How many of your kids monologue at you?
It was (another) aha moment for me, to find out that it is considered to be a symptom ...
So, the SD autism specialist in her interview of me asks me if T wants responses. I told her, no, but we are sure expected to LISTEN. As in, she is not simply thinking out loud ... we must not interrupt, but we cannot ignore her, either.
Monologueing without clueing you in the context? Yes and yes. AtGiving others the context -- yes! I "worked around" these things for so long I did not even realize I was doing it!!!
T can at times do give-and-take conversation, too. But if she is on a rant, no interrupting and ya better pay attention!
C monologues as a kind of verbal stim, but he doesn't really do it "at us." For example, he might be sitting alone and playing with his cars and having a running monologue about whatever is in his head, but when I interrupt him to ask him a question or to tell him something he'll stop the monologue immediately and engage with me instead. When C is monologuing it appears to relax him and to me its definitely a "talking to himself" activity rather than a replacement for give and take conversation.
On a funny note, he tends to monologue to entertain himself when he is sitting on the toilet. My dh told me that while in a public bathroom at disney C sat in a stall for 10 minutes and babbled away saying things like "and there they go again, more chocolate farts come out of my butt!" I guess he said this many times and there were a bunch of men just laughing out loud in the mens room.
My DD does monologue alot. It used to only involve her and she would get upset of we interrupted her. Now she lets her little brother play, but she tries to script how he plays. He will go along with it for a minute, then he starts playing like a little boy, smashing things, sound effects, etc. She rlls with now, a few years ago she would stop and leave. If she gets really excited about something, she will tell you what she wants you to say in the conversation, lol. But its gotten better, if we stay on her topic, we can ask her questions and have some what of a conversation.
Hi ,by monologue do you mean scripting (from a movie or show)?
Do you mean talking about what he is doing ,Like verbal diarrhea when playing,my son does both.
He wakes up talking! ,talks through shows! ,eating , playing, in the bath ,ALL the time.!!!
Linda
Linda, what I mean is, she wants to TALK. On any topic. It IS a verbal download, but no, not movie-scripted ... though, T does THAT too -- "barfs out" sections of a movie. But, these are her words, seemingly mostly spontaneous.Linda,
Can you write out a scenario of monologuing for me? I know pretty big request...but after reading everyones responses I still am unsure of exactly what you are talking about. Adam talks to himself a lot though...Like random thoughts that just poor out of him usually an interest or obsession of his though that he will be talking about.
Karrie
Well if I gave you an example ... she just starts telling us something, if it is a story about one of her videos, or from school, or anything, and goes on and on and on and on ... and if our responses seem disinterested, she gets a bit belligerent about that ... and the topic might swerve, but still she continues on, and on, and on ... on the new topic and we had better still be listening and often it is runon sentences or paragraphs and if we ask her to stop before she has exhausted one topic or the second, or the third, or even fourth, she is gets angry and tells us no this is important, but I am TRYING TO TELL YOU ABOUT it and on, and on, because is one of her favorite connectors and she does not use it correctly there is no cause and effect behind her becauses and then the OTHER THING is ....
THAT is a fair example. These can last anywhere fro mten to forty minutes, the worst was over an hour from the backseat of the car and we just thought it was acute a little girl and daddyiamtalkingtoyou! and now it seems maybe biochemical almost like a short burst of hypomania ...
WOW...my oldest does something simular. Whenever we get into the car he would have to start talking about cars...engines..speed etc. If we try and ignore him he gets more persistant. There are times where he just continues talking even though we have tried to change the subject. He can see the humor in it now that he is older and he will laugh with us about how odd it is that he has to do this thing but it still doesn't change the fact that is has to be done sometimes. He truly can not control it. It's not as bad as it was when he was younger but he still does it occassionally and he is 14. He is not on the spectrum but he certainly has what I call pieces. ( i know some people don't believe in pieces but with MY kids they all certainly have them but not enough for a diagnosis) It's almost a self soothing thing that my son does and HAS to be completed at times and if it doesn't then he gets upset. Usually I just try and get through it as quick as possible and then talk about something else. I learned years ago with him that I had to pick my battles and this was one that I could never win. LOL
Karrie
it is a continuum with NT. I DEFINITELY believe in pieces.
My 6 year old PDD NOS son does this, too, but about 1 1/2 years ago, we had a little breakthrough. I have often jumped into his perseverative speech and gone along, then tried to divert it somewhere else. But I also have a smaller child who was not always able to follow along with us.
In the car one day, I tried to simulate a conversation between all of us. If Cole started yakking, I would ask his then 3 year old brother "what do you think Cole is talking about?" Jack'd listen to his brother then say "Cole's talking about the Incredibles, Mommy. You know, where the mom flies the plane?"
After about 2 weeks of doing this every time Cole perseverated, I one day asked Jack what Cole was talking about, and LO AND BEHOLD, Cole said "I'm talking about Where the Wild Things Are. You know, where he sails out his room." Ever since then, when he starts monologuing, we can ask what he's talking about and he'll stop to tell us. Not a big jump, but its a success we'll take.
KristyMommaNiki