Staci, sorry I didn't watch this thread, the notifications weren't working properly at the time. You asked about mannerisms in my son that had me worried. hell, it's still a little worrying.
He sleeps horribly, in phases, a month will go by where he'll wake up 3+ times every night screaming, no reason we can pin it on, the phase will pass and we'll have a couple of weeks with good sleep and suddenly he'll start the bad phase again, seems possible it can be triggered by a change in routine, ie. someone came to visit, stuff like that.
He's improved on this now, hasn't happened in a long time, he's been terrified of light reflections, shadows, patterns. Last summer we went through a period where he was terrified of the textured wallpaper in his bedroom, he wouldn't walk on a rug that was in the kitchen of the holiday house we were at in Wales, he screamed if he saw a reflection of the lights in the windows, etc.
A year ago he was lacking in imaginative play, preferred to line things such as cars up in rows as opposed to pushing them about. He still lines things up occaisionally, but tons more imaginative play. He used to freak out if you moved them. I remember lines of toys across rooms. He had a thing about stacking sofa cushions too, he wouldn't leave them alone, had to stack them. My hubby being a tidy nut, this caused some problems, lol.
We always had trouble getting him to eat, still do.
He also had a noise sensitivity, screamed when I vacuumed, still does at times, covers his ears and screams. Last summer again, I noticed that he'd cover his ears when we went into the town centre, just for the normal traffic noises. Once his uncle took him to the park, and he covered his ears at the sound of a train that was a half mile away.
These were things I had just found odd, until I had read a forum at ivillage.com for parents of Autistic children and found they could be more than just odd.
He wasn't much for eye contact, most of the time he seems to ignore you still, I'm forever repeating myself. Speaking of, he repeats words over and over until you tell him to stop, that's another thing. When he wasn't talking, he could hum about 40 different tunes.
One thing our speech therapist suggest we get, was one of those plastic microphones that amplifies the voice when you talk into it, it's not electronic at all, maybe you know what I mean, if not, let me know and I'll show an example somewhere. I couldn't find one so got a am/fm cassette player with sing along microphone instead, seemed to help some gave them some fun encouragement. The therapist used it with the kids.
After this past year, I personally feel that he may be in the autistic spectrum, but very mildly. He is compulsive-obsessive, and I think that sort of behavior might someday be attributed to the spectrum instead of it being something different. My husband is obsessive-compulsive, but not to the extent that it keeps him from functioning as it does with some people, those who don't leave their homes because they're worried about germs and such. I don't say anything, but as we watch certain programs, that discuss such things, he'll say to me after that he does some of this or that, and I'll just smile, say "I know", and give him a kiss.
He is extremely intelligent, a geek, good writer (he wants to write someday when he has the time), and I think it goes along with that. As for my son, despite his odd mannerisms, I'm waiting to see what talents/gifts he'll develop over his life, he loves music, and he's good at drawing, so we shall see.
Glad to hear things are going well. I've been sending good thoughts all along.
