imaginative autistic? | Autism PDD

Thanks for all the encouraging responses. It's great that my question made someone smile. Yes, he is very funny (the first two little piggies might as well also be crayons, since they are destined to be transformed into new characters in a matter of seconds, once the story line is lost). It helps us to look at Danny with humor: all that finger flapping, growling, licking strangers' hands and dogs' noses, stumbling over ones own feet, tossing socks onto a ceiling fan and such - combined with intermittent exotropia - would leave many slapstick comedians in deep envy. If only not for those tantrums and dangerous carelesness...

Interestingly, my son also doesn't rock, and usually has eye contact (at least, with one eye), and also doesn't have rituals (apparently, forgets what the last one was) - but otherwise fits the manual pretty well. I wonder if there are several distinct subtypes of autistics (besides high- and low-functioning), with stable clusters of symptoms (rather than just any minimal combination from the DSM list)?

Anna, almost 4, PDD-NOS very imaginitive. Matter of fact she had just gotten farm animals today and has been playing with them non stop for the last 5 hours. Tomorrow she will probably take them all around town w/us. (:

Mary

Welcome Boris,

My ds is 4.5 dx (so far, another eval forthcoming) with SPD. He has what I think is a great imagination too. Some creative play and some of his favorite movies lines throw in!

Your ds sounds adorable!

Kids with autism can't be neatly catalogued into types.
There are many, many differences.
My GS has always had a great imagination, as well as a sense of humour.
He had very little eye contact until he was about 2 1/2 and then gradually developed great eye contact(unless he chooses to ignore you like when he is watching TV)..
In fact he appears to be quite typical when you meet him.
His only occasional stimming is when he is on the computer, and becomes very excited he will flap his hands, but this is on rare occasions.
He does however seem to need to get up and run around for about five minutes each evening.
He is gentle,usually compliant, and has never bitten or hit anyone.
He sounds typical, but he is autistic.

Adam has imaginative play too. He will actually take objects like flat blocks and say they are a skate board and put action figures on them and make them ride etc. He pretends that our dog is a horse and initially was trying to ride her andwhen she would run away he would say.." come back horsy" ..LOL Then he will say.." that's not a horse...thats a dog ricki" LOL He plays with army men and loves dress up and runs around the house in Dad's military uniform shooting things pretending to be a soldier. This pretend play was not always here to this degree though and seems to be growing as he gets older.

Karrie

First, I think that it is wonderful that he has such a great imagination! I know you will continue to foster its growth and I smile as I think of him with 2 little pigs and a crayon :), perhaps the big bad wolf is a Ken doll (LOL).

THe Dr that dx my child told me that to get the dx of autism, a child doesnt have to show all the possible symptoms, just a set number according to the DSM4. My child did not rock (though he has started), nor hand flap (still doesnt, but has developed his clap that the Dr says is just his version of flapping). He has never had difficulty with eye contact if he is not stressed, etc, etc, etc..

Thanks for making me smile today (I needed it), thinking of your lil guy and his imagination!

I have a 5-year-old son, Danny, who appears to be a fairly typical autistic, except for one core feature - apparently having a very good imagination. His games aren't terribly creative (usually, replaying a few of his favorite fairy-tales, often confusing or dropping the story lines), but he can pretend to be anything, or drag anyone into the game. Most unusually, he can have any object pass for anything else - apparently, with no strong preferences (so, if a third little pig is missing, I grab any household object or toy in my reach, and declare it a pig - to Danny's delight). In fact, imaginative play is about his only active passtime (otherwise, he retreats in his room, to endlessly listen to his fairy tales), as if this "magic" world were his only window into the real one. Has anyone had similar experiences with "imaginative autistics"?

Thank you,

Boris

My son is 3 1/2 and dx as being Autistic, but he also has a pretty good imagination and plays with toys and makes the sounds of the animals hes playing with and trucks or cars too. He moves them around and talks to them in his own language

I can make out the sounds of the animals and he loves playing games with his sister. He will also pretend to be a super hero or cartoon characters, I personally consider this to be imaginative play, but I've also heard that all Autistic children are different. But like your son also he will retreat back to the TV or Movies he likes, and seems to go back into his own world, autism indeed can be very puzzling