If you're stuck on an autism evaluation waitlist, the honest answer is that you can't skip the line, but you can use the wait well. Watching what your child already does, supporting it in small ways, and looping in the right professional if the pattern holds steady is a reasonable way to spend the months in between.
The more useful question isn't "how do I get my child talking right now." It's "what is my child already communicating, and what would make the next step a little easier for them." That shift keeps things calmer at home, and it also gives whoever evaluates your child (an SLP, pediatrician, early intervention team, or school team) better information to work with.
Watch across several different moments rather than judging one rough afternoon. Pay attention to gestures, pointing, response to name, and whether your child seems to understand more than they can say out loud. A single tough day doesn't tell you much. A pattern across routines does.
For this week, pick one thing that already happens daily, a snack, bath time, getting dressed, whatever's reliable. Model one useful word, phrase, gesture, or AAC button during that routine, then pause long enough for your child to respond in whatever form they can manage. A sign, a point, a script, a button press on a device: all of that counts as communication. And if the moment starts turning into a fight, stop. It's not worth it.
Waiting on an evaluation is its own kind of hard: the dread, the second-guessing, wondering what actually helps during the months in between versus what's just noise. Worth writing down what you tried, what worked, what didn't, and what you'd do differently, so you have something concrete by the time you sit down with a professional.
If the waitlist is just one piece of a bigger picture, don't wait on the evaluation to get help. You can ask for a hearing check, an early intervention evaluation, a private SLP evaluation, or a school-based evaluation in the meantime. Asking early isn't overreacting. It just means your child gets access to support sooner rather than later.
For more, the Speech Therapy at Home hub covers home practice broadly, and the Parent Guides section has the full library if you want to keep reading. Related situations worth a look: ADHD and speech delay, autism and anxiety in toddlers, autism and apraxia together, autism and sensory processing disorder, and, if you're weighing therapy options, guides on the best approach for an autistic child, for a bilingual child with speech delay, for a child with ADHD, or for a child with apraxia.
Little Words is meant as educational support for practice at home. It isn't a medical device, an AAC replacement, or a substitute for a licensed speech-language pathologist, pediatrician, early intervention program, school team, or formal developmental evaluation.
