Get a second opinion and in the meantime see if the therapies help him.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does your child communicate without words?

Pointing, gesturing, PECS, joint attention?

He does. He points, gestures, shows joint attention and mimics movements and gestures. He was very late to do all of these. Pointing at 16 months, gestures and immitation about 17 months and joint attention at 23 months.

These are all promising, but just a note that having these doesn't rule out an ASD diagnosis - it's not totally about having them or not, but about quality and how they're used. Obviously I (and no one here) can really comment on whether the specific diagnosis is inaccurate, just wanting to flag that it's not that simple. And it's something that delayed my daughter's diagnosis (and therefore appropriate school help and insurance coverage for necessary services) for nearly 2 years. So, it's one indicator/positive, but not an end all be all.

My DS just turned two last week and has both sensory issues and a language delay. I discovered the book "Late - Talking Children: A Symptom or Stage" on a message thread from this forum and I've personally found it to be really helpful in answering a lot of the questions/concerns I had from an experts perspective. Several chapters address the subject of autism and it's correlation to language delays. I honestly want to say that he says that around 60% of children with language delays do not have autism, but without a very thorough examination by someone who is highly qualified to diagnose autism, it can be really difficult to know what the future holds. Here's the link ...

http://www.amazon.com/Late-Talking-Children-Symptom-Stage-Press/dp/0262027798/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1460172895&sr=8-1&keywords=late-talking+children+a+symptom+or+a+stage

Hope this helps!

Anonymous wrote:I've seen plenty of misdiagnoses in my days working in EI. But I've also seen plenty of parents who didn't want to believe the Dx. Everyone is doing their best. ASD has other symptoms. Ask your therapist/doc what those are and if DC is exhibiting those as well.

At two, kids can have features of ASD, when they really have a language issue. My kid at two had no eye contact, and a few other features which resolved as the language did.

I've seen plenty of misdiagnoses in my days working in EI. But I've also seen plenty of parents who didn't want to believe the Dx. Everyone is doing their best. ASD has other symptoms. Ask your therapist/doc what those are and if DC is exhibiting those as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My son started out with MERLD, at 4-5, then was diagnosed with severe ADHD at 10 and we were told the MERLD had "disappeared". He has Asperger's tendencies which we decided not to formally diagnose because they are quite subtle and probably wouldn't make it into the modern HFA category.

MERLD is no longer in the DSM.

Interesting. Is it replaced by something?

A bunch of different things...
--Language Impairment
--Late Language Emergence
--Specific Language Impairment
--Social Communication Disorder
--Voice Disorder

Anonymous wrote:Does your child communicate without words?

Pointing, gesturing, PECS, joint attention?

He does. He points, gestures, shows joint attention and mimics movements and gestures. He was very late to do all of these. Pointing at 16 months, gestures and immitation about 17 months and joint attention at 23 months.

Anonymous wrote:Does your child communicate without words?

Pointing, gesturing, PECS, joint attention?

My son points, gestures, shows joint attention and immatates

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My son started out with MERLD, at 4-5, then was diagnosed with severe ADHD at 10 and we were told the MERLD had "disappeared". He has Asperger's tendencies which we decided not to formally diagnose because they are quite subtle and probably wouldn't make it into the modern HFA category.

MERLD is no longer in the DSM.

Interesting. Is it replaced by something?

Anonymous wrote:Parents of a child with language delay... Any misdiagnosed as ASD and vice versa? Is it possible my 2 year old just can't talk?

Of course it's possible, OP. But an ASD diagnosis isn't the end of the world either.

And as someone with a kid with speech delays not on the spectrum, you still do speech therapy. ST pretty much looks the same for any kid at this age regardless of the diagnosis.

Anonymous wrote:
My son started out with MERLD, at 4-5, then was diagnosed with severe ADHD at 10 and we were told the MERLD had "disappeared". He has Asperger's tendencies which we decided not to formally diagnose because they are quite subtle and probably wouldn't make it into the modern HFA category.

MERLD is no longer in the DSM.

Does your child communicate without words?

Pointing, gesturing, PECS, joint attention?

My son started out with MERLD, at 4-5, then was diagnosed with severe ADHD at 10 and we were told the MERLD had "disappeared". He has Asperger's tendencies which we decided not to formally diagnose because they are quite subtle and probably wouldn't make it into the modern HFA category.

My child was misdiagnosed at around 3. He has MERLD. Still some lingering issues at 7 but none of the autism stuff the doctor stated. Some kids don't start talking till 4-5-6-7. It could be autism, may not be. The main difference is kids with autism keep their quirks. Language kids often outgrow them once the language comes.

Parents of a child with language delay... Any misdiagnosed as ASD and vice versa? Is it possible my 2 year old just can't talk?