Hi everyone,
I’m really concerned about my 3 1/2 year old (born May 2022), and I’m getting more and more concerned as he’s approaching reception age.
He is still in nappies, refuses to sit on the toilet and doesn’t show any signs of readiness.
He doesn’t talk. He only has 3 words - hiya, mama, and he tries to say banana (comes out as nana or nanana).
He understands simple instructions like put your shoes on, go wash your hands, but any open ended question he can’t answer. He doesn’t know how old he is and if you ask him how old he is he doesn’t know what it mean and won’t show you with his fingers.
instead he will hum to the same tone you asked the question to answer if that makes sense. “how old are you?” “Hum hum HUM hum”
He doesn’t understand abstract concepts like holidays, doesn’t know what Christmas, vacation, Halloween are, doesn’t understand “the weather is cold/hot”, “this is pretty” “this is silly, this is smart”, “these are your parents/grandparents” etc…
He struggles a lot with his emotions and can have a very hard time with boundaries, being told no, having something taken off, etc…
He doesn’t seem to understand punishment, or at least, he knows it’s something that’s negative and that he’s in trouble but it won’t change his behaviour.
He doesn’t really play with toys besides his toy train but he will spend hours listening to music and audio books and learn his audiobooks by heart (he will hum along perfectly to the narrator’s tone), but I’m not sure he understands what the stories are about as he replays part of a sentence again and again and again and then skips ahead.
on the other hand, he’s got a really good memory (knows his audiobooks for one), he taught himself the alphabet and all letter sounds at 2, he also this year learned numbers 0 to 100. He can type “82” if you ask him. He recently started reading simple 3 letter words (will point to them and not by memory). He can count a group of items up to 20 items and he knows 6 dots = number 6.
But he can’t draw or write or trace anything with his hand besides straight lines and sometimes circles.
I am so worried about what reception will look like for him, he hates noise and singing and will not be able to follow group instructions.
He will not sit down and listen to what the teacher wants him to do.
I tried enrolling him in a sport once but he would just look away and wander off mid 1 on 1 instruction.
He used to hate being around a lot of people and he would scream the whole place down but thankfully that has calmed down.
He loves people and playing with children but he doesn’t know how to play with them or what they’re wanting to play.
He doesn’t go to nursery but he goes to play groups often and he has a blast there for the most part but keeps to himself in the music room and on the ride on cars (he doesn’t do well during dancing and singing), he doesn’t have separation anxiety and never has.
I’m so concerned for him and don’t know how to help him and prepare him for reception.