Published on 12, July, 2020
I am a single 49 year old father of a two year nine month old boy. He has some very peculiar traits and I'm hoping that maybe someone can help me.
He is:
1. Very intelligent. The smartest child that I have ever come across and he is routinely acknowledged by strangers as being extremely intelligent
2. His vocabulary is enormous. Far beyond children much older than him. He has been talking non stop forever.
3. He is and always has been extremely social and friendly.
What he does:
1. Repeats things over and over and over and over again. Seems pathological.
2. Fixates on one thing. He's been on Cows for months. As I sit here he is repeating "Lets make gravy, lets make gravy".
3. The repeating seems to get worse the more that he is tired.
4. He holds his hands in a stiff way all the time. He bends his wrists in and holds his fingers straight.
5. He doesn't always like to make eye contact .
6. He doesn't like to be touched and doesn't like blankets on him.
7. He doesn't respond to pain in a normal way. He doesn't cry when he gets hurt. He never has.
8. He will hit his head against things on purpose or jump up and land on his knees in anger.
9. He lines up his toys or stacks them.
10. He really never quits talking. If he is awake he is talking and demanding attention. .
Does any of this make sense to anyone? Am I asking the right question in the right place? I really need help here.
Sounds just like me when I was little. He sounds like he's craving data and stimulus - you literally cannot shovel information into him fast enough. I loved the library because of all the books on cars, planes, ships, technology, animals, space (I was 3 years old watching the moon landings in 1969 and remember the whole space-hystreria of the time). I loved my toys cars and could spend ages analysing every car - the shape, the feel, the way the light reflected off the curves, the working features and suspension. I loved factual tv of the time (I guess Discovery is the equivalent now) and could memorise everything I saw. I loved the programs about the world and the Jacques Cousteau underwater stuff. I loved to be shown how things work.
Him repeating is often to fill the gap of no stimulus - more input and data would be something to use to fill those gaps. You have a great opportunity to expand his mind with as much variety of information and experiences like making models or going to museums, zoos, building camps in the woods - you might find he's an incredibly advanced child.
Wow, thank you! This is the very first time I have spoken to anyone about this. You are right, he is constantly craving data and stimulus. "What's this?" is repeated all day long. I absolutly agree and as many strangers point out whenever he is in public that he is incredibly advanced. At this age he is 100 percent verbal. There is nothing that he can not say. He caries on full, multi sentence conversations. Any thoughts about the fact that he is very social and very friendly? He speaks to everyone in public. When he was about 6 months old, an older man that just met him said "He's the happiest, friendliest baby he had ever seen".
He may outstrip your ability to satisfy his data cravings - which will be incredibly frustrating for him. From my experience, the more diversity of input you can think of, the better. Do any of your friends do anything interesting or have strange hobbies? You'll find that there's no such thing as 'too old for him' - it's all valuable data. There's a period where you need to supply all this stimulus before he starts to self-feed. Things like the Hornby catalogue were fascinating for me - I used to design complicated model train layouts when I was 5. I always had paper and pens with me. I loved to take things apart - getting broken technology and seeing what was inside kept me entertained for hours. I still have tons of Technical Lego.
I was diagnosed as Asperger's at 42 years old. I'm a Chartered Engineer and I've done some really strange jobs - I know everything about everything technical - really handy for pub .quizzes!
Sorry about the way things have worked out.
We tend to be not very good at dealing with change and a huge step like that can be very upsetting. He will need as much routine and stability as you can offer along with calmness and logic within the household. "Because I say so" is really bad - we're good at accepting anything if it seems logical and fair.
People who clearly treat us badly are very easy to walk away from - it removes stress and anxiety - but we miss people we are 'used to' - it's an uncontrolled change that needs processing. Does he get to see them?