Toddlers - Rocking and Obsessive about books?

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My son is 17 months old and he loves getting up on the couch and rocking back and forth hitting his head on the back of the couch (it's soft). It's not a tantrum though. He actually really enjoys it. He also loves getting down on his hands and knees and rocking. He has also started doing odd things with his hands recently. Is this sort of rocking fairly normal or could it be a sign of Aspergers?

He also has started getting really obsessed with books. If I read him a book and then put it back, he gets really upset and throws a tantrum. He just wants me to keep reading it over and over again or give it to him to inspect. I used to have all of his books on a couch just outside the baby gate and when I would open it, he would go straight to the books and start grabbing them all. Even if I read him one of them, he still wanted to go back and get more. If I give him one of the hard pages ones he just sits on the floor and turns the pages and occasionally tries to eat them. They seem to be his favourite thing. Sometimes I would take him away from the books and pick him up and put him in his high chair and he would get cranky and refuse to eat. I ended up having to remove all of the books from the chair and only get them out when I want to read them to him. He just wouldn't leave them.
I was wondering if this is normal or more obsessive than a normal kid of that age?

My husband and I both have Aspergers, so I think there's a higher chance for him to have it... It's just hard to say if I'm being too worried about looking for signs and jumping to conclusions. We did the tilt test and he did what an Aspergers kid would do, but as far as reaching all his milestones he seems entirely normal. He also seems to have ok eye contact and plays with other children at childcare.

I thought I'd ask anyway to see what signs other parents might have noticed in their children around this age?

Neither of those behaviors seem terribly out of place to me. I agree, with the genetic background it's something to watch out for - but I personally wouldn't be too concerned if your son's developing well; it's more of a big-picture thing than one or two specifics.

Your own memories and those of your families are your best friends: we are now discovering clues in our own past that are really helping us to help our son. Ask your parents when they started to notice you were "different" (assuming they know your diagnosis - but ask even if none of you knew until you were adults; you might be surprised what things you'll find out that will help prepare you for your own child.)

both of those things sound like symptoms to me, especially the rocking thing. my stepson has always done the rocking thing and still does it. i don't know when it started, he was 2 when we found out about him but the foster family he was with said he's always done it and they had him from birth. he is diagnosed pdd-nos. the book thing could be normal but most nt babies are pretty easy do distract with a snack or a favorite toy and would likely give up on the book without much fight even if they wanted it. sounds like it may be his special interest. my daughter has always been obsessed with books. she is 11 now and still obsesses over books. reads and re-reads series that are way past where she should be. the book obsession was the first symptom of her AS although i did not know it at the time. it's a good thing at least. i was a stay at home mom so i indulged her for the most part. she'd bring me stacks of books and i'd read them all. she was just fascinated. you never know how much your little guy is getting from the books until he's old enough and confident enough to show you. try pointing at the words with your finger as you read along. i know he is young but is likely trying to figure out how to read and this will help him. my daughter could read before i even knew it. she was in jk@3yo and the teacher phoned me and asked me if i knew she could read. apparently she got up in front of the class and read them a book. the teacher gave her another one, she read that too. then a harder one, she read it no problem. it was great to know that all those seemingly endless hours of reading to her paid off. yeah, at the time it was not the most fun but it was well worth it.
either way i would not be too concerned. chances are high that your son will have some kind of diagnosis on the spectrum if yourself and the father both do. these things run in families. a diagnosis doesn't necessarily have to be a problem especially if the parents are understanding, as i'm sure you will be.

Interestingly, my mother was the one who thought the book thing was a little odd and she said it reminded her of me.
It's hard to piece together the little things that my mother has told me. She hasn't really said too much. She said I was a quiet child and she would find me in my room by myself playing with the My Little Ponies, making up voices and complex story lines for them. She also said I used to bang my head on things and sometimes just wouldn't stop and she would have to get in between me and them to stop me from hurting myself. She often didn't know what caused my sudden mood swings. I also loved books and would find a place to sit (even under the dining room table) and just read all day without much concern for stopping to eat.

My father told me that when I was about 2 they were doing work on the house and when each repair man would come I would ask them their name and what they were doing. Then I would follow them around and want to know exactly what they were doing. When they came back next time I would remember exactly who they were and what they were there to do. Normally they said I was very shy though...

That's all I have from them really and those aren't really terribly autistic things. I was diagnosed just a few years ago though. My parents didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with me, although my mother says now that she does agree with the diagnosis. It was my younger sister who they tried to get diagnosed with autism. She had really obvious signs - lining things up, not responding, speech delay, talking obsessively about ants, liking things in her room to be exactly the same all the time etc. She didn't get a diagnosis though. Back then I don't think it was as common to give a diagnosis if you thought the child would be ok.

The things you mention could be normal and they could be signs of AS. 17 mos is a little young for a diagnosis, but since both you and your husband are on the spectrum, I think there could be a good chance that your son will be too. But the fact that he plays with kids at daycare is a good sign........We realized at 2 yrs old that my son was memorizing all of the books we were reading him. He too has an astonishing memory for people's faces. He knows what car just about every teacher at his school drives! He is 5.5 now.

Weird, I thought I posted a response, but I guess I didn't.

I think this is more significant than either behavior in itself.



I am not diagnosed, but this sounds just like me when I was a little girl (I also went under the dining room table) What I can understand now about the imaginary people and the voices for the stuffed animals - more often than not I was creating scripts and practicing them. These all sound like one kind of AS behavior (we tend to get sidetracked by obvious signs of lining things up, repetitive behaviors - but social and physical withdrawal are also significant.)

I think many parents who suspect autism are scared that they're going to miss a "window," or somehow or other mis-parent their child - and I don't generally see that as being the case for parents who are aware of the issues and are asking questions. I think you have your eyes and ears open and are aware, and that's what's most important. However, I would bring up both the genetics and the behaviors that concern you to your pediatrician - and note that you seem to have had the same issue with books as a child, yourself.

My son is 17 months old and he loves getting up on the couch and rocking back and forth hitting his head on the back of the couch (it's soft). It's not a tantrum though. He actually really enjoys it. He also loves getting down on his hands and knees and rocking.

My daugter (4) did this at this age and still does every day. Other things I noticed at this around 18 months was an obsessive interest in crayons, lining them up and carrying them. She carryied an orange crayon with her for about a year, ate with it, slept with it, would have a tantrum if it broke or if the paper started unraveling.

Another thing I noticed was a really difficult time transitioning from one activity to the next.

She was meeting most of her milestones, but some of her language development was abnormal. She would have alot of nouns, echolia and stock phrases, but wasn't able to say hi or bye, respond to her name, call her dad and me by our names, communicate that she was hungry or thirsty etc. And no pointing. In retrospect that was probably one of the biggest clues that something was different.

She got her dx of autistic disorder in March/10 and we started SCERTS therapy and a developmental pre-school in September and she's coming along really well. I always felt really bad that I didn't persue a diagnosis earlier, but my GP told me they likely wouldn't have been able to diagnos her any sooner than 3.