Did you have a language delay as a child?

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I self-identified as Broader Autism Phenotype after my daughter was diagnosed with PDD-NOS. I had no language delays- in fact, the opposite could have been said. I was very advanced verbally and in gifted classes. However, this may be autistic- I became obsessed with the alphabet before I was 2 years old. I also have crystal-clear memories of being 2 years old, and I remember lining up my crayons.

Anyway, my greatest concern for my daughter right now is her language delay. Thankfully, it has been steadily improving for the past year, but she still is delayed. She was 10 months behind receptively and 8 months behind expressively at age 2. Now, at age 3 and a half she is testing exactly at chronological age receptively, and just at the 85th percentile, so on the borderline of normal expressively. Despite those test scores, she has clear semantic-pragmatic and auditory processing issues- we struggle with answering questions, yes/no questions, (she has just now started using the word 'yes' and nodding her head for 'yes'- her non-verbal gestures were also delayed) understanding the sequence of events in stories, eye contact, and back and forth conversations.

Was anyone here like this at her age?

I was speech delayed but it sounds like you daughter is doing better than when I was at that age. I was more behind in fact. My language was around maybe a year and a half. I hardly spoke and a word and I spoke gibberish. I didn't even start playing with other kids until I was at that age except it started with older kids first, then it moved to my own age group when I was four when two kids started to come over to play on my swingset. My baby sitter played with me of course when I was a baby and she was in her teens. I even still remember her but I dunno if her family still lives in the same house so I never bothered knocking on the door. I'd hate to bug a stranger.

I am really glad to hear that.. I was hoping someone would answer- and the fact that you are here and can communicate so well is what I am hoping for her.

Can you give me any advice about how she may feel or how to communicate with her? Do you remember being 3 years old? For example, she says "no" to most questions. She hides her face and says, "no", as if it is really intrusive for anybody to ask a question. I always wonder why.

She loves the computer, though. She wants to play on it all the time.

I'm sorry I don't know. My mother would be the one because she was the one who worked with me. I grew up with no computer even though my dad had one but it was for his work so I wasn't allowed to touch it. Back then, lot of people didn't have a computer, even in the early 90's. I can remember being in 3rd grade and I was only few of the kids who had one at home and lot of others didn't. My family didn't get another computer till I was 7 and it was for the whole family to play on. My mother did taxes on it and she also bought computer games for us. It was my first time I ever played on one.

I can remember being three but I don't remember my mother working with me or me being frustrated. She told me I was because I couldn't talk but I don't remember feeling that way. I was a happy child and I can't miss what I've never had. I don't know why your daughter answers "no," I just ignored questions. I don't think I was intentionally ignoring them, I just didn't know the answer. I just don't remember my experience with not talking. In fact I didn't even know I was mute until my mother told me when I was 8. She told me I couldn't talk when I was little and I thought I always could. I can remember other kids talking but I would be silent. I can remember saying what I wanted to my parents but I never knew it was my own language and no other person would understand it except for my parents. I also heard words wrong too back then. When I did start to talk, I left beginnings or ends off of words.

Thank you for telling me about your experience, Spokane Girl, it is fascinating to me. I'd love to hear what your mother has to say about you.

I don't think my daughter is intentionally ignoring questions either. They just don't always click with her. She doesn't know that she is supposed to answer. She used to speak in jibberish and get excited and flap her arms, but she doesn't really speak in jibberish any more, and I haven't seen her flap her arms in a long time.

I really hope that my daughter is able to communicate as well as you some day. I bet your mother would tell you that the most difficult thing for us is to not be able to know what's going on in our children's minds. I love my little girl so, so much- and I am sure your mom feels the same way about you.

I remember the early 90s, LOL. I was a college freshmen in 1991 and I wrote my term papers on an electric typewriter, if you can believe that.

I didn't have a language delay as a child. On the other hand, I did have a delay in motor skills, which is very common amoung children with Asperger's syndrome.

I had a language delay when I was younger. I did not start speaking until I was around 5 years old. Even though I did not start talking to around 5 years old it seem like I was able to read. I would know what the TV guide said and pointed to TV programs that I wanted to see in the TV Guide, it seemed like I had an idea about what tee-shirts said and would react to their sayings particularly if they had phrases that either upsetted me or amused me. Speaking of tee-shirts the first time I actually spoke was when I was at the end of Preschool. A teacher had a New York Yankees Shirt on. I knew about the New York Yankees and out of the blue I read the shirt out loud. Ever since that day I started talking. I did need speech therapy to help me along until the end of Junior High but as time went on I spoke.

I always had trouble and delays with my motor skills ever since I was very young.

No initial delay, but a loss of language which qualifies as a different kind of delay, and then after that had echolalic language and a pretty intense receptive language delay.

And that's a whole nother thing than expressive, although different degrees of the two often go together (I have both but receptive has almost always been worse than expressive). I know a lot of autistic people who as children could understand a lot of language but couldn't speak. On the other hand I learned to understand language at all after I learned to speak (and expressive language was also a problem too, but still).

Apparently so.

I certainly wasn't delayed with understanding language. It's not even like I was delayed with speaking. But supposedly, I was delayed with speaking anything like comprehensibly - supposedly about 7.

Just to set your mind at ease, most girls who have a PDD-NOS dx, at least in my experience have some sort of language delay. If she wasn't, they probably wouldn't recognise her as being on the spectrum at all. As a mom who fought for 15 years to get an AS dx for my son, let me tell you to count your lucky stars. I know that sounds weird, but you are getting services, I assume, and they are for autism symptoms.

My son had a severe articulation delay on top of not really talking until he was almost 4. I think that it's more common for boys to have speech delays than girls, but that's probably why it's PDD and not AS or HFA. I hope that helps.

Only recently I was told I lay quietly as a child, never made any sounds. Was a very late reader, eight or nine. I still get confused with arithmetic tho can 'guess' very accurately. As a child could talk as a 'miniexpert' tho had great difficulty with the rough and tumble conversation of other less refined children. Hardly if ever contributed to peer school conversation which marginalised me coupled with abysmal at games (the weekly humiliation) put me very low in the pecking order. I occasionally got on with ESN type children. For my last two years at school 14-1/2 onwards I stopped speaking as i considered all those around me to be full of s**t and i would not recognise their invented hierachy. Fun times.

Last edited by ablomov on 29 Jul 2008, 2:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

Einstein didn't talk till he was 3 years old...

I, on the other hand, was a very verbal child. I was talking before most other kids around me, and I read and wrote much more fluently than my peers, early on. However, I had a lot of trouble hearing -- I couldn't distinguish between "s" & "th" and "b" & "v" so I ran around happily mispronouncing lots and lots of words, wondering why everyone was looking at me oddly.

I was essentially deaf -- and sometimes mute -- on and off for a number of years.

My hearing range was screwed up, and I literally had to teach myself that there was a difference between "s" & "th" and "b" & "v"... I finally saw how they were written out, and I deduced that they must therefore have different sounds.

The speech therapist never gave me a visual. Argh!! !

Anyway, all better now... sorta

Yes. I didn't speak actual words until I was four. I was diagnosed with AS.

I wish! Services- as in ABA and Floortime, OT, PT, Speech- none of that is provided in my state. All she gets is special education preschool, which is preschool 4 days a week, half a day, and 1 hour of speech a week. My insurance paid for 1 hour of speech 2x a week during summer because she wasn't approved for the summer program, but will not pay once school starts. I am still trying to get her V/ABA. I think I have finally located someone who can do it. My calls to universities, etc, go unreturned. I have literally not been able to find a single individual who can do V/ABA. I would do it myself except that I have two older children and I work fulltime.

I didn't have a delay, but I couldn't baby talk/talk until I was 13 months. So when my mom left the room for a few minutes to prepare food or do something else, I couldn't call put to her fro example. Though I was usually very content with being by myself, the fact that when I wanted to protest, I couldn't was very frustrating. But I didn't dwell long on frustration and just learnt to overcome any child safety so that I could roam around myself.

If I didn't spontaneously learnt to talk at 13 months, I imagine I personally would have grown very angry. In kindergarten, it has always been very confusing and partly frightening, when I couldn't respond or when I didn't understand someone. When most of the children or teachers talked to me I usually understood none of it and I just nodded and went away. One teacher thought I was strange which made me nervous and robbed me of my last bit understanding of what that teacher said.

But I could talk really well for my age even if I rarely talked yet. I also otherwise understood language from my mother always just fine if I paid attention. That was the reason why it didn't unnerve me all that much that I didn't understand most of the children and the adults when I was between 3-4 years old.

I had no reading or language delays and was in fact a precocious reader and took pride in being levels above my schoolmates.
This is the only reason I could possibly have to doubt my AS dx. I have virtually every other AS tendency to some degree or other. I wonder if reading is a possible aspie "focus", or if it is too fundamental a piece of childhood development to benefit from being a chosen fascination.