She's smart, she's specific, she has her routines that she doesn't want interrupted or changed, and life is all about her right now, which as you already know is common for this age. I smiled about the walking downstairs first thing because it is certainly is part of "I can do it myself", "no one has to be in front of me", and "watch me, Mommy".

With your descriptions of her communication ability and her age I wonder if it would work to have a little talk one day when things are going quite well asking her to explain in words what happened "this morning when you got upset and cried when we were..." just to see how she is able to express the event. She may be able to give you some insight into how it occurred for her. It would be interesting for you to find out what her memory of the event was, how it played out and importantly how it ended for her and how she felt at the end. Kids this age are not going to be super eloquent but it would be a good exercise for her to think about the event and hear from you that you were sorry she was so upset and wanted her to feel better but had to let her get to the end of her 'what ever you call it at home'. Tell her how much better your time together is when you are both happy and able to talk to each other and you know that you can't talk to her when she is upset.

The point you want her to internalize is how much better it is when she can "use her words" to tell you what she wants or how she feels. You may find that you are taking an apparently backward step in development by reverting to a physical comfort intervention (hug or touching her to help her calm and talk it out). That is as you see the precursor of a meltdown, NOT the tantrum itself. She might get to that point where she feels it coming and asks for a hug or whatever and you can then derail the out of control spiral to tantrum. I would love to show you a few hands on techniques for physical input that helps to organize children and calm them.

One point to understand is that the tantrum serves a couple of different purposes. Of course, it is an expression of the out-of-control over-the-top emotions of something not going the way she wanted, but somewhere in the past, I am sure, it brought out some comforting and negotiating response on your part to help her calm and feel better. Thats why I separate the window of a physical intervention above. The intervention events during the tantrum help to reinforce the repetition of this process as a usable course of action. It is not necessarily directed to 'hurt' you but could very well be orchestrated to 'recruit' you to her way of thinking and help her get exactly what she wants.

In preschool settings there is often the comforting attitude expressed (basically) "I am sorry you are upset, I don't want you to hurt yourself or others, you can stay here on this rug while you are crying, when you are done you can rejoin the group (or activity) and I will sit here with you." It is safe, it is unemotional, there is no benefit for the tantrum to continue longer than the child is internally upset, and after event passes the child returns to the group. If the activity is over that precipitated the event (the game, art time, etc.) then they rejoin in whatever is going on at that time (perhaps a missed snack is allowed as nutrition may be an important issue for the child).

I remember one child having a tantrum in my therapy room during our normal therapy session. He cried and cried (big tears) at first, at some point in the extended action, he paused - yawned a nice big yawn - and when finished returned to whining and crying. The point is, when is it expressing the upset emotion and when is it part of the show of wanting your way?

Does your daughter go to preschool, to play dates, to a sitter's house or other events where you are not there as a supervisor. How is her behavior at these times? Is she able to hold it together or does she have meltdowns in those settings? This information can help you to see how much of it is a common pattern or perhaps a behavior that is more home situation based.

I do think it would be a good idea for you to log her tantrums so that you have an idea over time how many, how long, and a word or two (or sentence) about the precipitating event when it occurred (this doesn't have to be too wordy or complicated), what was happening at that point in the day, your activities, hers. The purpose here is to see the occurrence similarities and recognize the improvement that may not be obvious to you in your own memory. It may give you some clues about what specific issues continue to be related to them over time even as improvement occurs. There will be those moments when you realize that some are due to being tired because of time of day, activities that day, etc. You may be able to see some relationship to mealtime (don't shy from the idea that some food allergies can be expressed in emotional outbursts among other odd behavioral ways), or need of food (low blood sugar events before meals). There may be patterns or information that will come out looking back over a week's log that wouldn't have otherwise come to your attention.

Your question belies the emotions you are feeling right now wanting a solution. The real situation is that you will see an improvement over time but it will not be immediate. Is there a way for you to allow your child to have her meltdown events and not internalize a gut wrench reaction? You love your child and want her to be able to control her behavior. Try to provide that benign but non-reinforcing attitude and let normal consequences occur as to your schedule or events if a tantrum interrupts the day ("we don't have time to watch the whole video now but you can see 10 minutes of it before we have to leave").

By the way, my partner in life is a Speech Language Pathologist with about three decades of experience working with preschool age and young children. I am an Occupational Therapist with early childhood experience. Your lead-in description of her speech difficulties, intervention, observations and therapist's comments were great and very helpful at having a more full picture of your daughter's abilities and situation.

Please let me know if this helps and if I can clarify anything.