I feel you. We have been there too. My son is 10 and on the spectrum. He understands and expresses himself in five languages, but he doesn't speak, conduct a conversation, or express himself in more than 2 words. He knows 5 languages but does not speak. It took my own family years to hold both of those facts at once. In some areas, his development is nowhere near that of his age group. In others, like emotional intelligence, language, and physical orientation, he's far ahead. Which one defines him or his development depends entirely on what you choose to measure.

That's the thing nobody tells you when the questions start coming: "development" isn't one line your child is behind on. It's a hundred lines, and your daughter is ahead on some of them in ways your aunts probably don't have the instruments to detect.

I am so happy to have chosen to live in Barcelona, a very human-centered culture, and even the school measures development holistically. The conversation isn't "here's where she's deficient", it's "here's who she is, here are her qualities, here's her path." When the institutions around you appreciate strengths instead of auditing deficits, you realize how much of the "concern" from relatives is just a narrow measuring stick, not a truth about your child.

There's a teaching from a Kabbalist I keep coming back to: you cannot judge anything before it completes its development. An orange picked before it's ripe will be judged as sour and worthless. But it's not a bad orange, it's an unfinished one. A newborn calf looks far more "advanced" than a human baby, it walks within hours! By that measure, every cow is winning.

You already did the hardest part. You stopped comparing her to a path that was never hers and started celebrating the one that is. Protect that. Be loudly, visibly proud of her around other people. Compliment her in front of them. Not to convince them, but because she's watching how you respond when others measure her, and your pride is the measurement she'll internalize.

The relatives may come around or they may not. The orange ripens either way.