Social skills for 3 year old

[Confusedandworried321]

My DS is 3.6 and needs some help with his social skills with his peers.

To give some context, he's been referred to a community paediatrician after some things that his playgroup flagged up (well I pushed the health visitors and they eventually referred him months later) - we haven't been given an impression of what the issue could be although I suspect it would be on the spectrum somewhere. However I go back and forth as to whether I think he is or isn't as he doesn't tick the majority of the boxes and doesn't actually seem to be struggling either, but we will wait and see what the paediatrician says. It's good that it's being looked at either way.

Regardless of any diagnosis he might eventually go on to receive, I want to be proactive in helping him with his social skills. He hasn't made any friends at playgroup that I can gather, although he's made one at his private nursery where he goes one day a week, but the child is a year older and kind of forced himself on my DS. I've seen him with them eg at the fair, and it's obvious he's unsure/doesn't know how to play with them. He was following one girl around for a bit and it took a while to get the hint she wasn't interested. I've seen him do this once or twice at the park as well with children. Ive also seen him copy another child as a way of getting their attention/engaging. Which it seems even 3 year olds know is annoying!

He doesn't get much practice at all. Until a few months ago he was an only child, and there are no other children in our family. My mum (my childcare when I'm at work) took him to a regular playgroup and it took a while for him to warm up to joining in the singing etc, and he would parallel play fine there, but not play with any children much really. We have very few play dates, but when we do he's generally fine on them and seems to play what I guess is appropriately (although I don't really know what that is for a 3 year old!).

He's starting school nursery in September and I want to help him have a bit more confidence in socialising before then. He's a cautious child, was late to walk (18 months) and isn't boisterous or rough.

Any suggestions/anyone experienced similar?

The fact he can copy another child spontaneously suggests that (even if it's annoying) he doesn't have one of the big red flags for autism, an inability to mirror others' behaviour. Which suggests that even if there is an eventual diagnosis, he should be able to learn techniques for socializing pretty quickly.

@AladdinMum is usually the person who turns up to give very good advice on these threads, so I have @ -ed her to see if she'll have anything to say.

While you wait for appointments, I'd say two of the best things you could read are the ESDM manual and the ESDM parent manual, the top two books here. These set out the basic deficits in social aspects of autism, and give you good strategies for dealing with them. Note that the books are mostly directed at parents/ therapists of children who are non-verbal, but the techniques work well for our hyper-verbal son who is on the diagnositc pathway for ASD (2 years 9 months) and we are seeing a big difference in his social interaction after a short time. Your DS sounds very like ours (also cautious and not very sociable though not incapable of socializing).

Also look up diagnostic criteria and specifically associated checklists for signs of autism somewhere like pp 35, 36 of this in case you haven't done so already (you probably have - just suggesting this source as it's worthwhile).

Fingers crossed for you.

Thanks so much for replying. I haven't actually thought to look at the manual so I will do for sure.

Yes my DS is an absolute mystery. He can socialise fine, seemingly spontaneously, as he showed on Saturday when we had a few friends' children over. I change my mind so much as to whether he is or isn't autistic, especially as I had no concerns until his play group flagged up a couple of quite minor things.

Interesting to hear that your DS is hyper verbal; can I ask what that means? One thing I will say about my DS is that he is never quiet (or rarely!).

Hyper-verbal means extremely early complex speech - it often goes with hyperlexia, the precocious ability to read. Both are often seen with ASD, though neither is diagnostic of it. They're sort of the other extreme from being non-verbal in that they are less about communication and more about the ability to decode and process language.

DS hsa never been a particularl motivated communicator. But he started saying single words clearly (with correct meaning) at 10 months, knew hundreds of words by about 14 months, started talking in phrases and was referring between the alphabet on his wall and letters in words in books at 16 months, full sentences and reading some written-out words by about 18 months. He could also count (as opposed to reciting numbers) and identify numbers, at 19 months. He was also recognizing lots of birds by their songs, able to recognize lots of plants, knew all sorts of tunes, etc. So I started out as ultra-smug mummy of the freakily precocious child at playgroup.

When he regressed around the age of 2, a lot of the pattern-matching stuff - reading, counting, recognizing numbers, enjoying taxonomizing plants - seemed to get lost. It is very, very slowly returning on a much more normal developmental timescale, and he is now behind other children in terms of recognizing letters and numbers reliably, sorting things, doing puzzles, doing tasks involving multiple steps, etc. He also isn't asking questions involving how, why, who etc yet - just wants to know what things are and retain facts about things, so really isn't very good at connected thinking. I think this will show up as bigger social deficits as he gets older: it seems to signal a lack of ability to sequence thought correctly.

But his language has stayed complex, a lot of the knowledge behind it has remained and been built on, and the very precise auditory processing has become even more acute. Today he was playing with a set of tuning forks and singing the intervals between them, and trying to sing the beats between A=426 Hz and A=440 Hz...

DS can sometimes socialize spontaneously and happily, with a child he knows very well, when he's feeling good and relaxed. More often than not though playdates - even with a child he knows well - involve him deciding to do his own thing, usually requiring my complete attention, and getting cranky when i try to attend to the guests...

If you look at the ESDM manuals I mentioned above, they deal with the specific cognitive and social deficits that might underlie what I've described here. ESDM therapy does seem to be making a difference to DS, and it has a good evidence base - so it might be useful.

Thank you that's all really helpful. Because I'm in such two minds about my DS it's helpful to read others' experiences - even though I know that autistic children are quite often more different from each other than from NT children! It's more the logic behind it that sounds useful. I will look at those manuals for sure as it may give me some more clarity.

Also your DS sounds like he will be able to make a successful career for himself one day doing something like the stock market, on the trading floor. I've been told by a friend in the industry that she doesn't think one person on the trading floor is NT.

@letsgooutstiiiiiiide the description of your son is very fascinating, if it turns out to be autism then it is a side of autism that not many people hear/see often. Your son sounds adorable, and you seem to be very knowledgeable on the subject; if it turns out to be a autism diagnosis, then the one thing that is certain is that he will have a very bright future ahead of him with you by his side.

@Confusedandworried321 nothing concrete really jumps out as autism at the moment, specially when you said he had no other struggles (meaning that a diagnosis is unlikely). However, autism is a social communication disorder, so social communication is at the heart of it. The ages of 3-4 are when they move from parallel play and start 'making friends' so there will be a lot of attempts at 'making friends' and many times it will not work, they will learn from these experiences - and if they are naturally shy then this will be harder. His challenges would be more concerning at 5Y old, but at 3.6Y he still has time to learn and navigate social norms. One thing to note is that people tend to believe that autistic children are not social when in fact the opposite is true in many cases, they can be very social and very socially motivated but struggle with social communication. At 3.6Y I would not really be concerned if they are successfully making friends (as they still have time) but see if they are beginning to correctly read other children's emotions, i.e. when to join in, when the other child does not want to play, when the other child is upset/happy/crying, etc - these will be basic building blocks for friendship later on. For example, not long ago, I saw two 4.5YR children in a doctors office, one had autism one did not. The one who did not have autism was very shy, very cautious of the new surroundings, staying very still next to his mother. The other child with autism was happy and constantly tried to engage with he other child; he would come up to him, smile at him, push him lightly (to make him run or chase after him), offer him a toy, etc. The shy child without autism did not want to play, so he would try to ignore and deflect the other child'b bids for play by turning his back, hiding his face, saying no, getting distresses to the point of crying, etc. The child with autism could not see these signs, he just wanted to play and was doing the best he could to engage him in play, but he just never saw the fact that the other child did not want to play, he had struggled to read the other child's face and emotions. The mother of the autistic child told her son that the other child did not want to play, that in fact he was now crying, the child with autism went over to give him a hug and leave him alone.

Thanks Aladdinmum we've spoken on here before and you've always been really helpful/reassuring. I just can't shake the feeling that he has been referred to a community paed for a reason - they don't just do it for the sake of it especially with the NHS cuts etc!

While I've got you actually, I want to ask about "typical" play as that's one thing I'm starting to see as a flag in my DS. But don't know if it is! He will often pretend a toy (or object - I find that less concerning though) is something else. So he's got this little Play Mobil park which he's never shown an interest in (it's 4+ in fairness) and yesterday I was trying to encourage him to play with it. He did with me for all of 2 minutes, then a little while later when I'd left him to it, he was using the slide bit as a digger and seemed to be pretending it was a digger. Another example would be last week I asked him what he played with in play group and he said a transporter, it was pretending to be a rubbish truck (we had seen a rubbish truck on our walk to play group so makes sense that he wanted to play rubbish trucks).

Is this "normal" symbolic play or is it a bit of a flag? I'm sure I've read on here that it could be a flag. He does also play with things "properly" eg trains, trucks, kitchen. He used to play nicely on his own at home, as long as he had company, but recently he will not play by himself at all and needs a lot of input which is challenging!

Yes, that is perfect symbolic play and should be encouraged. Imagination starts at 2YRs old and never stops, it only grows. I have seen many toddlers, including my own children come up with really crazy ideas of how to use commonly used objects in many different ways. I have seen 2/3/4Y olds one minute use a car appropriately with broom broom beep beep sounds and then the next minute lift it upside down, use the wheels as buttons to press (as if dialing) and put it to their face and start saying "hello hello" like using a phone.... all very healthy behavior, and should be encouraged. When people talk about inappropriate use of toys it would be nothing like what you describe; inappropriate use of toys is very obvious, it would be them manipulating toys in an unnatural way (and not related to play as we know it); obsessively spinning of wheels, lifting and dropping a specific toy on the floor in an obsessive manner, lining/stacking toys in a perfectionist manner, etc. However all children will do this to some extent, it can be fun and interesting dropping toys, spinning wheels, etc, however the difference is that it become unnatural when it becomes obsessive, for long periods of time, relentless, hard to distract from and at all possible opportunities taking over their whole play time.

Wow thank you aladdinmum. That's good to know.

Aladdinmum it's interesting about what you say about picking up on cues. My DS has a boy with developmental delays at his play group - I'm not entirely sure what the delays are, I think he may have ASD. I'm not sure how verbal he is, but I know he runs back and forth a bit, likes to jump etc, stamp his feet. DS has taken a shining to him, and the two times I've witnessed them in the same group (at play group parties) DS will sort of follow this boy, I think he enjoys the jumping, running, "being silly" etc. And thinks it's funny. DS is very verbal so calls this little boy's name etc.

I'm not sure the boy even registers my DS; like I said I really don't know the extent of his delays. But he's hardly inviting DS to play, that's for sure, but DS has been persistent the two occasions I've witnessed this, and will follow him etc. This to me is a red flag. Do you agree, or do you think it's just because at 3 years old, kids don't understand that others are different?

@Confusedandworried321 yes, at this age they are still learning how it all works - your DS seems to enjoy the energy of the other boy so it is very positive that he is trying to copy him even if he does not reciprocate. However, if the other boy were to turn to your DS and say a firm and serious "NO!" or start crying I would expect your DS to initially be cautious and retreat, maybe even cry or seek you (i.e. recognize that something has changed, and play is no longer appropriate)

Thanks Aladdinmum.

I'm interested in following this as DS (turned 3 at the end of June) has just moved into his preschool room at nursery and they have raised some areas that they think he needs to work on.

Predominantly these are his interactions with other children in that he doesn't really play much with others at the moment. He is also very sensitive generally and gets very upset by certain sounds (mainly other children crying or getting upset).

His language is excellent, he's affectionate and happy at home. Tantrums are rare. He will play imaginative games with DH for hours (acting out stories such as Zog and the Three Little Pigs and assigning everyone roles! He has a little ice cream truck and pretends to be an ice cream man and take our orders) He can play alone but much prefers adult interaction and will ask us to play with him constantly.

I have never had any concerns until this was raised, much the same as you OP. Nursery say they plan to work on small group play to encourage him to play with others and will keep an eye on the sensory stuff. It's so hard to know whether it's a "thing" or just part of his personality and he'll get the hang of it more with time. At the moment I have visions of him going to school next year and having no friends!

Sunshinegirl82 sorry you're going through this too, it's so worrying/confusing isn't it. I have the same visions! My DS starts nursery school in September (nursery attached to the school, mornings only) and there's 40 kids in the class! My DS has also been misbehaving at his playgroup though, attention seeking stuff, so I'm getting very nervous about him starting nursery school.

Keep me posted on how your DS gets on.