I'm not sure how best to support DD (21 months). She has was an early walker & talker with over 100 words by 13 months and now talking in full sentences. I've always thought she is just bright but increasingly has been showing some red flags to suggest something else may be going on. Looking for advice - should I chill and wait it out? Is there anything I should be doing?
She is obsessed with letters and, more recently numbers. She knows the alphabet, has been able to recognise letters for months and has started sounding out simple words eg. Cat, hat, ball etc. She also knows some words from sight such as likes, said etc. She is actively reading from books/signs etc she has not seen before, not simply memorising.
She can count to a hundred, recognise 2 digit numbers eg. She will read 46 - forty six. (For a while she would say the inverse is. 64 but has stopped doing that now.). She knows her odd numbers from her evens, her left from her right etc. Has started learning timetables. I (stupidly) gave her a timetable CD because it had numbers on the cover. She listens to it all the time (ðŸ˜) and is picking up on some of the songs.
She knows colours, shapes etc. A couple of always ago she pointed to a bit of cardboard on the floor that had been bent and said "look mummy, a trapezium". She is very particular about colours too - it's not blue but turquoise. She has lilac shoes and the bin is "maroon".
I've tried to expand her interests as much as possible. We do toddler football, dancing, music, going swimming together, walks and two or three play dates a week. But honestly she would be more happy, talking to a deck of playing cars, sorting out her number tiles and doing puzzles (she can do a 24 piece puzzle by herself in a couple of mins).
Red flags.
Spinning for a couple of hours a day on a spinning chair.
Arm flapping - mostly when excited.
She repeats the same phrases, does exactly the same thing when playing every time, with no deviation (pick up green sticks and puts them in the milk jug from her tea set. Then "puts some yellow in there" adds the yellow stick. The lines up the pink sticks etc. etc. Everything is always EXACTLY the same. When she lines up number blocks the brown and white ones have to go to one side (they are the "mean ones")
Some sensory issues (complete meltdown when a piece of mud touched her skin)
Lining things up (in a very particular way).
I was chatting with a friend who has a toddler the same age who made a comment that toddlers like to copy parents eg. Pretend to cook, or clean, or play mummy. The closest DD has ever got to that sort of thing is pretending to be a digger or a leaf bower (she was the leaf blower). Zero interest in what I am doing. She wants me to come into her world when we play.
She also has no off switch when it comes to food. She eats everything (apart from egg). People say toddlers stop when they are full...she doesn't!
Acutely aware if right and wrong, good and naughty and talks about it a lot.
Family history of ASD. My brother high functioning autism, same for her half brother.
This is not a braggy post, hence why I've posted in this corner of mumsnet. It's not something I can really talk about on real life. Are the red flags I've identified actually red flags or am I worrying over nothing?