I’m just writing my observations from today, he’s 4 years old, waiting assessment; I suspect low end asd, I’m still new to all this, I’m posting this because I have a lot more to say for some advice and help about his behaviour etc I want to tell more about him and his tendencies but first wanted a view of todays events
I took him WBC playgroup, initially he was super excited, but the hosts were very late, he kept asking when we will do arts and crafts as that’s what I told him we were going to do and I could see his mood change as his expectations were not met when they arrived (I told him we’re having fun and playing arts and crafts, …home life is paint, glue, etc and I believe arts and crafts in nursery is the same) so when they came, he was expecting arts and crafts but what we got was colouring in and making a basket for Easter which essentially means colouring in and cutting, Noah’s mood dropped and dropped progressively, he became increasingly non communicative, gazed into space, non respondent, barely answered my questions, unless something that he wanted to do arose, he did not show any interest. He gazed ahead of himself and didn’t answer me when I spoke to him. This went on for 1hr. When the doors to the outside playground were finally opened (after his persistent asking), he became angry and frustrated at me because I wasn’t moving fast enough to let him outside as he thought my not moving fast enough meant I wasn’t letting him play outside. When he got outside he played on the climbing frame for 2-3 goes(stairs, tunnel, slide,) he really enjoyed it and was happy whilst he played and he did try to interact with the other children but not to the point they responded (they were also quite engrossed in the climbing frame), after this he ran around the playground insanely, moving from one activity to the next in speed, literally 2 seconds on one activity 2 seconds on the next, he settled for the longest on the music activity for a while, left it and went back to it, and then went back and forth, my own impression was like watching someone try to play with something on a time limit, it’s as if he feels like he has a limit, he runs to play with the climbing frames and then he needs to play the sand for a second, then he needs to go back to the music and then back to the climbing frame again.. rushed is the only way I can explain it.
Other than that, he coloured for 10 mins, then tried to cut with scissors (he is not able yet he does it with 2 hands, myself and nursery are trying to help him) but when I tried to teach him how to use he was angry, but because we were cutting around a template to make a basket I didn’t let him have free reign in terms of cutting because they were not nursery scissors, he became angry, in the end I wanted to let him cut aimlessly but I didn’t get to that point as I was trying to build his Easter baskets as at the same time he wanted to cut alone he was asking me to build the baskets.