Gavin DOES pay attention to other kids!

We went to the school's reading night last Friday evening in the school library. We saw a girl from one of Gavins classes (he's in 2 classes, each one has about 6 kids in it.) She immediately recognized Gavin and came right over, kept telling her mom "there's Gavin", etc, and wanting to play with him. They've never played together in class, but that's ok. He didn't even seem to know she was there (he didn't care about the stories they were reading either, surprising to me since he loves reading at home.) So I just figured maybe he really did just play with toys at this time, and not WITH the other kids.
Today, we went to the other class. They went outside to play on the playground since it was nice weather. We got to the door (to go outside) before the other kids, so waited for everyone there. This other little boy, Henry, took off running down the hall (his mom followed right away.) Gavin started to run after them, and I told him no. He looked at me and said "Henry is running."
I thought that was great! First because speech therapists have been telling me he doesn't know his verbs (even though he does when I talk to him. He doesn't necessarily know them in pictures, but does in real life.) Second, it shows he does pay attention to the other kids- not only did he notice the kid running, but he remembered the other boy's name. I've only told Gavin the boy's name once I think ( a few weeks ago), but they do sing the "looking through the window, who do I see, I see Gavin (or other name) looking at me" song every time they have class.

I was just so happy to see that he really does pay attention to other kids. They supposedly don't start playing WITH other kids so much until they reach about 3 years old, so that's not a problem at this time, but it's hard to tell how much he is really noticing what the other kids are doing for play, etc. Although, I have noticed he has been doing considerably better about sitting at the table with the other kids during snack-time in their classes. he still doesn't eat that much, but he can see that the other kids do eat their snacks, and I see him taking it all in, looking around at everyone watching them while he's eating his snacks. What a great decision to put him in 2 classes this fall! He's getting so much interaction and socialization out of them! (I'm sure his feeding therapy with the other little boy is helping too.)