Hi,
This is my first post here - I found the forum whilst looking for advice and hope someone can offer some.
First, a little background - my cousin and I are very close. She has a just 4 year old son and, again, I am very close to him. I am a teacher in a mainstream Infant school with a fair amount of experience of, and an interest in, working with children with ASD. So I have seen my fair share of ASD indicators, traits, and diagnoses, over the years.
To be totally honest, it's been a fair while coming to this. J was a little late to walk and more noticeably late to talk. Although he now talks well, he has somewhat of a speech problem, but there doesn't appear to be a significant language issue. From the age of, I would say, approximately 18mths, he has been fascinated with trains, which by the age of 2 I would categorise as an obsession, originally with Thomas the Tank, but it now incorporates trains of any description. He routinely lines up cars and trains. Whilst he is happy to interact and play with his 5 year old cousin, it doesn't seem to extend to other children - I asked his Nursery if he plays, and interacts with, other children (he has been there since he was a year old) and they said, "he's fine with the other children" and went off on a tangent (I can't really push the Nursery angle as it wouldn't be totally appropriate and it would get back to my cousin). He didn't play with any other children at a party for one of his Nursery classmates I recently took him to. He also dislikes loud noise to the point of upset and, although he will finger paint and make handprints, doesn't like other messy play particularly and likes to make sure his hands/face are clean after eating. I also suspect he may not be particularly temperature sensitive, and also that he isn't particularly sensitive to pain (although this is evidenced to a lesser degree).
He is, though, a thoroughly lovely little boy. He's very affectionate with close family, very loving, such a character, my handsome boy. I love him like he's my own.
Sorry to go on here, can't believe I've typed all this out! Am I just reading too much into it all because I work around these sorts of issues all day?? My concerns are coming to a head now as he's due to start school next September and I think it's paramount we at least get the ball rolling before then.
My biggest problem comes with how to bring this up with my cousin. As I say, we're close, but there's not that closeness you have with sisters where you can say pretty much anything and get over it. I don't know where to start. I've kind of mentioned in passing little things, and I tried messy play at my house when she was here with him (so she saw he won't do it), but I feel the time for hints is slipping away rapidly.
I guess it's just a selfish thing, but I don't want to sever our relationship, and the thought of not seeing J is heartbreaking. But from another selfish point of view, I'm caught between a rock and a hard place - if I bring it up, I will probably turn out to be the bad guy; if I don't, and it's brought up when he starts school, I'm also the bad guy for not noticing it, since I work around it.
Aargh - I just feel completely lost about it all. If you've read this far, thank you so much. And if anybody has any suggestions at all, I will be very greatful.
Thanks for reading.