Talking Babies & Trusting Toddlers — 3 Things I Noticed About Typical Kids

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• Thank you for posting. I thought we were the only ones dealing with Autism and "brain glitches" (epilepsy). Yay for the buy one get one free diagnoses! I also have an almost 3 year old non verbal child but due to apraxia. I had the same experience picking him up from church nursery the other week. All the kids are the same age saying Hi Mommy I missed you mommy I and I just get a smile. I always forget how serious his disability is until we are around nuro typical kids.

• Having friends with NT kids complain because they "won't shut up" drives me crazy. I reminded this friend that it is a blessing for their daughter to talk as much as she does and that I pray every day that I get to hear my son talk (He was 4 years old). He is almost six and am fortunate that he talks and talks and talks. I relesh the give and take he has with us and his younger brothers. I will never take my little ones' voice for granted. <3

• That seems a little young to let a child walk through the locker room back out to the pool on his own...but like you, I don't really have experience with kids like that. When we moved, our neighbors let their 2 year old daughter come over to play in our backyard unsupervised almost every day. Sometimes she would slip into our house on her own. Totally freaked me out - I never allow my boys to wander unsupervised, and they're much older! But that was the neighbor family's "normal."

• My kids are 14 months apart. My oldest is autistic. Since they are so close in age, my youngest eventually started beating my son to milestones and is now much more developmentally advanced than he is. I would go to her doctors appointments thinking she was the most advanced girl of her age to walk the planet. Talk about a burst bubble when I realized she was normal lol (we didn't know our son was autistic yet). As far as trusting them goes, I do trust my daughter much more but it would all depend on the kid. Some 3 year olds can handle that kind of direction, others not so much.
  HM

• I have a 6 year old ASD son and a 2 year old NT daughter so I can see and hear the differences between the two. Sometimes, I'm like..."She is so darn advanced" but is that because I am making comparisons? She asks me questions (full sentences) and expects and is interested in the answers!! She's telling her older brother "good boy", if he eats something new (almost like she GETS it). Pretend play.....WHO KNEW? The things happening in her head totally catch me off guard. And I wonder, is this what all NT kids are like? I think having an ASD kiddo first has changed my perspective by leaps and bounds, so I really appreciate all these little things.... not sure if I would had the roles been reversed.

• 2 or 3 years old, unsupervised near a pool??? No that is completely irresponsible. I too am the parent of an only child with autism but have cared for many NT children and again I say NO, leaving a 2 year old... shoot allowing any young child to be left unattended by a pool is asking for disaster. I would imagine this father probably assumed the people by the pool would look out for his child, but his child is not their responsibility.

• I have 2 sons one is high functioning (aspergers) but the other one is a typical normal child. I would not send any 2 year old away from me with no eyes on them, children are easily distracted, My 8 year old can now visit a public restroom by himself but I am right at the door waiting, and after a few minutes I yell in whats going on come on bc they like to play with all those things we don't have at home hand blowers self flushing toilets auto sinks, again easily distracted. My high functioning son still needs lots of help but when he was a baby we thought he was deaf and had him tested numerous times. turns out he was talking to himself at night in his crib, he was speaking in complete sentences at 10 months old, but he would not speak often, my normal child followed normal progression except with speech he spoke early as well but i always talked to them and read to them, I talk a lot normally anyway, every child is different we have different challenges with each one. I love your blog and I love both my children but they are as different from each other as grass is to the sky.

• I have two kids with autism. One high functioning the other low functioning more like your son. One thing that really stuck out in my mind was observing a 2-3 year old child walking on a sidewalk next to a busy highway in small town, St. Elmo, adjacent to Chattanooga, TN. I was on a patio with my wife sans children and I was amazed that neither parent seemed that concerned nor were they holding their child's hand. My youngest is six and I would not ever let him walk next to a busy road like that without a death grip on him.

  I guess the other thing that gets me is watching kids less than one and a half years old actively wanting to and trying to potty train themselves. My oldest finally potty trained at four and my youngest... well we haven't found out what motivates him to try.

  I will say one thing on a positive note. We have been taking both my kids to restaurants since they were infants. As a result and probably due to some luck they know how to pretty much sit in a seat and behave. They also realize they are going to get something special they wouldn't normally get like a coke or pizza or French fries and usually are just as good and often more well behaved than children their own age.

• We have 5 children, our twins are the youngest 5yrs and one of the twins the oldest she has ASD, the rest of our kids are typical I guess you could say. Lol. I as an asd parent and "typical" parent, definitely never even before the twins took these things for granted. I for one still until this day will not let my 9 and 10 year old out of my sight (crazy world out there)! For me having 3 kids prior to o our ASD daughter I thought talking before one was normal well at least according to a pediatrician, so my older three children all did. Along can the twins one is your "typical" child and the other is ASD. Our little asd did not speak a word until almost 3 years old. I accepted it and thought oh this is normal for her, although she was smart, smarter then all the other children we had. At 7mths she would grunt and clap. Grunt was for No and clap was for yes. She was clapping or grunting when we would ask her questions, it was always right too. Alphabet, numbers, shapes etc. My typical kids never did this before or by 1 years old. March of 2011 she came up to the baby gate as I was in the kitchen coming dinner, clear as fault said, "Hi mommy." I had to take s double take and saw it was not her twin. Jumped the baby gate ran down the hall into my room and jumped on my bed up and down (husband was on bed) crying, she talked she talked. I could not stop jumping. She walked into our room said, " Hi daddy!" We were never so happy in our lives. She hasn't stopped talking since. I enjoy every minute of our little repetitive ASD LOVE BUG talking.

• I have one ASD son who is 5 and my NT daughter who is 3 and a half. Since they are 17 months apart my daughter has passed up my son in a few areas. I gotta say that it never really bothered me. I just see them as both being on their own time table to do things.
  As far as the pool....a typical 2.5 year old could probably handle those directions. However, I don't trust the situation. The kid could fall into the pool, or someone could snatch him. The part of the direction that would trip my son up is the word "if". If mom isn't there....then.... Not happening here!