Special needs is a legal term in our state, defining what benefits a child and that child's family qualify for. It may differ state to state but when we adopted, it was a child of a racial minority, member of a sibling group who needs to be placed together, older or over the age of three, a diagnosed medical disability, a mental disability, coming from an at risk environment, and I don't know if there are others and what they are.
It may also be a category defining needs from the school system. As far as your son's reaction to other-than-Mom, have you considered stranger anxiety? I have been reading about infants and it sets in from six months to after a year old. My experience with attachment issues is usually the child who does not differientiate between relative strangers and Mom. Your son sounds very discriminate. But of course this is just my humble opinion.
