As for articulation, my 4.5 year old still says "wed" instead of "red"...and "fool bus" instead of "school bus" so, I asked Cole's speech therapist (who hears Jack every time she comes over). She said he is fine with articulation and gave me a chart with the consonant sounds plotted against age level. They don't have to conquer the R sound until age 6!
Here is what they need to conquer by age 3. P,M,H,N,W,and B sounds. The chart, in case you want to look it up, is AGE RANGES OF NORMAL CONSONANT DEVELOPMENT.
Look, nothing you've written tosses a flag onto the ground for me. I watched my younger son like a hawk on crack or something for ages! She is probably just fine, but check some of these resources so YOU are fine, too!
My two year old is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO different than my 4 year old was at this age. I mean completely different!! But we are still having my 2 year old eval'd.
My 4.5 year old is very high functioning... dx Aspergers. It would take a trained professional to pick him out. His verbal skills are that of a nearly 8 year old... he has no delays nad no sensory issues. He's very social and quite the little charmer. But at 2.5 it wasn't the same picture. He had a speech delay (nothing terrible... but was delayed... probably had 150 words but wasn't asking questions) and was VERY awkward in how he spoke. All his phrases were chunky and rehersed/scripted. He would spend all day long flipping light switches on and off and spinning things if I would have let him. He was terrified of other children and would do everythign he could to get out of the room if forced to play with them. he was VERY clumbsy... ran into stuff and fell down ALL the time!!
My 2 year old (28 months) is the most coordinated little being I've ever seen!! He wows me with his balance and coordination. His gross and fine motor skills are all advanced. He started talking early (had 30 words by 13 months and well into the hundreds by 18 months). He says hundreds and hundreds of words (guessing around 500)... can label anything and everything, requests things, gets needs met, and even asks some questions (limited though). His speech is much more natural... not chunky or rehersed. He has no sensory issues at all. Tolerates other children with no problem (but does not interact with them). He doesn't spin... could care less about lights or fans. You get the idea... totally different kid!! But still he started spelling out words the last month or so and ignores other people when they talk to him so I think teh evaluation is warrented. I do think he'll get a PDD-NOS diagnosis personally.
My point... just because your second isn't like your first doesn't mean they aren't on the spectrum. Look at all the kids on this website... they are all completely different!!
[QUOTE=LeAnne C]Here is what they need to conquer by age 3. P,M,H,N,W,and B sounds. The chart, in case you want to look it up, is AGE RANGES OF NORMAL CONSONANT DEVELOPMENT.
[/QUOTE]Oh it makes total sense...
I sometimes worry too about dd...but then I start thinking that maybe I'm being overly worried because of Mason.
Your dd is younger than mine so maybe that makes a difference too...but here I see a lot of NT behavior from her and more so than not, and with Mason it was the other way around...I guess that's why I never decided to get her checked.
But to ease your mind you might want to at least bring up some of your worries to her ped...or here in our state they offer these things called "child find." You can bring the child into the public school to be screened if you have concerns about development...maybe you could see if that's an option.
Good luck with everything!
You know I see those exact same things in my 4 yr old dd.
My dd is very clumsy! At one point my dh asked my opinion on having her taken to a neuro because he thought they might possibly be drop seizures. (Mason has a seizure disorder.)
Her speech is delayed but only in articulation...she does use very "adult like" words and sentences, they are just hard to understand sometimes.
Her tantrums I think mostly come from her seeing Mason and just mimicking his behavior, and of course normal 4 yr old behavior.
Also she is very shy...I mean VERY!! It takes her quite awhile to warm up to adults and children, but once she does, she is fine...talks adults ears off and plays so well with other kids.
The only reason I guess I don't worry about it, is because if she would happen to be ASD it is so minor that I wouldn't think she would qualify for any services anyway. She is functional and because these "red flags" just don't seem like Mason...they are there, just not the same...does that make any sense?
Hi Niki, my 2yo has bad articulation too...I don't know if that's normal for her age, and I know her hearing is good. I'm only worried because she just started this "gibberish" stuff that isn't articulated in the least, and my 4yo did a lot of that too. But she does address us by name and she is using possessives and pronouns correctly and can string together 3 word sentences, things my 4o didn't do.My youngest son had such a different developmental path than my autistic son, so I figured everything was okay until his preschool teacher came up to me talking about social delays at age almost 5. By the time he was tested, it was too late to start intervention in preschool and he's now playing "catch-up" in elementary school. He may or may not end up with a diagnosis.
I wished I had been on the ball, checking detailed milestone lists instead of stopping after first steps and first words. The best milestone list I know of is at the Center for Disease Control's website and is written by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Here's the link: www.cdc.gov/actearly
My advice to everyone with siblings is when in doubt, check it out. Going around with these concerns saps a parent's energy, and regrets are no fun.
Good luck with everything.