Non verbal autistic son identifies song!?

[Choclife]

Hi, just wanted some insight to whether anyone else has experienced this and what it may mean as I'm mind blown at the moment!

My non verbal autistic son is 11 years old. Although non verbal he can understand instructions that are told to him ( for example if we ask him to put his shoes on he will etc).

Recently he has been obsessed with listening to music. He goes onto the iPad unprompted , opens the music app, scrolls through a list of songs and chooses the SAME song every time!!!

Does this mean he can read!? Is he much more aware than we think!?

Bare in mind he hasn't been shown to select this song ever, he's done it completely on his own and always selects it independently when he feels like listening to music.

Please share any thoughts you may have!!!

Mine does this too. He's paritially verbal, ASD (5). In ds's case I don't think he can read but is very good at recognising patterns and has an amazing visual memory. So I think maybe he just remembers where things are. He also gets to areas of the iPad I've never seen before!

Having said that I know people who's kids have taught themselves to read.

So what is the song?? Re reading it's hard to know isn't. DS 10 and autistic can't really read or write but I notice he vets what I google for him (doesn't trust me to put in the right thing!).

It's certainly not impossible for him to read
How brilliant!

Thank you for the replies!!

@zzzzz that's such a great idea!

Even if he can't read as in synthesise words from the letters he sees, he certainly knows the shape of the song title! It's really good news because it's a potential new avenue of communication for him.

No useful words about the potential, but excellent that he's finding his song

A lot of non-verbal autistic people can read, write, know exactly what's going on etc. Verbal ability is not synonymous with intelligence (not suggesting you think that).

It is entirely plausible that he can read, and that he understands an awful lot more than people may give him credit for (outside the household mainly.) I would think that he can read, or at least recognise, the song title and there could be more in that vein too. Is there a way you can explore this with him? Does he have an alternative form of communication? Makaton, BSL, PECS, AAC etc?

(Note I'm diagnosed autistic, have autistic children and work with autistics of all abilities so I'm hopefully not just talking out of my ass.)