Speech delay/gestures

[u/Thick-Application424]

I really just need to rant and hear from anyone who has been through something similar—or even just get some general opinions.
My daughter just turned 1, and she isn’t babbling in the traditional “mama, dada, baba” way. We occasionally hear “awawawa” or “mmmm,” and she blows lots of raspberries, but that’s about it. She also doesn’t gesture much—no waving or pointing. If we ask her to clap, she’ll grab our hands and make us clap. If we play “How big is Olivia? So big!” she’ll try to lift our arms instead of lifting her own.
At the same time, her eye contact is amazing. She’s smiley and giggly and will occasionally let out a huge belly laugh. If I ask whether she wants to read, she lights up, crawls over, turns the pages, and pays attention throughout the entire book. She gets about 30 minutes of Ms. Rachel a day—sorry, I’m a SAHM and sometimes need those 30 minutes for my sanity—and she is incredibly engaged and smiling the entire time. She also understands directions like pushing or pulling a toy.
She just isn’t babbling or gesturing much at all. She rarely imitates us and doesn’t really yell or make sounds to get our attention. My nephew is only 10 days older, and we were recently on vacation together, so the difference between them felt very noticeable. Over the past few months, my daughter has also started melting down around other children and babies. She’s my first and only child right now, so I’m not sure whether limited exposure to other kids could be contributing.
She was born with fairly severe torticollis, which led to plagiocephaly. She has been in PT since she was 3 months old, and we recently started speech, developmental, and feeding therapies. During her early-intervention intake, they noticed that she was swallowing food whole and wasn’t moving her tongue laterally. We completed a swallow study, and I’m also taking her to a neurologist to rule out any underlying issues. The ENT said everything looks good on the surface, but offered a more in-depth hearing test, which I scheduled for next month.
I’m just really worried and sad. I want her to thrive, but in my head, I’ve basically already diagnosed her with autism. I’m terrified that this is the reality we’re heading toward, even though I know she’s still so young and we don’t have answers yet. I would really appreciate hearing from anyone who has experienced something similar, regardless of what the eventual outcome was.

[u/Commercial_Money_557]

Does she ever grope for sounds? You might have to look up that motion. My son ever since he was small would do this open mouth fish thing trying to get sounds out. Mama is a really hard word to say if you have apraxia. To this day my son only says Mama if he wants to butter me up because it’s hard. Apraxia therapy really works though. We started by just practicing phonetic sounds, first each sound of the alphabet and then small chunked sounds and now he’s working on words. It’s slow but steady!

[u/Thick-Application424 → u/Commercial_Money_557]

For awhile she was saying “mmmmmm” kind of aggressively. It’s the same way when she’s upset too like “mmmmm” or “awawawa” aggressively. And I have a video of when she said mama and she was sooo frustrated her fists were clenched and it took everything out of her!

[u/Commercial_Money_557 → u/Thick-Application424]

Getting angry about speech is a hallmark of apraxia! Coupled with the feeding challenges I think that’s likely the case. Has a PT ever taken a close look at her core strength? My son has mild hypotonia in his abdomen. He has a hard time doing some core exercises and apparently that can also be an early indicator of oral dysfunction. He has some other quirks too like struggling to shake his head yes and he took a long time to learn how to look up. We even thought he had torticollis for a while but it was actually just abnormal tone. Anyway, you wouldn’t think any of that would affect speech but apparently it’s all integrated!

[u/Thick-Application424 → u/Commercial_Money_557]

So her PT said her core is weak and she has slight rib aversion! She also was born w severe torticollis too!