My son was in your daughters shoes at that age. He was also diagnosed with asd level 2 and started early intervention. I use to wonder if he would ever speak. The hope I held onto was the effort he made to make sounds even if they weren’t understood. He was around 5 when he started speaking in small sentences. He’s now 8 and still receives speech therapy. He can speak in sentences and can talk about his favorite interests. If he verbally communicates it is primarily echoliala. This year I heard him say my name for the first time and it was amazing. Verbally he’s made great progress but recently I accepted it’s not his main way to communicate and it’s my turn to learn his language. He still prefers visual cards and we’re learning ASL because he still chooses to not speak and would rather sign or not speak at all.

I know it can be hard. There are great days and at times some extra bad days than what we would like have. I just like to remind him no matter the good or bad days I still love him and the love I have for him would never change. Sometimes they just need to know their loved even though they have challenges and challenge us as a parents also. As they get older they need the room to be themselves and as parents we need to love who we are as we learn with them. My motto is to just sprinkle love into everything!

Every child and family is different. I hope you guys get to continue learning together and have progress that can bring some relief to everyone. I’m sure she wants to be understood as much as you would like to understand her. In the meantime you might have the option to request AAC devices. I wish I would have known sooner about those. I just ordered my son a medical AAC device to help him communicate when he doesn’t feel well.

Best Wishes to your family ❤️