Do most autistic kids with restricted interest/obsessions perserverate on one topic for long periods of time, or do they obsess over one thing, then another, and another, seeming to replace the old obsession with something new?
My girls are serial obsessors. For a couple of months, my girls were obsessed with jellyfish. Then, it was Dumbo - every drawing, every play session, nearly every conversation involved Dumbo in some way.
Now, it's Monster House and poor Dumbo and the jellyfish are all but forgotten.
It seems like they obsess over something until they find something newer, more exciting to obsess over. Is this how it goes? Or, when they get older, is it more likely they'll fixate on one or two limited things and stick with it for a while?
I think it varies as well....my little guy seems to have minor obsessions about things that scare him or bother him, 2-3 months, like fire alarms, fire bells, exit signs, fire sprinklers, signs that say fire, smoke detectors, he is also obsessed with photo radar systems at traffice lights.
Longer obessions with the alphabet. Repeats letter and sounds over and over-more of a verbal stimming I think....
This is interesting to me. My ds has toy obsessions, but I figured it was pretty normal at his age, however, the quick cycling between obsessions has concerned me. For a while it was dolls, so I got him a ton of Waldorf dolls for Christmas. Then he moved on to cars, so I bought him a bunch of cars for Christmas. Now it's stuffed animals. This has all been in the last month. Luckily he still likes cars and dolls, but it's not the same as it was before. I hope he will still be happy with his christmas presents, since I really spent a lot on wood cars and waldorf dolls.I have had some obsessions that have been transitory and others that have lasted years and are still very much an obsession. Transitory ones have mostly been concerned with making lists about things, eg capital cities or fruit and vegetables. And I intend to do a chart with some historical event noted for every year from 1066 (I'm English) to the present day.
My long lasting obsessions are focused primarily on death in a non natural sense, with a large part of it concentrated on the past. So for example I like reading about battles, about witch trials and executions, reading old murder mystery novels and, to a small degree, some modern horror. I tend to focus more on the past though and often daydream that I'm living several hundred years ago. These obsessions have lasted years and are still very much ongoing. I'd like to reassure you all that I'm very much a pacifist and have never even smacked my lads
Tom, my Ds1, is only little but he does have some obsessions that have lasted for over a year now. These are counting and arranging his blocks into rectangles or towers over and over again.
This is how it goes. My son was so obsessed with Yu-Gi-oh cards for over a year then one day he just stopped looking at them. Then he found something new to obsess over, VH1 and the Weather Channel. It's just something you'll get used to. I try to seem as interested as I can with 10 weather updates every day, but sometimes I just can't.
One thing the Autism specialist recommened to me was to give my son a set of cards. Every time he talks about one of his obsessions, he has to give me a card. When all of the cards are gone he needs to talk about something else. I haven't tried it yet because it seems sort of mean to tell him he can't talk about something he wants to.
In my experience, the obsessive trait continues, but the topics seem to have broadened. When Tony was younger, he would get stuck on one or two things for weeks or months on end. For example, he would want to watch the Aladdin video over and over all day and night for weeks. I once found him curled up asleep on the entertainment center shelf with his head on the VCR. At the time, he was about 2-1/2.
Now, he has various things/topics but he will obsess over and sometimes he just seems like a "regular" kid (of course, until he starts getting into his info mode). One of his all time favorite topics is James Bond... he as 19 of the 20 movies made, will look up info on the internet, can tell you just about anything you want to know from the movies, etc. When the winter olympics were on, he kept track of the medals USA won. Then he was searching the internet for past winter olympics results, where they were held, etc. These are just a few examples.
I'm trying to get him to channel all this knowledge and research into something constructive... a paper or project he can present at school for extra credit or something. So far no luck... he is quite content to GAIN the knowledge but has very little interest in SHARING it.
Mary
My brother Nick has one LONG term obsession--- Trains.. thomas and real trains.. he loves them and its been going on for about 11 years now. But he also has passing phases of interest.. a smaller obesession that can last anywhere from 2 months to a few years. blues clues was years, backyardigans was only a few months, spongebob was like a blink and you'll miss it phase. Even when he is in the middle of a smaller interest.. the Bigger one is always there. Right this moment, he is in a Stuffed Seal phase--- he takes care of it like he would a babydoll. feeds it, cuddles it, and puts it to sleep. Its all adorable.
~Wendy~
Sandis's main obsession is cars. Sandis can line up cars for HOURS. It is funny too, if you ask him what he is doing, he will very enthusiastically tell you that he is lining them up. It doesn't evnen OCCUR to him to make them go VROOM. But he WILL make HIMSELF go vroom when he ISN'T playing with the cars. With movies the last one he watched repeatedly.over and over and over, for WEEKS, was charlottes web. I can now say that I HATE that movie! Sandis has a HUGE harry potter obssession, and he goes between cars and harry potter. Sandis has the harry potter movies and actually can recite long parts of the movie. He isn't actually reciting, but when sandis has his "imaginary play" he is actually re-enacting parts of movies. Very weird. I mean, I have seen him do this since he was 2 with teletubbies, but it never struck me as weird until lately.....I think it varies. My son had a huge vacuum obsession from the age of 2 until he was about 4. He still really likes them, but doesn't play with our toy one much anymore. He was terrifed of how real vacuums sounded for a long time and I always thought that he became obsessed with vacuums in order for him to get over his fear (which he has and even helps me vacuum when he is home and I"m vacuuming). Then he moved onto dinosaurs - but that only lasted about 5-6 months. Then dinosaurs were kaput and he doesn't even LIKE dinosaurs now (but heaven forbid I take the dinosaur stickers off his wall!
You see, when he pretends this, then it changes his whole attitude and personality and he is acting mean the rest of the day and not listening. I don't want to limit his creativity and imagination, but the last few days I have told him that we are not going to play Burgermeister because he was a mean person and that causes him to act mean - we are not mean in our house. Today was a much better day and he didn't try to pretend that hardly at all (to my knowledge).
Anyway, I don't know if this is actually an obsession or not - but it is frustrating to me nevertheless!
So, my son has had long-standing obsessions and also lots of little ones. Oh, I guess right now he LOVES Batman! But, one of his friends at Head Start is really into Batman so they have been playing that at school sometimes. I guess I see that as more typical kid stuff too - but it could become an obsession I know!
Trains, dinosaurs, baby dolls ( she must have 40 and she knows all of their names ), and anything related to doctors. Katy is convinced that she is everyone's doctor - she wants to fix anything that might ( or might not ) be wrong with you.
A few weeks ago a friend of mine took Katy to Target. They were shopping in the toy department and saw some toy dinosaurs. My friend pointed out a dinosaur to Katy and Katy vehemently corrected her - it wasn't just a dinosaur, it was a "Mysopolous" ( sp ), lol.
My son's obsessions change as well. First it was baseball as a toddler, then it was spiderman...(that was a difficult one and the longest to deal with because he never came out of character or costume. he actually seemed to believe he was this superhero and completely went into his own fantasy spiderman world), then since the spiderman it has been one thing after another. Star Wars, Toy Story. THe incredibles, Cars, Superman, etc. Right now we are in between houses and staying with my sister and she has a little girl that is 6 and they have been playing My Little Pony's for a week now..LMAO I catch him saying things like ," AHH pony your soooo pretty" as he is stroking it's hair..LOL
Karrie