looking for your experience on language regression

[Anonymous]

I posted this in general parenting and when I got no response, I thought maybe that was a bad sign and I should see what those with more experience have to say.

My 17 month old son had a HUGE explosion of language at around 15 months. He has about 30 or so words under his belt, pretty much what you would expect (ball, dog, hat, airplane, nose, etc). All the sudden he's just reverted back to saying "dat!" or "dit!" or just pointing and grunting for everything and when I ask him "where is the apple?" or "where is the froggie?" he has started looking a bit lost and then pointing at something entirely different whereas before he was excellent at pointing right to the object.

Has anyone had this happen and it not mean a thing? How long should I wait until I talk to a pediatrician about it? It's only been going on for about a week, but it's noticeable.

Thanks for any feedback on your experience with this.

[Anonymous]

You need to see a developmental pediatrician ASAP. Huge red flags for regressive autism, and just the right age. i don't mean to scare you, but you should take this seriously. But I would also get in to see your pediatrician ASAP to make sure your DS doesn't have some kind of infection or illness that is causing this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to see a developmental pediatrician ASAP. Huge red flags for regressive autism, and just the right age. i don't mean to scare you, but you should take this seriously. But I would also get in to see your pediatrician ASAP to make sure your DS doesn't have some kind of infection or illness that is causing this.

I unfortunately have to agree with that, and hope we are dead wrong.

[Anonymous]

Ack. OP here. Terrifying. I will call her immediately.

[Anonymous]

Hang in there, OP. Is he working very hard on other skills, his physical skills in particular? Is he having multiple ear infections? This is just one possible explanation. Take heart and please let us hear back from you. I will be thinking of you and your precious son.

[Anonymous]

I'm 15:24 and am very sorry if I scared you. I stand by everything I wrote, but I should also tell you that I have a DS with an ASD (not the regression form, though) who is doing well after some very early intervention. Thats why I used some urgency. If it is an ASD, early and appropriate intervention does make a huge difference. Of course, I am also hoping that it is something else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm 15:24 and am very sorry if I scared you. I stand by everything I wrote, but I should also tell you that I have a DS with an ASD (not the regression form, though) who is doing well after some very early intervention. Thats why I used some urgency. If it is an ASD, early and appropriate intervention does make a huge difference. Of course, I am also hoping that it is something else.

15:24, everything you said may be true, and yet "about a week" is not a long time for a true regression. About a week can be an off week; about a week can be molars coming in, can be a fever, strep throat, so many different things. It could be equally appropriate for OP to do some watchful waiting.

[Anonymous]

OP here. We have an appointment for late next week with his pediatrician. My husband and I are understandably terrified right now, but we had a long talk last night and decided it would be healthiest for us mentally to assume that this is a "phase" but to act aggressively to monitor it. He is looking us both in the eye, which for some reason brings me comfort. But we sat with him and did

I don't believe he is working on other skills, but I'm not sure. He DOES have a history of ear infections and we're having him examined for tubes with his ENT in 2.5 weeks. The ENT has been carefully watching him. His language was a late but then his hearing improved (according to tests) and he started to use lots of words so the ENT said let's wait and watch. But one ear still has fluid so we said "ok one more month and then if fluid, tubes it is." I kind of can't think it's that though because he WAS getting words. I dunno, maybe there's fluid in both ears now?

But last night we sat down with him and the picture book and we both noticed the clear regression. He has lost a few words entirely (apple, egg, bug) and has changed some clear words to less clear (bike is bih for example and it doesn't "say" ding anymore). He's still saying lots of words and he's still trying to communicate rather than label ("hot!" when the dinner was too hot last night and "shoe!" when his shoe fell off and I hadn't noticed).

We're trying hard to be optimistic but it's noticeable. It's very helpful to hear other's opinions while we wait. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

sorry, meant to delete "But we sat with him and did"