Speech Delayed Toddler

I'm starting to get extremely discouraged about my toddler's speech delay. This might end up just being a bunch of rambling, but I'd be appreciative of any advice, anecdotes, encouragement, etc. that you may have.My son is just over 3 years old and has been in various speech programs since he was 18 months. He's our first and only child, so we're not 100% sure what's normal for kids his age development-wise, but he's definitely behind his peers when it comes to speech. We see a speech and language pathologist as well as an occupational therapist every 8 weeks or so, and a developmental pediatrician every 6 to 8 months. They haven't diagnosed him with ASD, but haven't completely ruled it out yet either since there is a family history on my side and he has some "autistic-like behaviours" such as not pointing at things.Aside from his speech, he's a really bright kid. He loves puzzles, and the occupational therapist told us he's solving puzzles that are quite advanced for his age. He also loves anything musical, and loves being active and outdoors, especially swimming. He plays well with other children (no biting/kicking/hitting) and although he mostly prefers to play beside them, he will sometimes play with them. He's also quite independent, and is content playing on his own or exploring new environments. He loves books, so we read several books to him every day.He has maybe 25 to 30 words right now, most of which he will only use after we prompt him to do so (for example, we might hold up a ball and say "ball" and he will repeat it back to us.) He is starting to use single words to ask for things, like "outside" or "up" if he wants to be carried, but a lot of the time he still just grunts or shouts out, and will often throw a tantrum if we can't guess what he wants quickly enough. In these cases, we've been trying to encourage him to "use his words" but it's not usually effective.I'm also concerned about his receptive language, and have expressed this concern to his doctors/therapists. I feel like they either aren't taking it seriously or don't feel it's that bad because they never really address the issue other than to say, "he's a bit behind." We had his hearing tested about 2 months ago and everything came back normal. He's also pretty independent in many things (dressing, eating, likes to explore, etc.) so I'm not sure if the problem is that he doesn't understand what we're saying, or he's just choosing to ignore us and do his own thing.He's been in some sort of therapy for his speech for the last year and a half now, and I'm just so discouraged at his lack of progress. He's gone from maybe 5 words at age 18 months, to maybe 30 now, and still isn't using most of them spontaneously. When I express these concerns to his SLP, she just says things like, "all kids develop at their own pace," which feels really dismissive, like she isn't addressing our concerns. While I do understand that every child is different, I just want to make sure that we are doing everything we can to help him develop his speech and language skills, and that we have him receiving the appropriate type of therapy.It's just so discouraging to see all the other children in his preschool class using full sentences and being able to actually communicate with everyone around them. I'm sick of the dirty looks and unwanted advice we get from family and strangers alike as to why he's not talking, and what we are currently doing or have previously done wrong to "make him not want to talk." It's breaking my heart that he isn't able to share his thoughts and feelings with us, and I place a lot of the blame on myself because I had extreme post-partum depression after he was born and wasn't able to bond with him or care for him for a long time afterwards.I guess I'm just at the point where I feel like I've completely failed him. As September approaches, all I can think is that school is only a year away, and I'm worried he will get bullied or ostracized by the other children if he's still this delayed. We go months at a time without seeing any progress whatsoever, even with him in therapy, and sometimes it feels like he's never going to improve and it's solely my fault. I'm not sure what else we can be doing to support him, and the professionals we've been seeing honestly haven't been much help.Thanks for reading. Any support or advice is greatly appreciated. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2Nb0Yv8