Can you give me examples of autistic pattern recognition please?

[autyspauty]

Looking into whether or not child is autistic and I don't know what this means on the 'am I autistic?' tests online.

Google is spewing articles but not anecdotes. I want to see what an example is? I just can't imagine what it means

They see or actively seek out patterns in mundane every day things people would not. For DC, we were asked if lined up toys in order of size, colour type etc.

Does it mean patterns of behaviour or cause and effect
patterns in the wall paper? what!

Oh so it means they make patterns out of things or order things not seeing patterns in random things

My dd never did this, but she’s ASD

Just patterns.

My DC will tell me how many buses drove past as we walked down the street. I wouldn't even notice.

He will line his toys and pens up according to size.

That kind of thing.

For me it meant being extremely good at spelling as a kid. Not just words I knew, either — I remember getting a sticker from the headteacher when I was… 9ish because he was doing the rounds of the classrooms and decided to test me by asking me to spell "philatelist", which I'd never heard before but spelt correctly for him. Pattern recognition comes in to this sort of thing in recognising that, for example, the "fil" sound at the beginning of a long word with those kinds of other syllables is almost certainly going to be spelt with a ph, not an f.

@autyspauty Look into schemas.

But it wasn't conscious or thought-through at all — I just had a brain that was constantly looking for patterns in the different ways different kinds of words are spelt, and provided me with the most likely correct spelling based on similarities and patterns that, at the time, I didn't consciously know I'd learnt.

For me it was hyperlexia. I taught myself to read by recognising the patterns before I was even 3 years old.
Some kids do it by sorting, like the child who separates all the lego in to groups of the right colour.

For my child it’s recognising/spotting patterns - so if he sees a series of numbers or symbols he’s trying to work out if there’s a pattern to it - even if it’s a phone number! He recites times tables endlessly. He finds patterns and order and predictable sequences comforting.

I taught myself to read before I went to school, we were read to at night but I could read books that were very advanced for my age. I also used to deliberately mix vowels up in words to play with the word in my head very quickly as a game. I also sorted stuff by size and colour. I can still remember my primary school teachers numberplate and all telephone numbers from years ago if I needed to dial them a few times, I’m 56 and have never been diagnosed with anything.

I see words and abbreviations in numberplates and postcodes.

I always notice if there's a pattern in cars going past e.g. this morning six cars came past red, white, red, white, red, white. Very satisfying.

I notice patterns in phone numbers e.g. if it includes 2468, 369, 0505 . . .

I'm not consciously looking for these things. I just see them. It took me a long time to realise that other people don't necessarily see these things, and aren't interested when I've spotted them!

My son doesn't do this and he's diagnosed but my daughter who masks very effectively so is undiagnosed finds patterns in everything

Sometimes its finding the less obvious pattern- or sorting by patterns even when its not needed but its different for everyone.

Like normally when my dad (not autistic, but needs things to be neat for him to understand them) goes shopping he sorts it so that bathroom stuff is in one bag, a bag for fridge food, a bag for the freezer, a bag with fruit in etc so its easier to unpack.
My brother (who is autistic) will make a bag of red foods or packets, a bag of green foods, white products etc. He will squash bread under potatoes but they will both be in the beige bag.

My nephew used to line up toys although I've seen that behaviour in plenty of children.

What was more prevalent was his tendancy to fixate on things. He would watch a cartoon and then would be able to re-enact it back to you word for word. When he gets into something his emotions can get really heightened if things don't go his way. For example, he wanted to collect all of a certain group of toys but they were in blind bags. He gets very frustrated if the blind bag doesn't have the one he is after.

I see patterns in fabrics, walls, bookshelves, ornaments - I automatically start lining things up in my mind or working out what would fit where and how .

I’m the same with phone numbers, addresses and dates, can remember dozens of phone numbers .

I can also remember other ‘odd’ things - I worked as a nurse auxiliary about ten years ago - I can remember each patient on the ward (20 of them) and what was wrong with them from my first day .

I've wondered this as it was on an autism thing I'm supposed to fill in for the surgery (but struggling to know what to t
Put.)

I get a bit obsessive about collecting all of the set for lego cards/blind bags etc. I thought that was normal/what they're designed for!

I am good at languages because I can see patterns between those I know and those I'm learning.

I can also make quick links between e.g. pieces of music by different composers, paintings by different artists etc.

Same for me, SignsontheWindow, plus the hyperlexia and spelling that came naturally that PP mentioned upthread.

What about spotting repetition? Eg. Seeing where wall paper repeats, or porcelain tiles with an artificial 'natural' stone pattern. Those used to drive me potty especially if they were layed in the 'wrong' direction. Colours were a big thing for me. My son has stacking blocks that are a perfect rainbow but two colors are reversed. Annoys me massively but no one else even notices. I'm undiagnosed but always suspected.

So I am quick to notice patterns in things, way before others usually, it's how I make sense of the world. I've turned it to my advantage in textile design.

My DS, who is diagnosed moderately autistic and has a learning disability is the same, if he has a set of things, or several of the same thing, he will make patterns with them. So in the picture here you can see him experimenting with the different ways to combine particular coloured pieces.

I think it's absolutely fascinating and I love finding little patterns like this all over my house.

(Should have said, click the whole pic I posted because it's a set of four)

Erm, isn't all of the above normal (cough) as I do a lot of these. I'm hyperlexic with a love of compound words from their Greek, Latin and other origins. I've just alphabetised my stock room, best 2 weeks of the year.

DD2 (11) is being referred for an autism assessment - her anxiety is the main problem - but you'd love how she organises the contents of her chests in Minecraft. If only she could be that organised in her bedroom (that's where avoidance kicks in).

If your DC plays games, look and see if there's pattern repetition etc within their gameplay.

Most of it is normal, it's a question of how much you do it, what circumstances you do it in, what happens if you can't do it, what stage in your development you do it at, how much it affects the way you live your life, the context around it, and so on. This is the difficulty both with diagnosing the less obvious presentations of autism and with explaining what it's like to live with — there's some overlap with the typical range of experience, and often things that people describe as their autistic traits will sound familiar to other people too.

A lot of hyperlexics end up turning out autistic, though. I did. But I had to wait for the diagnostic categories and evaluation techniques to meet up with where I am — in the 80s, a weird bitey reading 3yo was too clever to be so naughty, not autistic.

Good luck to DD2 for her assessment. I hope it's thorough and helpful, whatever the outcome.