Wende
I am a special ed early interention teacher who does evaluations for my local county with speech pathologists, Ot, Pt etc. I understand your frustration having taught a lot of speech delayed but otherwise normal children. At the age of two and a half it is very difficult for many inexperienced pediatricians to discriminate between delayed speech and autisticlike behaviors. I wish you the best of luck. On the up side I have personally witnessed many many toddlers with appropriate recaptive skills blossom expressively closer to 3-4. Go with your gut, high expectatons, lots of oral motor fun stuff, (blowing bubbles, licking lollpops, blowint cottonballs across a table through a straw, licking peanut butter off upper lip, kissing Mom and talking, singing, blowing a pinwheel. Have faith, hopefully at your childs fourth biirthday you'll be saying "why did I wiich for all this nonstop boisterous boynoise" God Bless.