More Signs... Age 2 to 3

When T1 was seen by his Child Psychiatrist recently for diagnosis, I had typed a chronology of all the things I had noticed in his general development to aid my memory at the appointment.  Here are some points from age 2 to 3:

• T1 attended 2's Playgroup, he settled well but the staff noticed that he became upset easily when other children were upset and sometimes distressed ?as if he didn't know how to handle the situation
• Playgroup staff noted that T1 found it difficult to identify emotions
• Both at playgroup and at home we noticed that T1 would have the normal 'terrible 2's' tantrums but that he would also appear to be really distressed at times
• T1 struggled with change to his normal routine e.g. he became distressed at playgroup when they were doing a fire drill instead of their usual routine
• he became much fussier with food and developed quite a restricted diet
• he was sent home from 2's group once as he became too distressed to contain
• by 30 months he could speak in clear 5 word sentences, could count 1-10 and knew most of his colours and the alphabet
• He had his first haircut and became very distressed by the hairdresser touching his head
• seemed to struggle more than the other children to learn to share
• he woke frequently in the night and was an early riser (5.30-6am)
• we noticed that he had poor motor and coordination skills e.g. took a long while to be able to jump with both feet and he seemed to give up more easily when trying physical tasks
• very interested in reading
• T1 was potty trained day and night by 35 months
• he was less able to engage in imaginative play with his peers

There was a little parents night at the 2's playgroup and I went along to hear what they thought about how T1 was getting on.  I kept my concerns about his development to myself initially to see if the Playgroup Manager shared any of them.  She did share quite a few of them and I shared my concerns.  Following that, I arranged to see my Health Visitor who visited us at home.  DP and I shared our concerns and she spent some time with T1 on his own.  I felt like I was some kind of hypochondriac mother and was in a difficult position in that I felt that I knew more about Autsim Spectrum Disorder (ASD) screeening than she did.  She left us that day saying that she would refer T1 to our local Child Development Team.   To my knowledge, she never did (or there is no record of this anyway).

A big milestone for T1 during this year was that he became a big brother to T2 :-)