Why does he love lists of words? | Autism PDD
He may possibly he hyperlexic (reading at an early age) you may want to check into it. Also some kids stim on the credits after a movie. My son is 9 3/4 has never studied for a spelling test and gets nearly a 100% EVERY TIME since 1st grade. He also has a photographic memory........... many kids on the spectrum do.
Hi,
Does anyone have a child who loves the look of words. My son may not be very interested in the Disney movie but when the end of movie starts the list of actors and so on he stands in front of the TV admiring each word and will not move until it is completely over. My son loves the computer and when he walks by he will put his finger on the monitor and say what's that like AOL Calendar. I am used to it and tell him each word that he is curious about. When he was 2, it was bedtime and I was helping him put away toys. He motioned to me and said no when I went to move the alphabet blocks. When I realized for some reason it was real important not to move them I left them on his dresser. When he finally fell asleep, I came back to cover him and looked at the blocks again. To my surprise the blocks spelled McDonalds. I showed my husband and he said it probably was a quirk so the next day in front of my son I mixed up the blocks and he put them quickly back in order. Does anyone else have a child who loves words?
Delores
How funny! My son has a memory for words like I cannot believe...he just finished second grade, the only thing he's doing well is spelling...even getting ready for a spelling test, he'll just go through the whole list in correct order and spell each one without me even asking for the words....it's the same with numbers (although he has a heck of a time adding/sub., concepts, etc) a couple years ago I noticed this...he walked by the TV, saw something on there that listed about 15 different numbers, and he kept repeating them the whole night...in the exact order...photographic memory like I can't believe...I just wish I could apply it to other things! Beginning of this year he memorized a book...didn't know what the story was about, but remembered every word. I always figured since he didn't speak a work till 2 1/2, he was making up for it!
And if that's not ENOUGH MOMMY PRIDE he just got THE READING READINESS AWARD AT HIS PRESCHOOL.
Nelle another one here fascinated by letters, books, computers and numbers. My ds had the letters down pat at 18 months and numbers soon followed. He also would spell out words in places like the grocery store, signs on the road and make us tell him what they were. He self taught himself to whole word read 3-4 letter words by age 3. Basically anything he could spell he could read and it wasn't until slightly after age 4 he has been able to start sounding words out (and he has extreme difficulty doing this). Reading has been a true blessing for him because his preschool has been able to use his reading skills in helping with his social skills, self control and behavior. The teachers are able to quickly write up something for him in regards to the situation (something like When another child takes my toy it makes me sad. Instead of yelling I should tell the child I am sad and ask nicely for the toy back. If that does not work I should ask a teacher for help instead of yelling) for him to read and then they keep the stories around so if the situation happens again, he can reference the stories again and again. We also provide him with social stories at home which have made teaching him safety issues, manners and such a bit easier. It was originally beleived by the first school district we were in that he was purely doing these things from rote memorization and that he did not comprehend what he was doing. SO they did not use this strength to their advantnage (or to his). Luckily the district we are in know realized very quickly he understood exactly what he was doing and was reading for comprehension and took advantage of it. Shakes I bet we could take a vote who rules
Lesley,... try being a Steelers fan in Clowns town! I live just about 35 miles east of Cleveland! UGH! I have nothing BUT Steelers gear gets kinda scarey when i have to go downtown to the clinic for Neuro visits! In regards to your son and him getting worse.... have there been any changes that may have upset him... even little things... rearranging furniture different routine??? Regression is really tough........ hang in there! Boy we are brave aren't we?!?! Cleveland is as bad as Chicago when it comes to football!! Not many changes, I learned that early on, he's been dx with Sensory Integration Dysf. for so long and it's pretty severe....We've suspected Autism for a couple years now, but just got a dx over a week ago...I'm not dealing well. The only thing I can think of is that his "cycles" (he has CVS) have been getting worse and worse but I can't even contribute that to the problem, he's been suffering from that for 6+ years now. As a matter of fact, he started cycling this afternoon, now he's been throwing up since 7 (sorry it's not a pretty conversation) so it's off to the ER once again. He was there every month Aug-Dec...had a great Jan-Feb, and a fairly light Mar-May...in the six years of dealing with this - he's never had in June-July - so I'm kind of a wreck right now. Anybody else have stomach problems???? ~Lesley Hi Delores
My Son is 9 & a half y/o & has ALWAYS LOVED watching the credits on ALL the movies or TV shows that he watches!! Now as far as does it mean that he's an early reader... no not MY Son anyway, he often doesn't understand what he reads unless he reads it again & again or if it's explained to him a couple of times. BUT he IS very good at spelling! LINDA...aka MWN64...aka Tony'sMom
Yes, Riley's definitely visual...so I'm trying all I can to integrate that into any other lessons until the school gives him services he needs...thank god for the BEST SPEECH THERAPIST EVER who recognizes his strengths to build on the weaknesses! Thanks, My son also stands in front of the tv to watch the credits after movies. He loves watching movies that are computer animated only (shrek, monsters inc, ants, etc) but he loves the credits for anything. So I understand that. He is 2 and doesn't say almost anything so maybe he'll make up for it too huh? That's amazing about the blocks! I'm sorry about your worries with child's iq. That block thing though makes me think that, regardless of the iq tests, he has a major talent there. Maybe if he does have the photo memory and also the hyperlexia you could build his strengths in those categories to help make up for any weaknesses? Just my thoughts though I'm honestly not very familiar with these things yet and ds hasn't been dx'd yet either. Just wanted to try a postive spin
Amber Oh No, Lesley, not another Steelers fan!!!!! LOL (Pats Rule) many say they think my son has a photographic memory and he too will take magnetic letters and spell things out, many kids on the spectrum are visual learnersand we use flash cards with both pictures and the written words on them to associate new objects. we find that it both increase his verbal skills and will help his emerging reading skills, although we don't actively push the reading. as far as the credits, he loves them. he has the ability to pop a movie into the vcr, press play, turn the tv off ( while the movie is still playing) and return and put the tv back on the exact moment the credits begin to roll ( freaks my husband out to no end) LOL Hi, I can't believe that so many people have children who watch the movie listings like mine. This is so great to have a place where what is happening at home is not unusual at all. My son who is autistic has just turned 13 and all my stories of my life with him I have mostly kept to husband and myself. I mean, I quickly found out that my excitement over having just a good night sleep because my son went to sleep at 10:30 was way over peoples head to understand. My son usually goes to sleep between 12:30 and 2:30 everynight. He started out as a above norm baby. He was so smart and quick walking at nine months and talking way more than my other kids at 1 years old. At about 1 1/2 he started to slow down his speech. When he 2 1/2 he had stopped talking. I was constantly at the doctors telling them something is wrong and constantly told I was being a over worried mom. It wasn't until he was 3 that the doctor said he believed he was autistic. When he stopped talking at 1 1/2 yrs. I went into a crazed mode trying everything I could think of to encourage him to talk. I bought a doll house, Disney movies and all the toy characters in each movie. We would watch the movies together and play act with the toys. I made home videos of his father playing with his toys and I would play the videos all the time. My husband would pick a stuffed snoopy dog and say Hi my name is snoopy I like to fly airplanes. My son would laugh at the home videos but he didn't talk for a long time. One day while changing his clothes I said to my son I guess you must be tired of hearing me talk to you. He just looked at me with a blank face. I continued talking to him and said I don't know why I keep talking to you I don't even know if any of this is getting through to you. Now I'm starting to cry and I said I guess you think mommy is acting crazy huh? He still had a blank look on his face. I said if you could just let me know that it's helping and then he touched my arm. I stopped talking and looked at him. He had on a T-shirt with the Flintstones on it, He took his hand and patted his chest and said YABBA DABBA DO. I just hugged him and said yes yes that's right. He made my whole year and it was the begining of him talking again. Thank You All for you comments, It really means so much to me, Delores I have to thank you for the tip MsSteelersFan....it was a fascinating read so far...It's odd though, most of what I read say that they are different disorders, but so many of the "signs" are the same, and my son has so many....again, I'm only a couple weeks since the diagnosis, suspicious for quite long. I did find some research that shows an overlap - and it seemed to peg him...is is very low verbal IQ, but something else is wrong...we need to take him to a neuro b/c he seems to be getting worse. Didn't potty train till age 6, and that's been slipping over the last 6 months, plus a HUGE drop in intelligence IQ over the last couple years...I just don't know what to do anymore. I'm in extreme panic mode all the time now. Anyway...thank you, I have a lot more to read now - but I GREATLY appreciate the info. You know, I never really noticed before I read this post, but it seems that Aiden likes letters too. The only book he will allow me to read to him and will actually sit through is Dr Seus's ABC's. At the mall today he'd stop to touch letters painted on the windows of the stores. Interesting. Maybe when he talks I'll find out if it's anything more than just interest, like if he knows the letters. Right now with him being quite non verbal I'm in the dark so much. Amber Hi, It is really nice to read all the comments on how others are going through and feeling just like me everyday. I wanted to say that I have been chalenged so many times with so called professionals. I was told that my son would probably never read, work on a computer etc. but I didn't believe them and it took a lot of one on one work with him. Now he does things on his computer that astounds me and my husband, who is a computer tech. He loves writing. draws really well and loves books. I believed as parents we have a connection far better than most doctors can understand. After finding this site I'm so happy that I'm right. I come to this site everyday and it really boosts my spirit so high. This year my son connected with math. I used his favorite toy Sonic the Hedgehog. I purchased about 20 of the little guys on ebay. When I put the Sonics on the table, he was really excited. Now until then he zoned out on me trying to get him to understand 2+3=5. When I put 3 Sonics on one saucer and 2 Sonics on another saucer and asked how many Sonics do you see? He counted them out loud and said 5. With that openning I feel confident I will be able to help him discover more on math. Hey don't give up every small step is a new world for them. Thank you, Delores Bless you Delores!!! I learned the same "trick" this year!!! You've just confirmed what took me forever to figure out!!! My son is so visual and just wasn't getting it (math), I used the fact that he is visual along with how great his memory is, applied pictures to math and BAM! he's got it!!!! Congrats!
That story about you talking with your son and him saying 'yabba dabba
doo' made me cry be/c I, too, have felt that way sometimes with Luke
(before he started speaking a little) and I may even have said similar
words to him that you did. It filled my heart with such happiness
to read that your son responded to you and can imagine the joy and love
you felt.
God bless you.
Kellie
Oh ... and Luke also likes (or, liked since we don't have the TV on at
all during the day anymore) watching movie credits and Jeopardy!
Maybe someday he'll be another Ken Jennings (who recently won 2.5
million dollars on Jeopardy)! 
sitting at the dinner table and he started to spell all the names of the
kids in his class at school ( and there are 15 of them!). We were
amazed. He has a photographic memory and if you tell him what a
word is more than once he will never forget it. I haven't really
thought about it too much, but he does always love to watch the
credits of movies....I always assumed it was for the music. He loves
the orchestral scores of movies....go figure!
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Stop the Cycle!
www.cvsaonline.org
Lesley
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Stop the cycle!
www.cvsaonline.org
Delores, that is such a sweet story about your son saying yabba dabba do....maybe I should try THAT approach, I haven't used the tears on Jakob yet! Interesting. I don't have an answer, but both of my kids (1 is ASD and the other I suspect is on teh spectrum) loves watching the credits and any other shows that has letters and numbers (as well as lots of stimulating visual effects), ie Wheel of Fortune, Jeapoardy, Family Feud and the Price is Right. My kids could be on one side of the room doing their own thing and as soon as they see the credits, they zoom across the room and stand right in front of the TV staring at the words like zombies. Which isn't so bad. To break that routine, I have her identify the letters as they roll across the screen (now that she can do that). Hey it beats them watching that freaky BooBah show like zombies.
~Lesley (Go Steelers!)
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