Is this your child with food allergy? Don't underestimate the impact of that fear on social anxiety in a child at preschool age. Most NT kids with food allergy go through something similar at 7-10 yo, but HG kids with food allergy seem to undergo a really different developmental experience, because they are processing mortal danger from sources that they can't avoid/control at a much younger age-- an age when most contemporaries can't really understand what that kind of risk means.
KWIM?
My DD presented as VERY socially reticent at this age-- with peers, that is, and very much more socially gregarious with adults. She, too, had a lengthy attention span (hours, if she was interested). She had a lot of the superficial markers for an ASD. But it was almost entirely HG + anxiety, and not all of the anxiety was maladaptive or irrational, frankly.
He's the less allergic child but also on a restricted diet. He is the one who most benefited from being put on the gluten / casein free diet. I might just be one of those mothers "imagining" things but I am suspecting that he is even more gifted than we thought at first. I am now leaning towards the HG+/PG category with him. Everything he looks at, you can tell he sees with a very different prospective. When you watch him closely, you can see he's not zoning out but it's more about being so overwhelmed with all the information around him that he tries to channel it in certain directions to be able to relax. He seems to be completely "out" not paying any attention to anything around him and doing his own thing but he's always quietly paying attention and suddenly very quietly answers our question that we may had asked or says something very relevant to whatever we're doing or talking about. It's as if he's always tuned in but is masking it. He's also extremely sensitive to people's voices and moods. I was like that when I was little and I still remember how hard it was to try and turn it off. I would start crying for seemingly no good reason just because somewhere around me there was someone in a sad mood. Another reason for him to hide. Not to mention, I just know a lot of his behavior is part due to trying to ignore his always talking and sometimes obnoxiously loud big brother who's like the energizer bunny that never stops. We tend to underestimate DS3 because of his speech delay (the main reason why Autism was suspected at first) but he's really trying hard to talk to us these days (not in public, just when he's comfortable) but is very hard to understand. And I noticed he keeps putting things in his ears and he loves it when I put my hands over his ears to release the pressure (like when you want to pop your ears) so while his initial ENT check up about a year and half ago didn't show anything wrong, I am taking him back in next week to see if maybe there IS an issue with the pressure in his ears and maybe he needs tubes put in (just like DS4.9 did just before he turned 3). He's this amazing little guy who keeps hiding all his abilities. He's our "closet giftie"
I really hope the ENT next week will have some answers for us.
