intense, silly, excessively affectionate - loved to hug and climb onto people's laps
We still have
so much trouble with excessive affection from DS7. He hugs anyone and everyone. Including random men standing in front of us in line at the store, while sneaking one arm up and between their legs. Awkward. In a school context it's great, because even though he has social skill and communication problems, adults LOVE him. What's not to love about the jumping giggling cuddlebug that runs up and gives a tackle hug every day? And he just adores everyone, even if he has no idea how to have a conversation with them.
But outside school it's not so great. And with other ASD kids it can be quite bad.
One last thought to add - re seeing signs of ASD in behaviors, seeing those things change over time, and feeling like things are resolved etc as time goes by. We kinda fell into a trap of not realizing how much *we* were compensating for our ds' quirks at home. Everything seemed normal and he seemed to be functioning really well - but once he was thrown into a situation that he couldn't handle, he imploded with anxiety. It wasn't until after he had his diagnoses and we'd learned a lot about what his challenges were that we realized we were subconsciously already accommodating at home as well as being convinced that his "normal" was the "normal" simply because we were around him and used to him.
How true.
