A word on Sebastian

Sebastian was always an interesting child. From about 6 months I would say to people "he's a funny baby" but they always dismissed my concerns. It took him a long time to start talking. He could say 6 words and then he progressed no further. He had repetitive movements. He would spin and intentionally bang his head and the most obvious sign that things weren't right was his play. He would empty the pieces of a toy out of its container onto the floor and then immediately put them all back in. He would then tip them out again. He did this over and over and over. He also stacked anything he could. He would stack the same 3 clear plastic cups repetitively for an hour or more. Taylen had just been diagnosed with Aspergers so I knew where this was going but the frightening difference was that Seb wasn't gaining words. We weren't looking at Aspergers, we were dealing with Autism. He was diagnosed very quickly and we began intervention immediately. I don't know if it was the hours of therapy, the supplements, the dietary changes or just absolute pure luck but he suddenly progressed RAPIDLY. Sebastian is 2 and a half and no longer qualifies for an Autism diagnosis due to his incredibly ADVANCED speech. It started with a lot of echoing but it quickly became spontaneous language (he does still echo occasionally though). The speech therapist is sure he will still qualify for Aspergers which seems like an almighty gift compared to where we all thought he was heading.
We have discovered that he is incredibly smart. During ABA we repeatedly heard the words "we've never had a 2 year old do this before". He learnt his colours and shapes in the blink of an eye including trickier shapes like pentagon and crescent. He could build towers with blocks from memory, even taking over the therapists role and building a tower and then pointing at it saying "build this". He has learnt to play a lot more functionally- though I often see that he is working from a script in his mind. The train will always crash in the same place. The cow will always get on the track and the trains are never to detach from each other. Still, it's a lot better than the cup stacking.
Sebastian is still very bossy. he has to control his environment all the time. His cup must be a certain colour and he has to choose the animal on his t-shirt. Those are just 2 of the many, many decisions he MUST make for himself every day. I suspect that one day he will be very good at his job as he is such an independent, intelligent perfectionist. Whether he will gain the social skills to have any friends or a partner is yet to be seen. He has a certain charm. He's disgustingly cute and makes friends everywhere he goes. He seems to have a lot of charisma. People are more willing to forgive you for being bossy at 2 though.
This year we will be working on his social skills. He is going to the playgroup where he will eventually attend kindy. He is about to join a kinder gym also and I'm occasionally putting him in the crèche at 'My time'. Of course,we are doing things at home as well. We are trying to get him to share with his siblings, take turns and lose sometimes. I'm about to start trying to play some simple board games with him, so we'll see how that goes.
He is just beautiful. He's a quirky little boy and I think he has a hard road ahead. I kind of feel like I'm his employee... but it's a pleasure working for him.