Obsessive behaviours.

My 2.5 year old has exhibited obsessive behaviours for quite some time and I'm wondering how "normal" it actually is.

He won't have socks on without shoes and if he can't get his socks off by himself he'll have a meltdown, if you kiss one hand you HAVE to kiss the other hand too. If you pretend to eat one foot you have to eat the other foot too. He keeps putting money into his money box then tipping it out and doing it over again, he's been doing this for 3 hours straight. If I try and defer him to something else he loses it screaming and kicking.

My 3.5 year old is being assessed for autism and what I'm seeing in my 2.5 year old is all too familiar, although my 2.5 year old has great speech and clarity in it he will say things that don't really make sense, even with constant correction of his mistakes he persists on with how he usually says it.

Instead of saying "yes" he will say "it is" instead of saying "I am" he will say "it is"

Is this behaviour generally exhibited in typically developing children?

My son does the taking things out ... putting them back in behviours to. I've been worried for awhile. He also has MASSIVE meltdowns on a near hourly basis. I have no idea how to handle it.

If he's on track with his speech and everything but you've got another autistic child I would look into Asperger's. He might just be going through a phase, though. My daughter is like that sometimes (though I am almost certain I have asperger's, I've just never been anywhere to be diagnosed and it's harder to diagnose girls/women - so she might too.) and she is almost 3. She likes to count things over and over and over.