Advice on three year old behaviour

[LaurenSteph]

Hiya,

I’m wondering whether my son might have some sort of Sensory Processing Disorder and am hoping someone who has a child with this or something similar could give their thoughts. My son turned 3 last month, and these are the thing that he does which I am a little concerned about.

1. Cries (bordering on hysterical) over things which I consider a little strange, for example, the ‘claw’ that catches the soft toys in those awful amusement arcade machines terrifies him, and the other day he poked himself in the hand with a pencil by mistake, which left no mark, but cried until he was sick.
2. Isn’t a fan of loud noises. Hates the hoover and leaves the room, and if we go somewhere where it’s really loud, he cries and wants to leave (i.e went to a friend’s kid’s party and he cried as it was so noisy), but he does get used to it and it doesn’t bother him if he knows the place well.
3. Gets really annoyed/cries if his socks aren’t pulled on correctly. Gets upset about this several times a day. Doesn’t have any other issues with clothes though.
4. Gets upset if his hands get a little wet, i.e if the handle of a cup is a tiny bit wet.
5. This is the strangest of all, and of all the friends I’ve spoken to, no-one seems to have a kid that does this. He basically gags/heaves over anything squeamish. If he picks a bogey and it’s on his finger, it makes him heave, or if he sees his little brother’s poo, it makes him heave. He even heaved once when I showed him his brother’s mashed up dinner. Sometimes it’s just a heave or two, but sometimes he is actually sick. For example, we were potty training him and he did a runny poo in his pants. I put him in the shower to wash him off and the poo that floated away made him heave until he vomited.

Obviously I’ve googles these things, and it does point to SD/Autisum, but then I think of all the other ‘normal’ things he does, and I’m not so sure anymore. For example:

1. He loves to play, and will always prefer to play with his friends than alone. He has lots of little mates at preschool.
2. He’s extremely affectionate, and loves cuddles and kisses. Very affectionate to his baby brother.
3. He’s silly and funny and laughs a lot.
4. Very advanced with his speaking. Preschool have said he has the vocabulary of a 5 year old.
5. His teachers at preschool have said that there’s nothing he does which is of concern to them.

Any thoughts? Of course I could be worrying about nothing, and I’m usually pretty chilled about things, but I’ve been watching him for a while now and just wanted some advice.

Thanks a lot.
Stephanie

The wanting to be sociable doesn't rule out ASD unfortunately, you can get people with ASD who want to make friends and be with them. Neither does being very good verbally as sone children with ASD can be very advanced at this age.

I'd go to the GP and as for a refer to have him assessed.

I'm a grown up woman and I still heave/gag and sometimes vomit over things you might find weird. My worst trigger is putting things in your mouth that aren't food (e.g. straws, lollipop sticks) and it doesn't even have to be my own mouth. I can't stand seeing other people do it.

Never thought of it as overly strange, just a sensitive gag reflex. I can totally see why the sight or smell of poo would do the same to your son.

I think it can be totally normal, if on the extreme end of normal. My DS used to gag at the smell of his own poo when he started potty training! And I'm a big gagger, really squeamish and used to be sick at the taste of blood when I lost a tooth as a child.