I read a saying on an ASD board once, 'if you've met one child with autism, you've met one child with autism' - as opposed to having met one, met them all.

I thought it was good in summing up that our kids are all different. Alex doesn't throw tantrums, but he needs to be to 'preped' about new things coming up. We talk about it beforehand and he always takes a book or a train along.

He is 3 this month and we have a paed. appointment at the end of the month. He has a lot of little characteristics that don't sit right. He goes to a regular creche one day a week and loves it there. He sings and dances there and comes home with new rhymes. But he does not like the radio on at home or in the car. He doesn't like loud birds, the vacuum, hair dryer, washing machine.

He has an OK vocab for his age, but he repeats almost everything you say to him, like he's taking it in and thinking about it, you can almost here him ticking over searching for a response and sometimes the repeat is all he has.

About kids with ASD clicking with each other - we went on a bushwalk with my daughters' joey (young cub scouts) group and there was an 8 yo boy with sensory issues on the walk. At the end, the joeys and siblings played on the playground at the start of the walk - this boy, Declan was pushing my Alex on the swing for 20 minutes when he came over to me and said 'i want your phone number - i want that boy to play at my house' and he was talking about alex who was three months off turning three. Out of the 30 or so kids, these two hit it off.