DS is 3, he turned 3 in July. He started attending a new nursery in September and they think he may have SEN. This wasn’t flagged up at his previous setting which he attended between the ages of 1-3 but this nursery are almost certain. I just had a meeting with them and they had a booklet of expectations, they basically said he’s still at the 16-24 month stage so way behind the curve.
There reasons for this are primarily:
He doesn’t play with the other children, he prefers to play alone. I would agree with this but then I’m quite a solitary person myself and played alone a lot as a child (I was an only child) so this hasn’t struck me as particularly odd.
He ‘obsesses’ over things such as reading books but then again, I said I obsess over reading books too… I’m an English lecturer so our home is filled to the brim with books, he has always been surrounded by books. They have said the fact he can read so many books off by heart is great but also isn’t usual for his age.
He doesn’t communicate how they would expect a 3 year old to. He doesn’t tell you what he wants, he drags you to the object he wants and points at it. Agree with this, his speech isn’t 100% and he has been referred to speech and language but I would say his language has come on leaps and bounds over the past few months.
They say he doesn’t understand things e.g if they say it’s lunchtime he doesn’t understand that so they have to use physical cues such as his lunchbox. I disagree with this, he understands a lot more than he perhaps lets on to them? He definitely knows what lunchtime is without requiring a physical cue, it’s one of his favourite times of the day!
He doesn’t like being wet or messy and gets upset when he is. My older DS is the same and DH said he was at that age too, DC1 doesn’t have SEN afaik nor does DH so I’m not sure how related to SEN that actually is.
He gets upset when other children cry but then they also said he’s distressed by loud noises generally which I really disagree with. He loves fireworks, loud music etc and doesn’t have an issue with our often noisy home so not sure about that one!
Overall, I completely accept he needs speech therapy and I’m looking into private ones as we speak. I don’t know whether it’s autism or not but I just wanted to ask what to expect if it is. She’s asked me to complete a SENCO referral form. It all seems rather daunting. I’m just wanting to hear from people who have been in this sort of situation, was it autism? If it is autism, what happens next?