Social communication delay

Toddler
#1

Hello,

We are seeing early intervention because they think my son might have a social communication delay. Can someone explain to me what this means? The lady from early intervention says she doesn’t think he has autism, and his doctor said the same thing. What else can cause this besides Autism? He turned two in February. He doesn’t use eye contact when making requests, and doesn’t always respond when we call his name. He isn’t using many pronouns yet and doesn’t say “yes” verbally or by nodding. He does express yes by getting excited or repeating what we have asked, for example “want to eat?” And he says “eat”. He is super advanced with drawing, numbers, letters, can spell a few words. He is a very easygoing kid who has no problems with transitions or change.

#2

@Speechwithjwo @abg_speechtherapy @Alinclusivetherapy @Slpmomma @Twowayspeech would any of you able be to help this parent out?

#3

Does he use any language? Does he request items or bring you over to objects he wants?

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#4

Yes he does! Lots of requests for needs and wants. He also says no if he doesn’t want something. He has a pretty big vocabulary! Hundreds of words and uses small sentences (2-3 words). The worry is that when he makes requests or choices he doesn’t use eye contact, instead he just looks at the object he wants.

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#5

I was also wondering if these social communication differences could be cultural? I am a first generation immigrant and my mum, who does our daycare, is an immigrant. We are from the highlands and island in Scotland. When the lady from early intervention visits I often find myself wondering “do I even do that?”

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#6

If you don’t use good eye contact and neither does your mother that could be it why your son doesn’t especially if you two are who he spends all his time with. He’s just doing what he sees modeled. There are different norms in different cultures, although as we become a more global society that is changing.

Social communication delay covers a lot. I work with children who are extremely smart but have social issues. Eye contact matter because that’s how we indicate we are listening to others and we use our eyes to indicate what we are thinking about. It sounds like your son is using his eyes to tell you he’s thinking about an item but is not checking in to see you are thinning about it too. When you don’t check in with others you miss a lot of information from body language/facial expression. Often our words may say one thing but body language/facial expression/tone of voice changes that meaning. I play a game with my kiddos where we take certain phrases and say them in different tones of voice with different facial expressions and have to guess the meaning. It sounds simple but for some kiddos it’s extremely hard. An example would be “I’m excited” say it ailing happy voice, sighing sarcastic voice with bored face, furrowed brow nervous voice, etc. Same word but conveying very different meanings.

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