I read on a checklist on another thread for asd (one from norway mom)and one of the questions was does your child constantly act like an imaginary character (not sure what the exact wording was). And that was the first time ive seen anything like that. I searched on the internet and found only one article of someones son constantly being in every pretend role he could think of.
The reason im so interested in this is because that is exactly how my son is! He doesnt lack imagination as ive heard eeeverywhere that asd kids do. Hes always either a dinosaur, king kong or peter pan but usually dino. He takes turns between these to the point of obsession and rarely come out of his imaginary role playing. Altho there are definately repetitiveness (replaying the exact same scene over again), I thought because of the extent of imaginary land he might have some mental problems or problems distinguishing reality because even tho he does have strong imagination it doesnt seems to be quite normal as other kids pretend play. Its like it takes over his life from the minute he wakes up till bedtime. He does engage with you but lots of times you get interrupted because hes in imaginary land again and when we go into public lots of times people try talking to him and hes in his zone already. I dont know if its just the obsesivness, repetivness or lack of friends, which he expresses a want for but has difficulty carrying out. Does anyone know anything more about this and asd kids? Any information would be great. Thanks!
My son is often pretending to be Captain Hook or a pirate. This has gone in phases. He has been Handy Manny, one of the Backyardigans, Tigger, Eeyore, pretty much a lot of characters!
For a while, when he had just turned 4, he was always Farmer Alfalfa from the Richard Scarry books (he grew corn and my ds LOVES corn!). Anyway, it was rather difficult as he would not answer to his name for about 6 weeks - only to Farmer Alfalfa. That 6 weeks felt like about 100 years - let me tell you! This cycle got broken by his very wise pre-school teacher who said she had a XXXXX registered - not a Farmer Alfalfa and she would only be able to call him XXXXX at school because otherwise everyone else would get confused. Within a day, he wanted to be called by his name again!
He is often in a pretend world. Now, he will let me know if I have interrupted him (we are working on him doing it in a NICE way) and that he needs a few more minutes alone. Since I almost always let him do this (unless we are in a HUGE hurry and I've already given him time), he is getting much better about this.
However, now that his sister is pretending a lot - they often do this together. They pretend to be snakes, firefighters - whatever suits them that day. His favorite is Captain Hook (guess what he wants to be for Halloween?) still.
I think it is not as rare as people think that kids on the spectrum have imaginations. But maybe I'm wrong...
I'm NT, but I had a very vivid imagination when I was little and I was an only child - so I was constantly in a world of imagination. I think my ds got a lot of that from me. I've encouraged that in my son. I sometimes wonder if he knows the difference between reality and imagination, so occasionally I will remind him that this is pretend. However, I think I believed that there could possibly be fairies until I was a teenager!
The way my son expresses his imagination is a little different though. He invests a lot of imagination in his drawings and Lego creations, but the drawings and creations are often simple, slap-together things which don't convey his imagination unless he uses his words.
When he first started collecting Bionicles at age 7, he would hold them and fidget with them, trying to keep them in a certain pose (it seemed like he had millimeter criteria for what was the right pose in his mind). He probably had lots of imagination going on in his head when he looked at them, but it is only recently at age 9 that he has had them talk and interact like other boys do (using them as dolls/action figures).
He has always pretended to be monsters, etc. but not all day long. My younger son was often pretending he was a dog or cat during his first year at preschool, and the teacher explained that this was common because it is an simpler way of interacting. I think the same might apply to a kid pretending he's a cartoon character -- he knows how that character acts, knows the slogans, etc. and he doens't really have to bother with the subtleties of the situation.
Ok as long as my son grows out of it! I can just imagine him in a few years how odd hell seem to other people, altho hes going on 2 1/2 yrs of this! My cousin, we call CAT has asbergers. Always acted like a cat age 2 to 11 yrs. She would hiss and do a cat claw as a warning (when was getting upset) and would attack like a cat with her claws. My daughter who is 6 just started doing the cat act but has not attacked with claws.
Uh oh, sounds like my dinosaurs going to be hanging around for a long time then!
[QUOTE=143hayden]I thought asd children are generally not supposed to be imaginative, even my doctor said cuz he has an imagination hes classified as pdd-nos.[/quote]