amitymamaThe Attachment Parenting Community

lala · 07-14-2006, 12:46 AM

Sorry that I worded it with "normal"..I understand that children all develop at different speeds.

My dd is almost 4 years old.

When she speaks, her pronounciation is very hard to decipher.

She is only about 40% potty trained.

She is not in preschool, but she does have older siblings.

I work with her on the potty training and vocabulary.

I am not sure she is quite up to speed with her peers.

Any advice?
My mother said that she thinks she may be autistic, but I looked into that and she shows no signs of it.

Heidiliz · 07-14-2006, 11:49 AM

My ds will be 4 in August. He isn't potty trained at all and when he speaks it is very hard to understand him. He shows no signs of autism, either. He has 2 older siblings who are homeschooled, so he is around us during school time and has picked up a lot of the things that the older ones are learning. He knows his colors, numbers, and shapes, but no letters yet. I'm not really worried about him and am letting him progress as he feels comfortable. I don't want to push him when he's not ready. I figure he won't be in diapers forever, so I don't want to rush him when he clearly isn't ready yet. Dh and I have been thinking about getting him some speech help just so other kids and adults can understand him better, not because we're worried about his development.

I'm sure your dd is just fine and is doing things on her own schedule.

lala · 07-15-2006, 03:31 PM

thanks, Heidi....

Claire Berry · 05-10-2008, 03:11 PM

Sounds pretty normal. She may be a little slower to reach these milestones, but they really do develop at their own speed and if she's showing progress is really what you want to be concerned with.

Based on my relatively vast experience with children, I think a lot of kids are relatively hard to understand, but I wouldn't say very. I would definitlely focus on speech and/or look for reasons why it might have been delayed. (hearing, etc.) The potty trained thing I wouldn't be too concerned with though...

We have kids up to five having accidents so again, given the wide spectrum of how kids develop I don't think she's too far off.

Good luck!

MooseyMama · 05-10-2008, 04:40 PM

It can't hurt to have her screened for speech. I was VERY reluctant to have my 3 year old (at the time) DS screened for speech (felt like a failure or something, idk) but I was so glad I did it at a young age. Speech is so fun for him, and it makes the biggest impact when done at a young age. If you wait until they are older, it often has to be more often/intense to make the same difference!

As far as PT goes, I wouldn't sweat it! It will happen!