Speech problems with my 3 yr old/school says autism????

[2brilliantbabies]

I have a 3 yr old (born 12/31/02).  She was delivered by c-section 2 weeks early, but was still 7 lbs 9 oz.  She was jaudiced, but no other real problems.  Development went quite well until about 6 mos ago, when I realized that her speech was probably not where it should be.  My pediatrician and other professionals said that it was most likely because everyone in the family (including her older sister) spoke for her.  She did not need to verbalize much to get her needs met.  We have been trying to get her to talk more, and she is doing better.  Mostly one or two word sentences. Says, "Hey look" "Got an owie, Mama kiss it?" or "What's that" "Hey give that back it's mine" (comes out very clear). Uses "Please" "Thank you" and "You're welcome" at appropriate times.  She does do a lot of "rambling" and it generally pertains to Dora or Blue's Clues (she will do a monologue from parts of the shows) with no real precipitator. (I should add she has probably watched more than her share of Blue's Clues and Dora.)  She will answer yes or no questions, follows directives with no problems, sometimes very complex.  She knows her ABC's, identifies shapes (including hexagon and octogon), can write her numbers to 10 periodically, can identify her numbers through 20, can count to 20, draws exceptionally well (according to her pediatrician), knows all of her colors, and throughly enjoys sports (any form of playing ball, but especially soccer) and does amazingly well. I might add that she does not play any structured setup of soccer, but does kick with both feet and dribble the ball with her feet all the way across our huge backyard.  She also pitches and catches very well.  I had her screened at our school for 3 yr Pre K.  They immediately picked up on the speech problem and because she did so well on the other areas, they started using words like "splinter skills."  She does do echoing, but seems to repeat the word until we say it back to her (almost like a form of acknowledgement). She enjoys being with other children, is not a picky eater (actually quite the opposite), maintains eye contact, is very affectionate.  They want to have her evaluted by a child psychologist, do an IEP, and possibly put her in the special education room of the Pre-K in the fall.  I disagree. I think she is language delayed, but not autistic. They (the school teachers, etc) seem to be pushing this, and I am very uncomfortable that they are so quick to label her based on a 45 minute screening.  My pediatrician saw her yesterday and did not feel that autism is the appropriate "label".  He feels that language delay is a problem, and she should be evaluated for that.  My husband and I agree and are following through with that.  I am wondering, are the teachers/evaluators seeing something I'm not, should I be concerned about possible autism; should she be evaluated further.  My doctor said that University of Iowa Hospitals have a very good department, if we want to pursue that. Thanks so much

[kdalpha]

I have a friend who has 4 children.  All are normal but one.  I am really worried as she has never mentioned anything wrong with him and thinks he is fine.  He is 3, has cronic nose bleads, drools, doesnt speak clearly (he grunts), only knows the color blue, doesnt know any numbers, letters, colors.  He can match up go fish cards and stack all the same animals on top of each other.  As a teacher, I think he has some sort of autism, or ear/nose throat problem.  obviously if he cant hear well, his speech, etc isnt working out.  He also has random fits of crying when nothing is wrong and of course cant tell us what is wrong because he cant speak clearly.  She has figured out his grunting "language" and can respond to him, but no one else can.  What do you think is the problem?  Her doctor has never told her of any problems, but she has never mentioned these things to him.  I am just afraid she will be shocked when he goes to Kindergarten and they are like, something is seriously wrong.  What do you think this could be>?  ANy feedback would be great.

[tomel]

The childs drooling may be dysarthria or he may have apraxia, which these are motor planning disorders along with weakness of the mouth muscles. These can be remedied with straw therapy and also blowing whistles or horns.  If your freind takes hims to a speech therapist she should take him to someone who deals with feeding issues or oral motor problems. There is also a great book called The Late Talker which addresses all of this. My son drooled until he was 2 with the straws and horns along with using a nook we remedied this. Drooling at age 3 is not good at all. http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/ActEarly/milestones_3years.html

Got to this website form the CDC these are child dev. milestones along with warning signs of a problem note at the bottom drooling is one of them

[xmsrlong]

Chronic nose bleeds and drooling is a bit concerning (not a sign of autism).  Not being able to effectively communicate his needs is probably why he is crying, not necessarily autism.  If she is interpreting grunts for him, she's actually going to make it more difficult for him to learn to speak.  Lack of knowledge of some items listed above is not necessarily autism either (colors, numbers, letters etc.).  Many autistic kids frequently learn those things before their neurotypical peers.  When my son was going through his diagnosis, the examiner actually noted that he knew his complete alphabet and several numbers and many many colors as evidence of uneven skills which is a hallmark of autism.

I think your right to be concerned but knowing how to approach the subject with this friend can be tricky because often times, parents don't want to know if something is wrong and go for a long time into denial.  I know, I've been there.  My sister was the first to suggest my son was autistic at 18 months.  I was angry with her at the time but now I wish I had listened because we could have started his therapy a good 8 months before we did and he would be even further along.  Your friend's pediatrician should have given her a developmental checklist to fill out at the 2 year well checkup.  

If the child is autistic, they should be displaying certain behaviors such as the following:  Unusual body movements (you know it when you see it but it can include hand flappying, staring at fingers or complex whole body movements);  difficulty with simple transitions (more than usual for this age);  insisting on following the same route when driving somewhere in the car (my son use to tantrum whenever we backed the car up); no representational play (such as using a brush like a telephone etc.), sometimes a lack of prolonged eye contact; self stimulatory behavior like spinning objects or wheels, looking out of the corner of their eyes at objects, facination with movie credits, verbal stimming such as making babbling noises when anxious;  ANXIETY ANXIETY ANXIETY ( I'm not talking about the normal 3 year old anxiety, again you know it when you see it;  no appropriate toy play (lining up objects is not necessarily what I'm talking about because normal kids do that as well);  unusual interests (road signs, planets etc. in my son's case); not using gestures such as pointing; and finally unusual fears such as the vacuum cleaner or other object in the house which they routinely see.

If the child isn't doing any of the above on a routine basis throughout the day, its not autism.  It could be mental retardation.  I would suggest that you speak to her about your concerns, even if that means she will be angry with you at first.  Suggest that she talk to the Ped about your concerns and see if he needs a referral to a specialist.  Your right about not waiting until kindergarten, by that time the brain is not as "plastic" and capable of change.

[xmsrlong]

I viewed the CDC website.  It's interesting because none of the Healthwatch items at the bottom occur in my son, with the possible exception of seperating from his mommy at bedtime (a recent behavior), which I'm not sure how extreme that has to be at this age to be concerning.  Pediatricians need to be better educated about ASD's so they can educate parents because there are so many parents who see one or two "unusual" behaviors and all of a sudden they are worried about autism.  Peds need to make sure they are giving the parents developmental checklists in the early years to fill out to make sure parents don't become overly concerned with what appears to be very normal behavior.

[triplethreat]

You said that your pediatrician said your daughters ears were OK.  Have you gone to an ENT and had her tonsils and adenoids checked?  

My daughter is speech delayed, and falls into the Autistic ranges in all of her testing at this time, but it was recently discovered that her adenoids were EXTREMELY large for her size.  We had them removed, and have seen great results.  

She also refused to participate in the hearing tests, but we finally agreed to let them to the tests after putting her under, and we discovered that she fails the test miserably in one of her ears.  I am making it a point to talk on her right side as much as possible now.  

Just a thought...but I agree with everyone here, the description you gave does NOT match Autism in anything that I have ever seen or heard.  

[tomel]

Do color of the week. example 1st week the color is blue have toys, flashcards, playdough whatever, all of them blue. Show them to him while he is eating breakfast or lunch and say "blue ball" or some flash cards have shapes "blue triangle", then in the bathtub do the same thing with bath toys, "blue boat". Do this Mon thru Friday.Dont have any other colors around. Write down somewhere what colors you are covering then cross them off as you go, so then the next week could be green, etc. You can find alot of stuff for this at Goodwill, dollar stores etc. You can even teach him the signs for the colors and that will help him as well. Go on AmericanSign language.com to learn any sign. It works, I taught my son this way and he knew his colors by 26 mos. You can do the same with shapes as well. Just so you know though not knowing all of his colors by age 3 is not a milestone, so dont panick.