My DS is obsessed with numbers

[Driedlavender]

He turned 4 in October.
I often feel embarrassed telling people or people finding out as I feel they may think it’s bragging or something.

There’s no other way to describe his connection with numbers, he absolutely loves them. He wants to know the biggest numbers in the world, he’s even talking about minus numbers now.
He can add and multiply in his head, he doubles numbers constantly and asks us to check on our phone calculator whether his answer is correct.
He loves numberblocks the CBeebies programme and watches it often.
Numbers make him happy.

Alongside that, he can read, they send home the Biff and Chip books and he reads then without any hesitation.
He also wants to know the specific names of colours, for example magenta.
For a while he wanted to know about the periodic table and the human body…it’s like he wants to learn constantly and his brain never rests.

His speech is fine, but to get him on a subject other than what he’s currently focused on is a struggle at times. He even says things like “But why can’t I talk about numbers, I want to talk about them all the time”. So he’s totally aware he’s doing it, he just wants to continue.

I have noticed it causing problems with social engagement with other children of his own age. He finds adults to speak to, as he wants to ask them questions about numbers and whatever else he’s interested in at the time (mostly numbers).
He asks the age of everyone we meet, adults usually humour him and tell him their age, then he’ll say how many years until you are … and then ask them to work it out, at which point they look at me and smile, some will continue to answer but some just aren’t interested which is obviously fair enough!

He’s a very friendly, sweet, confident and at times very funny boy, but I don’t know if we’re looking at something more e.g. ASD. DP (his dad) who is very similar in lots of ways (maths and science brain) thinks he’s just clever and people don’t need a label all the time , in his words.

If you got this far, thank you so much for reading.

@AFluster some children are only just talking at 3, they won't be talking about cube numbers and Asian hornets

And the first years of nursery and reception year are about learning social interaction etc as well as letters/numbers. All are important.

Sounds like he's super super clever - this may be a 'special interest' related to ASD but equally little kids do get very fixated on things.
My daughter will be 4 next week and is similar in her absolutely ravenous desire to learn, but for her it's mainly things like evolution and planets. She can't read but she's working very hard at it, constantly spelling out words she sees when we are out and asking me to write with her. I think maybe it's just an age at which they are extremely receptive to learning and throw themselves into it. I know my daughter really longs to know more about everything. In your position I would gently encourage and facilitate without putting pressure on him - keep it fun. I worry that school might take some of the joy and spontaneity out of these things and make them seem like chores.

It's great that he's so interested and enthusiastic. I would encourage you to help him a bit with social skills too.
My DD could be a bit like this (still is at 15) and if she was fixated on something I wasn't able to bear endless chat about (Roblox and Minecraft spring to mind) I would say to her that I would listen properly for 30 minutes but then we had to talk about something else! This drove her a bit potty as she really only wanted to talk about one thing but it did teach her give and take.

Could he solve cold fusion?

please and thank you!

And those children will be better at holding a pencil or kicking a ball or have better rhythm or be able to tie their shoe laces… Almost all children will be able to do something that most other children their age can’t do.

When my DD was 3 she met a friend's Mum
who was Spanish. My dd heard her speaking Spanish and demanded she wanted to speak Spanish too. None of our family is good at languages and DD had never been to Spain at that point. She asked her friends Mum to speak to her in Spanish too as her friends Mum sometimes spoke to her own DD in Spanish. Anyway the lady offered to teach her some basic Spanish, probably to humour her, but she picked it up really quickly and went to her friends each week and always came home speaking more Spanish. Her friends mother seemed very pleased and told me she enjoyed teaching her language to others keen to learn. She kept learning and by 5 could hold quite long conversations in Spanish. I just encouraged her once I found the Spanish lady was happy to teach her. She went on to do GCSE and A level in Spanish and part of her degree was with Spanish too. Sometimes children know from an early age what they enjoy. I'd encourage your son with his numbers and encourage your DH to teach him more too. You may well find he will be bored at school and need further stretching to keep him motivated. My dd was very bored at school.

Hi Op. I have an autistic child (high functioning ie verbal/ in mainstream school)

If he is on the spectrum - the reason for a diagnosis is he will struggle socially - you are already noticing he doesn't follow conversational cues, he doesn't 'fit' with the child/ adult chat around him. This became much more noticable in my child after the age of about 6 or 7 - when other children really started to 'follow' those myriad invisible social rules.

I will give you advice - keep a diary now - maybe you won't need it - but if/ when you do want to pursue a diagnosis it will probably not be school who push it - as long as kids behave they will never notice this

You will be the one noticing social issues - so then you will need all the early years evidence you can get.

My son was similar. In infants "quirky"/it's only a problem if it's a problem, and clearly it isn't, he's fine.

He was put in for autism assessment at 7, diagnosed at 9 "but so bright and clearly fine so no point applying for an EHCP". Out of school completely by Y8, scraped into specialist autism resource within a MS school at the start of Y10.

It's a common tale but my advice to you is to ask for assessment if you suspect he may be autistic. You don't need to be sure, just to have enough suspicion to ask someone more knowledge to have a look. Waiting lists are ridiculous and demands on children ramp up steadily throughout their school careers. It's much better and safer for the child if you are ahead of the curve and advocating for support before he breaks, rather than lagging behind and trying to pick up the pieces.

Also don't assume that any social difficulties are due to him being clever. Maybe he is not picking up peer-peer social skills as quickly as others. Adults are easier to talk to because they have much greater social skills themselves. They scaffold the conversation, wait patiently for their turn and listen politely.

My 4 year old also loves numbers and talking about sums, although perhaps not at the level of yours. We got him this set when he was 3 and he plays with it pretty much every day, he absolutely loves it :
www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-Resources-LSP0949-UK-Numberblocks-Classroom/dp/B08N55DKJ6/ref=asc_df_B08N55DKJ6/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=463113919827&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2678763378798046449&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006567&hvtargid=pla-1028166467942&psc=1&th=1&psc=1

Get him to take up parkrun and download the 5k app. Loads of opportunities to be obsessed with numbers and get fit at the same time 😃. Junior parkrun probably at age 4 - 2k on a Sunday morning.

Agree with @waterrat above - having a diary is lot easier than having to trawl the memory for all the things that were maybe a little weird or quirky at the time but cumulate into a more challenging picture.

Your child may just be really bright or they might have ASD. They might grow out of the social awareness gap or they may just get further from the social communication norm with time.

The key question might be “is having fixed interests and lack of social awareness a problem?”

We were fairly sure that DS would be diagnosable with ASD but didn’t want to put a label on him just because he was “different”. Our whole family is a bit “different” and most of our friends are too. That was fine when he was coping or just about coping at school. Then he wasn’t and lack of a diagnosis was harming him, so we got him referred. DH really struggled with it because he saw him as being just like he had been, but got used to the idea when he saw how additional support and accommodations at school could improve his life and happiness day to day. No regrets.

He’s currently next door programming a linguistic something based on something I appear to have tuned out. But he’s happy.

My daughter was similar to this in reception as well. She had an anxiety issue in year 1 for a few weeks and then being at home for Covid for most of years 2 and 3 she was fine. Had huge anxieties come out of nowhere near the end of year 4 but as she's always been a bit quirky I had a meeting with the school SENCO who said she wouldn't rule ASD out.

We had her assessed in September and she had an ASD diagnosis. My biggest concern for her is the transition to senior school as I've read so many cases of that being where the wheels fall off so I'm glad we're going into that process with the knowledge we have post-diagnosis. My friend's son was fine in mainstream primary and year 7 but struggled in year 8 (and has been out of school since October). It can all change so quickly which is what made me seek a consultation.

Have a look at potential plus for resources and research on supporting bright kids

A diagnosis isn't any more of a label than your name, gender or address. What a lot of people mean is they think autism is an undesirable label and to them, as an autistic mother to 3 autistic children, I say, 'Fuck you.' I'd consider being like them undesirable too.

It does sound like fairly typical ASD, in honesty.

He's still very young but you might fond that things start to become more apparent over the next couple of years.

It's probably worth having a look at common traits in ASD/Asperger's (classed as ASD now but somewhat different in terms of typical traits) to see if there are any other things that flag (eg textures, foods, mannerisms etc).

You'll probably find that school flag it in time and ask for you to go for a diagnosis. These take a long time at present but you can pay privately for an assessment. We paid £800.

Everything is worth a try & this could be great for your DS BUT please don't push parkrun if he hates it. We did this with ours and now realise that the running (co-ordination), stress from crowds and joint pain that followed were in no way helpful. We persevered thinking he'd come round but we really regret it. Our child did turn out to have ASD, though and hence is typically not sporty.

There are other sports that work well for ASD kids, if this the route your DS does end up going down. Mine loves boxing training, currently (not the skipping, though 😂 )

Just to note that if he is neurodiverse it might not be asd, special interests and hyperfocus is also typical of adhd.

Have you tried using an autism screening tool?

My DS is the same, got very mathematical interests and is still at that egocentric stage, so hard to tell for sure whether he may have ASD or not, however I have come to the conclusion that, for the time being at least, he does not meet the criteria for autism, because he has good social communication for a child his age, scores low risk on the M Chat test and just loves maths and numbers. Not all mathematicians are autistic, and not all geniuses either! And kids often diversify their interests and socially moderate their behaviour more as they grow older. If he doesn't, and continues to dominate conversations with his special interests, and if he does have any other autistic behaviours it's worth keeping note of things which he does which may lead to diagnosis later on, but being bright and self orientated at 4 is just a sign that he is height, and 4

He might enjoy that toy called Turing Tumble... it apparently teaches about coding etc. I keep wanting one for myself

Snap! My DS too

I had a similar DS who obsessed over F1 figures. He could tell you every driver, every circuit, who won where, lap times, positions. Going right back to the 1950's. He spent hours carrying his little book of facts and would ask everyone he met who their favourite driver was and proceed to reel off career stats.

He's all grown up now. He wasn't ASD. Just a small boy with a deep obsession. Not all things like this turn out to be ASD.

Hear hear.

I have two that were obsessed with numbers when they were toddlers. Both still strong mathematicians and one is diagnosed as autistic and it was the social interaction issues that led us to seek a diagnosis, not the love of maths.

Like others have said, you may not need a diagnosis as it’s not causing any issues at the moment. But you don’t know when things will change and when they do waiting lists are long. For us it all fell apart during the Covid lockdowns and knowing that he was autistic ensured that we were able to get the right support in place.

@StaunchMomma "You'll probably find that school flag it in time and ask for you to go for a diagnosis."

I just wanted to flag that you should not rely on this. I only know of 1 autistic child where school raised it before parents, and that was when his behaviours were disrupting the class. If you think your child might be autistic do not think "oh school hasn't said anything so he's probably fine." I think there are probably a lot of kids whose diagnosis was delayed by years because parents assumed school would flag any problems. Many are very reluctant to raise it, or just don't see the problems you see knowing them so much better.