My daughter is 5, and increasingly I notice that she is quite different from her older sibling. Her Dad selfdx as autistic and so it's on our radar that she may also be ND.
Her school have selected her for an "emotional intelligence group" to support her with understanding her emotions and others'. She is very sociable, and she has lots of friends at school, however I get the feeling that she is often playing her own game alongside the others, does that make sense? For example she loves bats, and unicorns.. So if her friends are all playing "families", she'll be the "pet uni-bat" doing her own thing. She's very imaginative, she plays imaginary games a lot.
Her language skills are very good, she met all her milestones, but often makes animal noises instead of speaking, for example meowing when someone says hello, hissing or growling when someone says something she disagrees with. Other times she talks in "baby talk" and when I ask why she says she likes being "cute".
She is also very very LOUD! Which can be difficult as she can be quite inappropriate in what she says and where/to whom. She makes lots of comments on people's looks including race, disability etc. Points at people in supermarkets and describes them. She loudly said that 2 men we know "must be gay" because they live together (they aren't), and you can't talk her round. I understand she's young and that she's making sense of the world, but she really seems to need to put everything into categories. For example I calmly said that these 2 men live together as friends and that we can live with friends as well as partners. And she said "no, they live together so they're gay". I said that in those case, no, and that I have lived with friends before and she replied "so you were gay! "This went round in circles! She loudly asked inappropriate questions at my Dad's funeral, and would not be quiet when asked, despite us setting clear expectations beforehand and answering her questions preparing her what to expect. She has very rigid ideas, asks 1001 questions and needs very clear explanations.
I find myself very anxious about what she'll say next.
Does this sound like she could be autistic? Or is it normal for a 5 year old? I don't remember my older child being like this, but he's always been unusually mature and it's hard to remember.
I appreciate any input you have and descriptions of your 5 year old's Social-emotional development.