So, dh and I had a really long meeting with ds's EPs this morning, to go through his developmental history and sensory profile prior to his assessment in a little over a week.
Dd (who will be two just before the assessment day) spent half the time refusing to speak to them and hiding on mine or dh's lap, but finally she got up enough confidence to get down and start playing with her toys.
Bearing in mind that I am pretty much 100% sure (as near as you can be anyway) that dd is nt. She is/does everything you'd expect a two year old to do, is bright and usually (excluding EPs apparently) socible etc and hasn't given us an ounce of reason to worry.
.. there's me gabbing away about something for the dev history, when I realise both EPs are looking at dd with raised eyebrows. I look down and she has taken out every Thomas the Tank train she has nabbed off her middle brother and lined them all up in a row, from smallest to largest AND in colour order! 
She has NEVER done anything even vaguely like that before and usually favours chaos over order. I was speechless - for all of about a minute, then she knocked them all over, grabbed a handful and started playing cars with them. 
PHEW!
Needless to say the EPs thought it was hilarious, especially when I was falling over myself to explain how she's never done anything like it before, she's doesn't show any signs of ASD - honest etc etc etc! 
That child! Honestly, if I didn't know better, I'd think she'd planned it.
Here are some suggested organisations that offer expert advice on special needs.
SN children
Funny Moment at EP Meeting
moosemama · 05/01/2011 20:57
I was once complaining to my HV that my son NEVER SLEPT in the day, except when he was in the car, he never got a nap at all, even at four months - only to realise he had fallen asleep on my lap as I was speaking
Humphrey I'd swear they know and do it on purpose sometimes!
oh, dd2 used to do stuff like this.
I was explaining exactly the same thing to dd1's SALT (on a home visit). we went through to the kitchen to find dd2 had lined up all the teaspoons, at a precise 15 degree angle to the edge of the worktop (which she couldn't actually see as she was so small 
).
she wandered off while we were laughing about it, and when we went back in to the playroom, we fund she had emptied out the bricks and had lined them up accordig to size and colour.
oh how I laughed
I swear they plan this sort of stuff too!
Maybe they're in it together. Its a conspiracy I tell'ya!
Definitely
I find I have the opposite problem at the moment with dd2. We genrally think they may be something not quite NT about her (not because of the linig up phase, but down to social issues she has)
Every time I try to talk to someone about it, she goes off on a charm offensive, butter owuldn't melt few minutes.
today, I was chatting to dd1's (SN) school about dd2 (she was in the car). Was talking baout how she doesn't seem to have real imaginative play going on (there is no way she could have heard me)
collect dd1, get in the car, set off home.
within 5 minutes of setting off, she is telling me all about a dog flying on a pancake that she saw when she was walking alone (she is 3) one day, and how she helped it fly away home she that he could eat the pancake for his lunch
I mean, honestly. why couldn't she come out with htis stuff before I tied myself up in knots over her lack of imagination?!
yep, the day we went for ds1's adhd assessment, dd starting bounding on and off the dr's couch, shouting and tangling herself up in the curtains. And the day ds1 had his ados assessment (videoed, with muggins here in the background), ds2 decided to have a growth spurt and breastfeed constantly. So even if it's no use for diagnosis they can always reuse the tape for professional multidisciplinary breastfeeding education
at the CDC after an assessment while the doctor told me she wasn't willing to give DS a label at this time as she wasn't sure he was showing autistic traits (he has a dx now)and that he might grow out of it
he started patting himself down and peering at his body, then his legs and tries to look at his back, he then turns round very looking very confused and says - I can't see a label
made me
Not in our case purple, ds1 never did lining up or ordering by colour etc.
He did however, used to set games up and then refuse to let anyone touch them! He had a huge construction playmat with a quarry, roads and building site on and would spend hours setting up the diggers, dumpers, cranes, lumps of concrete, pipes etc but then not play with it or let his brother play with it. It was a huge source of sibling fighting.
Willow, you're right there. I said to dh, all children line things up and organise their toys sometimes, its when its constant/repetitive or to the exclusion of everything else that it becomes unusual behavour.
I tend to think we all have traits, after all it is a spectrum. I like the way Attwood puts it, that Autism is a bit like a 100 piece jigsaw puzzle. If you have say, 20 pieces which could be construed as autistic traits, you would never get or need a diagnosis - but, when you start getting upwards of 80 pieces you are in diagnosis territory and likely to need some extra help on your journey through life.
I know I have a good many traits myself, just not enough for a diagnosis. Ds1 is very like I was as a child, only hugely magnified. In theory, this should make me more able to understand/empathise with him and therefore more able to keep my temper - but it doesn't. In fact I am more likely to expect too much of him and get cross with him than dh (who has barely any traits at all, despite coming from a family with several first/second level relatives who have AS).
Its such a minefield, I sometimes feel like I'm drowning in confusing and conflicting information and the more I try to learn about it all the more confused I get.
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.