Does not responding to name always mean autism

[Anonymous]

At 20 months, my DD had less than 5 words, we started speech therapy and how she has 20+ at 22 months, and most importantly she uses them functionally. I was told repeating words told to her or repeating when reading in a book is less important. So what counts is to use them either to communicate needs/wants or to share something she observes spontaneously in real life. How she uses them is more important than how many she knows and so in your case I would assume his name is just another word and not attach any special importance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would assume his name is just another word and not attach any special importance.

Good point! How do we teach him that , his name has special importance? A friend recommended we should have his picture and label it with his name! Any inputs?

[Anonymous]

Another vote for getting hearing checked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not OP, but same situation here. My 18 months old boy does not respond to his name, good eye contact, great gross/fine motor skills, loves pretend play/human interaction/greeting people, and only has few words. We speak 3 languages at home, and he grabs things by himself, and rarely doing the pointing (he does point at moon/star/bird/dog in the sky once in a while). His pediatrician refer us to do autism screening because mainly he does not respond to his name & not pointing enough. May I ask how ENT do the hearing test for toddler because my little one cries hysterically & not cooperating everytime at doctor office?

for an infant screening test, your child sits in your lap in a soundproof booth (small padded room with windows and somewhat dim light). In one corner of a room there is a noise. An infant looking toward the noise will then see a light go on, revealing a small toy w/ motion (something like a clown that claps). In this way, the infant is conditioned to react when hearing a sound. Since the baby is with only you, there is not much cooperation needed and fear of a mother person, like doctor is hopefully not a factor.

[Anonymous]

^also they can do some hearing testing by putting an earbud in the child's ear and measuring the vibrational bounce back. Sometimes it is hard to get the ear bud properly placed in a fussy child. But, audiologists are usually used to kids, so they are patient and have some tricks to try.

The problem is that this hearing testing is basic and doesn't reveal a lot of information about hearing at different pitch or volumes.

[Anonymous]

OP, your child is fine. Bilingual kids often accumulate words slower at the beginning, though the delay disappears over time. You can try another hearing opinion, but nothing you said sounds super concerning.

[Anonymous]

I would make it a game - point to child and say name, point to dad, say dad, point to mom, say mom. Do it in the mirror too. I would have the receptive language checked. If he's had an hearing exam he is probably fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^also they can do some hearing testing by putting an earbud in the child's ear and measuring the vibrational bounce back. Sometimes it is hard to get the ear bud properly placed in a fussy child. But, audiologists are usually used to kids, so they are patient and have some tricks to try.

The problem is that this hearing testing is basic and doesn't reveal a lot of information about hearing at different pitch or volumes.

So ENT hearing test does not test different pitches or volumes on both ears? I thought ENT hearing test is a comprehensive test more than a general basic one. I am certain that my 18 months old can hear, because he knows when people open/close the door, walk up/down the stairs, tv is turned on etc.. The question is I don't know what & how much he can hear, and I am just trying to rule out it is the hearing problem causing speech delay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, your child is fine. Bilingual kids often accumulate words slower at the beginning, though the delay disappears over time. You can try another hearing opinion, but nothing you said sounds super concerning.

Not always true. Bi/multilingual kids just don't differentiate the languages yet; words are just words at that stage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, your child is fine. Bilingual kids often accumulate words slower at the beginning, though the delay disappears over time. You can try another hearing opinion, but nothing you said sounds super concerning.

Not always true. Bi/multilingual kids just don't differentiate the languages yet; words are just words at that stage.

Per your opinion these are 2 words and kids just don't differentiate the languages yet! Agreed , but not for all words!

For example:'Hola' means 'Hello'

PMO: Bi/multilingual kids gets confused what to say when they want to greet people ! 'Hola' or 'Hello'. What to call when they see a dog (dog or something else).

As per other poster it matters how kids use words in a communication , not just randomly saying without knowing the meaning!

[Anonymous]

OP said the hearing was checked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does he have 20 words or is he non verbal? Because 20 words at 22 months with no other red flags is not alarming
-sped teacher

He says words randomly and may not repeat words he used again. Sometimes he just imitates word said by others ,he don't know what it means and never repeats. 20 words includes every word he said so far at least once.Let me list words he used mom, dad, dog, up, down, round, cat( he means what he says) . Happy, this , good ,clean (he doesn't know what it means). I am not sure if it is 20 , but 10-15 for sure!

When we visited the Camaratas with our severely language delayed son, they suggested 1)dropping down to his utterance level. So if he said one word, we only said two to him. Or if he was saying "ca" we would say "car." We never corrected, we recasted. So if he sees a dog, and says dodo, we would say, "yes, dog!"

We also used pictures we shot during the day, of him, family members, etc., like flash cards and would go through them, labeling. My son quickly picked up almost a hundred nouns this way. (real life pictures often better than drawings.) Next came verbs, then adjectives (hard to illustrate visually.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not OP, but same situation here. My 18 months old boy does not respond to his name, good eye contact, great gross/fine motor skills, loves pretend play/human interaction/greeting people, and only has few words. We speak 3 languages at home, and he grabs things by himself, and rarely doing the pointing (he does point at moon/star/bird/dog in the sky once in a while). His pediatrician refer us to do autism screening because mainly he does not respond to his name & not pointing enough. May I ask how ENT do the hearing test for toddler because my little one cries hysterically & not cooperating everytime at doctor office?

Not sure why you're not doing the autism evaluation if your pediatrician suggested it. Not responding to one's name and not pointing "enough" could possibly be signals of autism, but there's so many factors related to social and communication behaviors and repetitive movements that need to be evaluated as well. For example if you do the autism evaluation at kennedy Krieger at Johns Hopkins for example, it's a multi-day process with participation of a developmental pediatrician, a physical therapist and a speech therapist. It's not something Internet strangers can evaluate for you after reading a few sentences from you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks! His hearing is fine! I agree that Autism is not the end of the world , but I am trying to get the exact issue so that we can treat/focus accordingly!

Did you go to an ENT and get the hearing checked in an audiologist's booth? Did you ask the pediatrician for a tympanogram at least? What are you basing it on that the hearing's fine. (Asking such a basic question about autism makes me doubt you actually know about hearing.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not OP, but same situation here. My 18 months old boy does not respond to his name, good eye contact, great gross/fine motor skills, loves pretend play/human interaction/greeting people, and only has few words. We speak 3 languages at home, and he grabs things by himself, and rarely doing the pointing (he does point at moon/star/bird/dog in the sky once in a while). His pediatrician refer us to do autism screening because mainly he does not respond to his name & not pointing enough. May I ask how ENT do the hearing test for toddler because my little one cries hysterically & not cooperating everytime at doctor office?

Not sure why you're not doing the autism evaluation if your pediatrician suggested it. Not responding to one's name and not pointing "enough" could possibly be signals of autism, but there's so many factors related to social and communication behaviors and repetitive movements that need to be evaluated as well. For example if you do the autism evaluation at kennedy Krieger at Johns Hopkins for example, it's a multi-day process with participation of a developmental pediatrician, a physical therapist and a speech therapist. It's not something Internet strangers can evaluate for you after reading a few sentences from you.

Because it's expensive? Because her gut tells her it's wrong? Because she can always do it later? Because evaluations for autism under 2 years old are wrong as often as they are right?