Is this a ND “thing”

[tabithatwitchetwhatabitch]

My son is almost 3, we've known he was not neurotypical since forever. He is developmentally on track but he has a lot of sensory needs and his behaviour is extremely challenging. We are at the point of pushing for ASD assessment and gathering evidence.

One of the things I’ve noticed he does when meeting new people or when feeling anxious (e.g at his recent nursery settling in session) is he will go into show off / performance mode and pretend to do super hero poses, like he will say “spiderman webs” and pretend to fire webs and he will continue making other superhero stances. He won’t answer to his name in this time and he will continue for quite a while. Another thing which is similar is, he will purposefully fall over - because he knows people will gasp and say “are you ok!?” etc. he does it all the time in front of old ladies in the supermarket.

I apologise if this is a ridiculous question but I didn’t recognise echolalia until quite recently and its got me thinking about this behaviour.

My 3 year old does this all the time and I didn't even consider possible neurodivergance....maybe I should...

I realise it could be typical 3 year old behaviour but I noticed a pattern to it, along with a lot of other challenges we face.

It can be an ND thing, and it can be a toddler thing.

Some ND children will adopt a character as a form of masking to avoid interactions and situations they find challenging. I've known about a child who pretends to be a cat when going into school, and another one who performed a whole Disney dance when meeting new people. Obviously, ND children can do this too, and those children were older than yours. 2 is still very small. In a typically developing toddler, I wouldn't be concerned about this alone, but it might be another data point as part of a wider pattern if you have other concerns.

The falling over thing, I'd be even less concerned about. It's very typical it this age to like repetitive sequences, and play with cause and effect. I'd just calmly explain to onlookers that it's a game he plays.

Sorry, there's a typo here and I can't edit it. This should say, "Obviously, neurotypical children can do this too..."

Thank you @BusMumsHoliday that's very helpful.

In this case definitely part of the wider picture and a good observation to add to the list we are building to push for an assessment.

As well as the fight or flight responses to stress, there are also 'fool' (as in 'play the fool', 'flop' (play dead/totally passive) and 'fawn' (heavy masking) responses.

I have an autistic DD who tends to the 'fool' response, which I think may be what your DS is doing.