Noticing lint, litter, and garbage | Autism PDD

Can someone please help me to understand something my son does? He's only 2.5 yo. When we are out somewhere, he gets distracted sometimes by lint or a piece of old gum or any litter on the ground or floor. He does this when we are outdoors and sometimes in his class. He gets preoccupied with it, asks what it is and focuses way too much on it,even when we explain that it's just garbage. I don't see other children his age doing this, they seem to be able to ignore things that deserve ignoring?

Google PICA and see if it describes what you are seeing.  It's a condition in which infants/toddlers/some older children eat things that are not food that they get off the ground.  Sometimes it goes further than lint or other non-edible things on the ground to strings on pillows or tags on furniture, etc.

But google it and see what you can find out.  That would be my only thought.  That and maybe something sensory.

He never eats the garbage though. When he tell him it is garbage he doesn't touch it either (not usually!). But he seems preoccupied with it. My son has been diagnosed with ADHD. Does anyone know if this is an ADHD thing, getting distracted with little things and unable to focus on the big picture?Wray, no need to apologize. I appreciate your reply. Mommieaz, your daughter sounds just like my son. He notices just about every detail of everything too. When I read about your daughter I was actually shocked...it describes my son so much. He doesn't miss one single thing. I just wonder what it is....

Hi there -

I think I know what you mean.  My daughter is four now but when she was younger, about 2.5, she would be able to focus on something that most people would miss.

Like, she would notice lights were on while we were outside in a parking lot (it was daytime) or the lint in the carpet.  She was really keen on the little things.  She did not seem to obsess over them but she is really, really good with fine detail.

Now, she will still do things that freak me out.  I always walk her to her class and she will notice if the bulletin boards have been changed in other class rooms or if the writing is changed on the board in the office - she cant read, she can just tell me that it looks different.

She also knows TONS of lables from sight - she cannot read.

Also, when she sees something, such as a very small piece of glitter in the carpet, she will start talking about a snowglobe she had when she was two - there was glitter in it and it broke. 

I dont know what this is?  Fascinating but weird.   ADHD was suggested but she is pretty young for that dx.  I suspected asd but no dx.  Right now, we are considering dyslexia? 

I'm sorry.  I didn't fully comprehend your original post.  Yeah, your right, it would only be considered PICA if he was putting it in his mouth.  I guess I just assumed he was.  Not real sure why I didn't pick up on the fact that he wasn't eating it.  Sorry! 

Maybe other parents will have better info on the aspect of obssessing with it.  I don't have experience with a child who obsesses over things like that but doesn't want to put them in their mouth. 

Sorry again.

Oh, yes. Jasper notices every tiny little thing. I remember when he was
about 20 mo old, we were in Babies R Us and he kept saying "moon!,
MOON!" about 10 minutes later, I found the 'moon'. It was about 2mm high
on the side of a 2ft box in the middle of 4 paragraphs of text! Later, he
would freak out when he saw a 'spot' or a piece of leaf/gum/tree berry/tar
on the ground..."pick it up! pick it UP!" He won't rest until every crumb is in
it's proper place some days. That would be the garbage.

i have been there and still am. as soon as my son could sit he would incessantly sit on any carpet for like 45 min and pic any 'dirty' he could see on it....then hed try and eat it. can you say constant supervision. he still does it a little but has replaced that with much spinning and toewalking and running in straight lines back and forth.

Hi again: Yes, my son was extremely sensitive to all noises as an infant. He still always is asking "what's that" meaning a noise he hears. Recently, the heat has been coming on and he can hear it and it took a few weeks for him to adjust to this. As it would click on at night, he would wake up (sometimes not all the way) and be a bit anxious about the noise, sometimes verbally expressing it, sometimes not. He spent the first month of life in the NICU, so when I saw some of these quirky things as an infant, I just thought, hey, who wouldn't be quirky after having people poke him and beeps going off all the time. As an infant, he was alert to every noise, hated laying on any changing table, hated havig his body touch any surface other than something soft (you know, vinyl changing pads, he would cry), hated crowded rooms and church sanctuary, resturants and earlier in life, even supermarket or wal-mart would cause screaming fits. Public bathrooms were awful to go into. It took a while for me to really "see" it. We had some episodes of fits as an infant too, that where a bit scary. What tipped me off to get extra helps for him was when spring of this year was turning into summer, and he would not go outside without a coat, mittens and head covering. We spent all summer working on these types of issues, while he would go to the beach fully dressed (yes, 90 degree weather and a toddler wearing long pants and long shirts---talk about people looking and wondering!)

We do a lot of sensory input activities with him. His OT for early intervention has been good with him and giving ideas to help us. Even before I had her, I had already done my research and started a sensory diet at home. Most of his OT is done by us, his parents. Swimming twice a week has been very helpful, more than the pool is the exposure in the changing room to cold floors, hair dryers, toilets flushing, basketballs bouncing upstairs, people sounding "different" in a large room, etc. Swimming has been a huge part of his sensory diet and helping him to become accustomed to, or used to, these types of things that don't bother others as much as they bother him. He's still bothered by them and noticing them, however, he is more tolerable to these noises and sensations.

I am enjoying our conversation. Thank you.

Though our kids sound so similar they are clearly different in their sensory needs. I have that book "how to raise a sensory smart kid." Have you read that one yet, because it has some info that "out of sync" doesn't have. For my son's sensory seeking needs,we give him baths daily instead of showers, deep massages, fill up shoeboxes with rice or kidney beans and let him play in it, encourage him to ride his bike, take him to the park daily, etc...this is in addition to his once per week OT session. We found that once per week OT was just not enough for him. Since we started doing things at home daily several times a day, we slowly but surely saw a difference. Maybe you can increase his OT at home, perhaps do it yourself like I did. You know lots of kids do things to comfort themselves. My sister sucked her thumb until she was 6! Now at age 36, she's married with kids and a pediatrician! I'm sure rubbing his lips w his thumb is similar.
   Btw, as a newborn my son was very sensitive to sounds and would stir or even wake up at the sound of a microwave, faucet dripping, etc...Now, he is still sensitive but not to these same sounds. He needs to always know what the source or reason is for various sounds. He always asks, "whats that noise?" Did your son do that too?Hi sunflowers: I haven't yet gone down the road of seeing a neuropsych or developmental pedi. We are waiting. There are so many things that are typical right now, than things  that are not. I continue to seek, learn, record (when necessary) until it comes time to do anything further. My ds qualifies for OT in the school district for his sensory processing disorder, however, outside of that, there are no delays. It's the stuff we are discussing now that keep me baffled. My son also has a very difficult time self regulating. When he is over-loaded (sensory overload) I cannot even communicate with him. I can't touch him, talk to him, or anything. He has a stim that he does (rubs his lips with his thumb) and he will just sit there doing that until he calms down. If I try to talk to him, touch him or leave the room during these meltdowns, he flips out. Out of all his strange behavior, of course, this is the one I am most concerned with. These meltdowns are not all the time (and yes, we deal with "regular" tantrums too--he's 2, he has those as well, they are different than melting down) yet they occur enough that I know something else is going on. Can it possibly just be SPD, it is possible.Thanks for the replies. If this is a visual input filter problem does this mean it is a sensory integration problem? Because he also loves to touch everything.

Okay, I'm getting a little nervous reading these replies. My DD (who I am pretty sure is NT, although some days I'm not completely sure!) is very detail-oriented. She often notices things I don't and will point out something that I have to look VERY hard for and then I finally find it. She is always right. And, if there is garbage on the floor when we are out, she wants to go over and get it and put it in the garbage. I have always thought that she is just compulsively neat (which she does not get from me, trust me!) and I didn't think it was a bad thing as she has eventually learned that she is not to touch it, but she is welcome to point it out. She is just 2.5 as well. So, here I am, hoping that to some degree that this is a stage and that some kids who are 2.5 are more like this than others? My dd is very social and has a great amount of empathy - particularly for her age. She identifies many emotions correctly - from someone's tone of voice and/or facial expression.

Going back and reading the original post, I see that sunflowers talks about focusing way too much on the garbage. I guess my daughter doesn't do that, but will keep pointing to it until I acknowledge that yes, it is yucky and should be in the garbage. Sometimes I will take a wipe and/or paper towel and pick up the item and put it in the garbage. That always takes care of it, but I don't always do it and try to make her realize that sometimes we just have to leave the garbage there and don't touch it.

As for little details, I have a few PVC Snoopys that I put out new ones for each holiday. About a month before Halloween, I put away the Summer Snoopys and put out the Halloween ones. My daughter was downstairs the next morning for all of 30 seconds before she told me, "Mama - look! Different Snoopys!" Yes, she is 2.5 years old. I usually feel like I'm talking to a 4 year-old as that is the level her conversations are at. But, they are conversations - she is interested in what I have to say and responds appropriately to what I say. It's just in paragraph form (seriously) and not what you would expect from a 2.5 year old. So, I do worry about that - my son was very verbal at her age, also speaking in paragraphs. But, it is different because she really LISTENS to what we say to her. He really spoke more at us - he would listen to what we would say and then continue to go on about what he was talking about. I realize that a lot of people would love to have this problem (of being too verbal) so I apologize if I am offending anyone. But, I went for so long thinking my son was NT and everyone told me he was as well - then at about 3 1/2 the differences became great and we pursued a diagnosis (stopped listening to what most people were telling us basically!).

Sorry to digress...

My son used to do that all the time when he was about 2.5, too.  I think it's possibly a difficultly with being able to screen out unnecessary visual input.  Now that my son is 3.5, he never picks up garbage anymore (thank God!) though on occasion he has some visual stims (like running quickly past a horizontal surface, looking at it through the corner of his eyes), but nothing that I can't distract him from.  I think what you're doing is great ... continue to tell him every single time that whatever trash is on the floor "is garbage" or "is yucky" (whatever) and "we don't touch garbage."  Consistency is key.  He'll eventually understand and won't be as distracted by it anymore.  Good luck! bumpbump..

I can also relate to the 2.5 year old noticing things that don't seem appropriate for them to notice. My ds is coming up on three years old. He notices things like a certain way we go in the car, if I don't drive that way, he will sometimes say we are going the wrong way. When we do go that way, he says "we're going up the hill, mommy?" every time! Every time we go that way in the car he says this. Any noises he hears, anything out of the ordinary, he recognizes right away.

He is also extemely literal. "I have a frog in my throat". He thinks there is really a frog there. I said one morning "I'm making you some toast", he says "Im not toast, mommy, I'm not toast!" He thinks he will go down the drain because he saw it on TV.  Even the way he "sees" things sometimes is bizarre. Looking at a picture book with him, there is a picture of people walking thru a field, you can't see their legs because the grass is tall and he'll ask "where are their feet?" What happened to their legs?" What 2.5-3 yr. old "sees" things this way?

These are the things that my dh and I "see" that others don't. These are the things that we aren't sure of. He also asks weird questions like for days now, hes asking everyone "where is your daddy" He asks all of us in the family. I have been ignoring this lately, and sometimes I will refer to my dh, because it seems as if he is asking about his own daddy, but that is not what he is saying. I will say "your daddy is in the kitchen" and he will say "where is your daddy"???????

I'm sorry I didn't answer your question. I guess I struggle with this too

btw, my son only has a dx of sensory processing disorder.

Add me to the list of people dealing with this. Kyle is 9.5years and a dumpster diver

We were at the park yestarday and he went into the trash can and found some cup cakes in the covered tray that the stores sell...he thought it ok to start eating them.

Been dealing with TRASH since he was about 2 and doesn't look like it's gonna stop anytime soon
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