2.5 year old - developmental and language question

[Ivanka]

My 2.5 year old is talking but not asking questions except"what's this?"(and not a lot).If I ask her a question requiring a yes or no answer, she repeats it instead of answering "yes".She has a lot of echolalia&talks about herself in the 2nd person "you want water" instead of "I want water"She also has periods when she is "in the zone"-doesn't want to play much,just wants to sit on the couch and rub my hair in her face&on her hands.She loves to play with my hair,esp. when overwhelmed or tired.She makes eye contact,some days more than others- generally she will look people in the face, even strangers, and say hi & bye.Sometimes she stares off for a few seconds, not blinking. If I wave my hand in front of her face, she will "come back",sometimes it takes 2-3 seconds.Some days she's chattery &happy,other days seems to be in her own world, and even though she talks, it is mostly repeating the same things. She is always talking about what is a boy or a girl. The first thing she says when I come home is:"Mommy is a girl".She has no concept of "why" or "How".She doesn't know "mine",says "this is yours" meaning mine. Doesn't want to do things herself, will insist I dress her etc.She repeats portions of shows&movies.She likes some books,but I think she is not really listening to the story,just looking at pictures.Story hour was a complete disaster when we attempted it.I feel she understands us- "bring your shoes","use the fork"etc. It is the talking back&spontaneous sharing that we are missing.I am a first time mom & don't know how much of this is cause for concern. Please help.

[Dad2Maria]

Your dauhter  has some of the behavior thta my daugther had at that age like repeting part of the t.v. shows, echolalia in the same way when i asked her do you want water o juice? she repeat my question without answer it, and one specialist in autism say that she was not maken languaje comprehencion in some percent,  its was hard, she was very social and she used to tell me the same thing she is a girl etc. Take your daughter a institucion  where you can find a specilaist in autism and call Early Intervention, there are some institucion in autism that if the child is  younger that 3 years old they give to your child behavior therapy  free in your home many hours a week, the earliar the better, my daugther lost the diagnostic some months ago, please dont waste time and get a evaluation soon and also one thing that i used to do with my dauther was repeting during all day what the speech languaje terapy do during the seccion and also the same with the floortime therapy. i would like to share this page that was very useful for me to buy games that permit me to play with her and teaching the languaje at the same time and also renforcing what the terapist was working on, pay atencion how the terapist make her job with and try to do it at home, and also redirect her languaje all the time. Sorry for my english and good luck.
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[jd1419]

If you take her to the park or playground--does she try to interact with other kids?  I have a 29 month old so they are close in age--he likes to play a lot of times he likes to do what the other kids are doing but not necessarily engaged with them.  He does have an older brother so,he does do some advanced things just to keep up with big brother.  How is her hand eye coordination?

Just keep talking with her--when I walk in the door everyday from work my 2 year old will say"momma done with work"  that is his daily ritual...When she uses her words wrong don't try and correct her just say( Does Sally want a dring  of water) and wait for her answer or if she hands you somethnig that is yours use the (yes, this is mine) o ruse whatever it is....if you see her not really talking more in a few motnhs then take her in to get evaluated--she may just be a late bloomer in the speech area--my girlfriends little boy just turned two and still does not speak much-and still has trouble walking at times--they think it may be because of his ears-he has lots of ear infections and that is causing some delays.--Good Luck

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

There is cause for concern and it would be prudent to follow up with at least a Speech/Language evaluation, and perhaps an overall developmental evaluation. No single symptom that you describe is a cause for alarm in a child this age, but the collection of symptoms/behaviors makes it worth pursuing. One samll point: Concepts such as 'how' or 'why' are beyond the cognitive capacity of a child so young, so don't allow that particular characteristic to throw you - it's very normal.