Is the school jumping into conclusion because of DS1's label?

[tiredmummyoftwo]

I have DS1 who was diagnosed as having childhood autism and we have informed the school about it (we are outside UK and here no special need provision at any mainstream school and special need schools are for locals only). We have been providing extra helper for DS1 as well as a SALT visiting him there private, we pay). We know the school is not equipped to help, so we are doing everything ourself to settle him at school, and this is working out well. The problem is DS2. She is as far as we can tell is NT. She is 2.1, she follows instructions well, no problem with eye contact, sings nursery rhymes, copies all the actions on all the songs, is just putting two words together, has a lot of words, points, very affectionate, understands body language and gestures, just started to ask questions like what's that, how are you? But what she does not do is use the words to communicate about normal things like asking for food, although if she is hungry and she finds her bottle she will give it to us and say milk, thank you. She will bring her paint tray and say painting please. She understands very well, if I say painting later, she will come back later, she is beginning to draw face, circle and straight lines.
She knows her alphabets, phoenics sounds, numbers 1-20, reads about 5 words, says hello when sees dady or me, says bye to everybody or everything, does not have huge tantrums, no problem with sleep, she has always been the one left with other people when we go out as DS1 has severe separation anxiety. She has reached all her milestones, and seems very social to us whenever we take her out, but she prefers to play with older children.

The headmistress today told me if we want her to be checked out as apparently she does not listen to them at all, she wants to do her own things, always on her feet, does not show interest in any of the kids. I am shocked as we have always kept an eye on her to see if she is showing any symptoms. DS1's therapist could only point out two things, she toe walks sometimes and her eye contact is not that great. I am not sure what to make of it as she is one of the easiest child I have seen in my family and she is not developmentally behind.

Please your advice as to what I should do would be greatly appreciated. She recently had a change of teacher, since then all these problems started, prior to that the previous teacher told me she was her best student. Should I pay for the paediatrician here to do an assessment on her even though DH and I have no concern about her? She went to nursery in the UK and they had no concern about her at all, and her going home book was full of praises.

My short and un-informed answer to your question would be, yes, it does sound like it, doesn't it? If you're really worried, go for the paed, but I am amazed that you can't get public services. It does seem rather unfair

All the mainstream schools are private schools here, public schools are for natinals only. It is costing us fortune to provide all these extra help for DS1, I was not worried at all until the teacher mentioned this.

"apparently she does not listen to them at all, she wants to do her own things, always on her feet, does not show interest in any of the kids."

I would say that this was fairly typical for a 2yr-old tbh. IIRC they're not expected to be all that interested in other children until around the age of 3. I think the school also has unrealistic expectations if they expect a young 2yr-old to want to sit still and do what they are told all the time.

Is it possible that because she can do a lot of the more academic stuff that they fall into the trap of expecting her to act like an older child?

If you have no concerns I'd save your money tbh.

I agree with copertop, i would say this is normal for a 2 year old, not many 2 year olds interact with other children.

My son was doing everything normally until age 2, was favourite at nursery, advanced with letters, numbers, songs etc then nursery started muttering about not listening etc and then a few months later (26-27 months) he started a huge regression of social and communication skills and is now about to get ASD diagnosis. I am not saying your daughter is the same just that I dismissed nursery comments - tbh I think they just had a feeling his behaviour was out of character and only looking back do we see it was the start of a regression, there wasn't enough to go on at the time. He regressed more at nursery than at home eg he remained affectionate at home but not with nursery staff. He remains a very happy boy, sleeps well etc but clearly got spectrum like symptoms re his social skills and language and recently started repetitive reciting. In our case the signs showed up at nursery before at home. The school should know what a normal range of 2 year olds is like and if they are worried I would not necessarily dismiss it but maybe just keep a watchful eye and go in and observe and get the SALT to observe at school. We notice ours sons symptoms are worse when he is anxious so this could be the case for you. But yes the school could just be overreacting.

Thank you everyone for your replies. I had the SALT observing her at school, she did not see any reason to raise a red flag for the time being. She said the school puts a lot of preference on sitting around the table and listening to the teacher talking and being quiet in general. Not every two years old is going to find it that easy just to sit around and doing not much. Although she did say that she did not show much interest in any of the children there, but she was very interested in older children when they were at the gym. this may be due to having a older brother at home. Apart from this she was able to follow group instructions, joined in at music class, did paintings etc. I now have a feeling that she may be bored at the school as she always wants to learn and they are only teching number 4. She can spend all day with me or anybodyelse if they are interacting with her doing reading, writing, painting etc.