16 months and looking more like autism

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Kids can an do catch up. That speech report sounds almost exactly like one of my boys at 16mo. Fast forward, he's almost 5 now and only has 6 mo delays in receptive and expressive speech, and only in certain specific sub-categories at that.

I agree with everything that Kraftie said, including TV. We thought of our children kind of like English as a second language students - the more they could hear spoken word, the better. But it's exhausting to talk that much and narrate everything the way that speech therapists will often advise you to do. Enter TV. They get to constantly hear language in an entertaining format - BINGO! I wouldn't be afraid of an hour or two of TV a day, especially if he can transition away from it without a meltdown.

Finally, stay optimistic! He's still your child and will bless you in so many ways. I believe that he will speak - my most delayed child started at 3.5 and hasn't shut up since! (Really.) But, even if he doesn't, or it takes longer, or whatever, try to find a way to enjoy parenting him exactly where he is. With these issues, it can be easy to slip into turning your child into a "project". He's not a project; he's your kid. It's hard to maintain perspective sometimes when we're so worried. Hang in there!

P.S. A lot of clinic will start evaluating for autism at 16 mo: most definitely start at 18 mo. It may be worthwhile to get him on the list for evaluation since wait times can be long. If he is in fact autistic, the diagnosis will open up a lot more options for therapy support.

I like your spirit, pddtwinmom!

Excellent advice, too, from an experience standpoint.

Thanks Kraftie and ditto!!

Thank you all. I guess I'm just really worried about his future right now and I need to focus more on the present. I hope all this turns out to be just delays and that he'll catch up!
kraftie - as far as special interests go, he seems pretty obsessed with balls and toy cars.

Two incredibly "normal" obsessions for a 16 month old!

You should definitely take advantage of his interest in cars. Does he play with cars appropriately (i.e., does he roll the car like he's pretending to drive the car?) If so, I would say you have less to worry about.

And of course take advantage of his interest in balls by playing catch with him (up to his ability, of course).

When they do an assessment for autism, they really look closely at the child's play. If all the child does is line up toys, that's not appropriate. If he pretends to feed a baby doll, that's quite appropriate.

He doesn't quite play pretend yet, but he will roll the toy car/truck back and forth. He doesn't do anything odd with it.
He won't play catch though with the ball, I think he just doesn't get it. We tried...

All I can say, at this point, is time will tell. I don't see any reason to preclude that he will, say at age 2 1/2, play "pretend," and catch balls.

I do hope you hang out with us, and report on your son's progress to us.

And if you have any questions now, feel free to ask.

There are quite a few people here in the Parents Section who have "tried and true" experience raising children on the Spectrum.

I'd suggest you go to youtube and search for "Stanley Greenspan Floortime". He was a big advocate of finding ways to engage in play with autistic children, to find ways to get an interaction going and extend it. That back and forth interaction is one of the fundamental building blocks for communication.

My son did not really have any words until he was about 18 months. He developed words very slowly after that, and was not speaking much until about 3. When he was 4, though, his language suddenly took off and, not only did he speak, but he used vocabulary that was far more advanced than his peers. He did have receptive language, though, during his mostly non verbal times. He also did not flap as a small child, unless he was excited. When he was a bit older, we noticed that he was flicking his fingers and wringing his hands a lot, but not until preschool. He did have meltdowns due to sensory overload, but some kids respond to sensory overload by shutting down and tuning out. He also would roll a car back and forth, back and forth for hours (or a train on a track). He was not pretending with the car or train, just rolling them back and forth. I did not realize that this was stimming until he was finally formally evaluated for autism. And, although he had receptive language, he often misunderstood what we were saying, or only seemed to absorb parts of it.

It's really not that uncommon for even a "normal" kid to not speak really well (in sentences) until age 3.

Some thoughts.

First, check out the Communication Matrix. It's a scale you can fill out on pre-linguistic communication skills, so you can get a really good picture of where he's at and what he needs to work on. And if you fill it out again several months later, you can really easily see how he's progressed.

Regarding teaching imitation - one of the best ways to teach him to imitate is to start imitating him. If he babbles something, babble the same thing back. You can also imitate mannerisms, like rocking if he rocks. Try to turn it into an interactive routine.

Another way to teach imitation is to say 'do this' and do a motion, and give him something he likes if he does anything vaguely resembling what you did. Gradually get pickier about it, until he's clearly imitating you. Once he's imitating movements, use the same method to get him to imitate sounds, starting by rewarding any sound, and then only if it shares a consonant with what you said, and so forth.

Also, start looking for other modes of communication (augmentative and alternative communication, AAC for short) like sign language, picture communication, speech generating devices, etc. Teaching a kid to communicate in other ways can often speed up speech development. And if he isn't going to speak, he'll need some other way to communicate. Some good resources about AAC are:

http://niederfamily.blogspot.ca/ - a family who uses AAC with their daughter
http://praacticalaac.org/ - a blog by some speech language pathologists who specialize in AAC
https://www.mycoughdrop.com/ - a website with a very cheap, good quality cloud-based AAC program designed to work on multiple devices
http://www.speakforyourself.org/ - a website about an expensive but high quality AAC iPad app, that also has great advice on how to teach AAC

A lot of people think of AAC as a last resort, but it's actually better if you start it really early. Start by teaching him how to ask for his favourite toys - for example if you get an app on a tablet or something, you can press the button for 'car' or 'ball' before handing it to him. And if he presses any button, react like he said that word, even if you know he did it by accident, because then he'll learn that those words have meaning.

Thanks Ettina, some great advice there.
My biggest problem right now (other than my son being potentially autistic) is my wife isn't on board with any of this. She's 100% convinced he is not autistic. She just doesn't see it.
He does seem to respond better to her...

That's not uncommon, danandan. In my case, it was my husband. Could you take the "a"-word out of it? As in, it doesn't matter if he is or isn't, he's delayed, so you should take action?

Yeah I did take the A word out and we are getting services through EI so at least we have that. I'm just so tired of fighting and trying to explain to her that something isn't quite right with him.
This whole thing has really taken a toll on our marriage. I hope she ends up being right but at 16 months his delays are starting to look more and more like autism. If it quacks like a duck...right?
Add that to his poor receptive skills, and the outlook is very dim right now.

He's only 16 months old. Anything can happen.

I don't sense that the outlook is necessarily "dim."

Let's see how his life proceeds.

The outlook isn't dim at all!! That's a common misconception. My boys are funny and interesting and smart. And if they weren't any of those things, they'd still add to my life. You've got to process the idea that your son may be different. I mean, significantly different. That's hard. And sometimes that leads to grieving. But that doesn't mean that there is no happiness in sight for you and your wife or for him.

My recommendation is to take baby steps. It is really, really hard sometimes to get used to the new normal, so maybe instead of doing that, you just focus on his challenges and try to address those. At the same time, you have to honor who he is. It seems like your wife's bias is to do that, while you are the problem solver. If you both can communicate well, you'll be an unbeatable team. But that takes time. So for now, get him EI, and get him evaluated by a developmental pediatrician or neuopsychologist. It's what any dialed-in parent would do. Cross the existential questions of "why me" and "why my child" and "what about our future" later. You will cross them, I promis, if he continues to be delayed, even if it's not autism. Because...all parents worry, and worry causes arguments. But for now, try to focus on your son. And if you do that, the path to parental resolution will ultimately become clear. ((Hugs))