nothing makes conectable words or sentences. Not all the words are said only a syllabol or two. She does walk on tip toes, wave her hands and loves to make herself dizzy.
My main concern though is her social and emotional side. I have been around her all this time and she never outwardly responds to me when I come into the room. Nor does she with other family or her granddad. We all spend time playing and talking to her but when we go nothing, when we arrive no acknowledgement. She doesnt respond all the time to her name she is getting better since nursery. Nursery have expressed concerns regarding her development. She has passed a hearibg test with no issues.
Here comes the tough part, social services are sadly involved and instead of seeing this as possible early signs of another issue they have said its purley down to stress. My daugter in law did bring ASD up but my son refused to discuss this. I want to help to put my concerns forward as her parents work so hard to provide a stable happy home its just for them SS put so much stress on them that is causes problems. My main worry is that all this is diverting from my GD and her needs are not being looked at.
Any advice on how to proceed with approaching her HV or even my son would be appreciated.
Thanks
