2 year old concerned

My elder daughter was playing with sand, filling forms in and then emptying them for hours. Went to grammar school and is OK.. Playdough rings the bell as well.

I started worrying about my daughters  in year 2 at school, so I am sorry to say I don't have any experience on how to help toddlers. I hope somebody will come with more advice.

This being said, I think you just need to create opportunities and stimulate her to try to develop the next developmental milestone or basically skill without going all panicky and obsessively controlling about it. Being on the spectrum myself with 2 autistic daughters, I think autism is a different learning pathway, not a glitch in software, but a different operating system.  It has its on coherence and algorithm. So use that instead of disrupting that. She will develop following her algorithm, but you need to provide the right opportunities.

For example, when my daughter was 3 I struggled with potty training. My mother in law was all intense and obsessive about that, but in spite of all efforts it was going nowhere. I was more relaxed. I had a potty training video. It was made for the parents, but was accessible enough for toddlers ! We watched it together several times and I shown her that it was important to me and to her. She asked to watch it repeatedly, so eventually I put it on the repeat loop. After a couple of weeks without any action from me she took the potty and started practicing how to sit on it. A week later she used it properly and told me proudly that she used it. So she understood all along what I wanted and that she needed to learn. 

I guess if she plays well with adults she knows, arrange that regularly, preferably daily and play with the items and games she likes, try to name things and verbs, try to expand the range of things she experiences, like colours, more shapes, more textures. But let her lead and control her play, don't go all oppressively controlling. 

On the organisational side, try to refer her to the occupational and to the speech therapist.

My elder daughter was playing with sand, filling forms in and then emptying them for hours. Went to grammar school and is OK.. Playdough rings the bell as well.

I started worrying about my daughters  in year 2 at school, so I am sorry to say I don't have any experience on how to help toddlers. I hope somebody will come with more advice.

This being said, I think you just need to create opportunities and stimulate her to try to develop the next developmental milestone or basically skill without going all panicky and obsessively controlling about it. Being on the spectrum myself with 2 autistic daughters, I think autism is a different learning pathway, not a glitch in software, but a different operating system.  It has its on coherence and algorithm. So use that instead of disrupting that. She will develop following her algorithm, but you need to provide the right opportunities.

For example, when my daughter was 3 I struggled with potty training. My mother in law was all intense and obsessive about that, but in spite of all efforts it was going nowhere. I was more relaxed. I had a potty training video. It was made for the parents, but was accessible enough for toddlers ! We watched it together several times and I shown her that it was important to me and to her. She asked to watch it repeatedly, so eventually I put it on the repeat loop. After a couple of weeks without any action from me she took the potty and started practicing how to sit on it. A week later she used it properly and told me proudly that she used it. So she understood all along what I wanted and that she needed to learn. 

I guess if she plays well with adults she knows, arrange that regularly, preferably daily and play with the items and games she likes, try to name things and verbs, try to expand the range of things she experiences, like colours, more shapes, more textures. But let her lead and control her play, don't go all oppressively controlling. 

On the organisational side, try to refer her to the occupational and to the speech therapist.

Thanks so much for this information much appreciated. We currently our following her lead through play. which is currently working really well. thank you for the idea with the potty training something we will use.