What's the Difference Between Speech Delay and Autism?

All right, let's talk about the difference between autism and speech delay and let's define both of them really quickly. All right, first of all, speech delay is overgeneralization for what we call speech and language delay. So speech and language are different. Speech are the sounds that we make when we're talking. So when someone has pronounced they cannot pronounce certain sounds or they cannot professionally speaking, we say, produce certain speech sounds and it makes it harder for us to understand, then it's a speech problem. Okay, A very good example would be if a child cannot do the L sound like that L, they say lollipop, right? So the L becomes a Y. There are different types of speech errors. That's a speech problem. Language problem on the other end is something like if a child doesn't have enough words or they have problems making sentences. Right. They haven't started using words yet. They're still using other forms of language. For instance, gestures. Right? For instance, body language or pulling you or whatever, those are language problems. Okay, So I have speech and language problems. Together they create something, what we call speech and language delay. Okay, So a lot of people are asking me whether there's a difference between delay and disorder. We're not getting into that. There's another video for that. I'll put it in the link below or in the box here somewhere. All right, how about autism? Autism is something that is quite well documented as of like how it is defined. So I'll put a link below from DSM 5, which is basically the diagnostic criteria of autism. But basically autism is there's, there are deficits in different areas. Okay. Language is one of them. All right, Language is just one of them. So let's talk about what, whether a child has speech delay or asd. Okay, so generally speaking, from my perspective, like there are. So I'm just want to put this caveat here, right? I just want to put a disclaimer. I'm a speech therapist, my name is Ming from agents of speech.com and we do not give a diagnosis for autism. We as in speech therapists, right? Whereas we give diagnosis for speech and language delay or disorder, whatnot. And we break it down into smaller diagnosis. For, for instance, it might be articulation problem, phonolog, phonology problem, it might be apraxia of speech problem, it might be social, pragmatic. There's a lot of different aspects of speech and language, whereas ASD, we do not have the so called expertise to diagnose at this point in time. All right, so let's Talk about from my experience, from my clinical experience, what I see and the difference. So first of all, does it matter that you need to know between whether it's a speech delay or autism? Yes and no. So, yes, as in the long term, the therapy plan will be different. In the short term, it won't be that different because all you're trying to do is to get your child to start talking or communicating to you first, right? And a lot of people will say, what do you mean by get them to talk? They can do talk whenever they want, but the reality of the problem is that you are watching this so that you know why your child is not speaking yet. And this is the huge thing I want to tell you right now, is that the reason behind your child not talking is not really too much of a. Is not too much of an important thing for you to know right now. Because the start of therapy is the goals are always the same, all right? For instance, to get them to start using gestures, right? To stop them from using, like hand leading, hand guiding, whatever you call it, hand pulling to express the needs and wants, to get them to start playing with toys, to get them to start interacting with others, right? These are universal goals that work for both speech and asd, okay? ASD as an autism spectrum disorder. All right? So generally speaking, very general, I want to keep this as general as I can. Speech and language delay children, they tend to have better communication intent. What I mean by that is that they want to talk to you. They're very communicative. Not necessarily they have the words or sounds yet, but they tend to look at you more. They tend to play better, they tend to have an interest in people. That's the main thing that I want to say. Whereas autistic children or people, they tend not to have. They don't understand the reason why they have to interact with you, all right? Every, like, making them talk to you is a hassle to them, okay? At least from what I see. Obviously, autism spectrum disorder is a huge spectrum. I cannot say that, oh, autistic children are all like that. If you search on Google, a rabbit hole, right? People say, oh, lack of eye contact, right? A very heightened sensory tiptoeing, like spinning stuff, likes hand flapping, likes to jump up and down, okay? Doesn't like to talk, doesn't talk at all, right? Has some sort of disruptive behavior, such as spinning on the floor, you know, like hitting people, biting people, so on. These are symptoms. But at the same time, at the, at the end of the day, the best symptom that there is is the underlying reason is that they don't like to socialize. All right? So the question is, is it either or is it always speech delay or speech and language delay and autism are separate? No, it can happen together. All right? It can happen together that at this point in time, we do not know most of the, like, 80 or 90% of the reasons why a child is delayed in speech and language. A child can have very good motor skills, very good fine skills, fine motor skills, very good play skills, so on, but they will still be delayed in language. All right? We still don't know why. There are nature and nurture, meaning there are predisposed reasons. There are environmental reasons as well, meaning maybe the language environment is not as rich. There aren't as many kids to play with them. They. They aren't exposed to as many language models as. As they should be. But at this moment in time, we do not really know why. And same goes to autism. It's a developmental disorder. You have it by birth and you cannot develop it. I just want to clear things up, because if you search inside of our channel, you will see virtual autism. It doesn't mean that there's something called virtual autism. It's a word that has been used recently to describe a phenomenon. So you can, if you want to watch that, you can check that out. But the underlying thing is it can happen together. There are separate things. Right. It can be associated with autism. Right. Autistic children are people, they do not really want to socialize and effort if they don't use language. Therefore, their language doesn't catch up to their peers. Right. If you're comparing autistic children or people to the norm of the society, obviously they're not going to be as good as language if they don't enjoy it and like it like the rest of us. Right? Okay. So does speech delay equal autism? Of course not. So the reason why you're watching this is because you thinking, oh, no, my child doesn't look at me, isn't responding to their name, isn't. Isn't talking yet, isn't using single words, therefore, is it going to be autism? That's why you're watching. Oh, is it speech delay or is it autism? To be honest, speech delay cases, Speech and language delay cases has nothing to do with autism most of the time. Right. And as I told you, there's no one reason why children are delayed. We don't know at this moment in time, but what can you do right now, is what I want to tell you the diagnosis at this moment in time, if your child is around like 2 to 3, it doesn't really matter, at least from the therapy standpoint. Why I say this is because right now, if all you are doing is trying to find out the reason behind why your child is not talking, that's not the right answer. Like, that's not the right question to ask. That's not, that's just gonna give you a whole load more, more questions and inaction, which means you're not taking action and putting therapy into your hands. Right? That's the biggest thing that I want you to take away from, from this video. At the very, very least, it doesn't matter. Find a professional who can do a diagnosis for a child. Do not guess yourself right. For instance, if I had some symptoms on me, I would go on Google and look at like WebMD and check it out and I would think, oh, no, I have this. But turns out after like scanning, after doing some assessments with the doctor, it's a totally different diagnosis. And speech and language is very difficult for you to pinpoint these aspects and suddenly say, hey, this is going to be autism. This is not autism. Most of the time the assessment takes a lot longer. But at the same time, what can you do right now to alleviate those symptoms? What are you going to do right now to treat your child, to teach them something to make it easier for you to interact with them at home so that they don't cry, they don't do all these disruptive behaviors, they start talking instead of getting into tantrums and so on. Right. So remember, a child who is on the autism spectrum doesn't necessarily mean they, they will have language problems. Right. It means that they're more at risk of, of doing so. But at the same time, if a child has a speech and language delay doesn't mean they're at risk of autism. It's a totally different thing. Got it. Okay. So unless you need a diagnosis right now to have your child be enrolled into some sort of special service or some sort of government funded project or whatever, then the thing is, you shouldn't put it as number one. I see a lot of parents will say, oh, my child didn't get a diagnosis, therefore I'm going to get a second third opinion or the reverse, right? Oh, my child has autism, is diagnosed with autism. I'm going to try and prove them wrong. Well, you don't prove them wrong that way. You prove them wrong by teaching your child, making them like, teaching them how to talk, teaching them how to Interact, teaching them how to play. And then like half a year or later, when you go back to the assessment center, they're like, oh, no, we're wrong. They're not autistic or they're not speech delayed. That's how you do it. You don't try to do more tests. That's not. Not going to work, right? You. I know what you want to hear right now. I've talked to, like, hundreds of parents at this point in time. You want to hear that everything's going to be fine. You want to hear that this is not autism, right? They're going to be okay. They're going to grow out of it, and you don't have to do anything, right? The thing is, even if even they have or have not whatever diagnosis it is, you still have to take action right now. You still have to do something, right? So why not do it now to reduce all the risk that you. You have of your child be having a serious diagnosis later on in his life by teaching him right now. Okay? All right. So I would urge you not to obsess over the labels. That really doesn't matter. What matters is what you do and what therapy you find. Okay? If you really want a diagnosis, find a professional to do it. I know it's not always reliable around the world, especially in developing countries, but for. For that matter, doesn't it mean even more that you should take these into your own hands and do more work at home to help your child? So if that's. Hopefully you understand what I'm saying. And before we go, please go to agents of Speech.com checklist to grab a list of tools and toys that we recommend when you start home therapy. All right, so that's it. I'll see you in the next video. Bye. Bye.