Can toddler’s number obsession NOT mean he’s autistic?

[BigGlassOfRedPlease]

Just that really. My 3 year old is and always has been, completely obsessed by numbers. Has been able to count past 100 since he was 2. Regularly counts enthusiastically for the fun of it, almost like it’s a song. Points out numbers absolutely everywhere we go - car number plates, supermarket aisles etc.
can a child this going be this obsessed with numbers and NOT be on the autistic spectrum?

Sounds a little bit like my son with early recognition and spotting numbers everywhere. He's now 4 and takes a calculator to bed because it's fun to play with numbers😂he is a pretty normal albeit intense child sometimes but just seems to be wired that way.

My 7 year old has been like this since before he was 1, loves maths now, not autistic.

Yes children can have obsessions and not be autistic. They could just have obsessive tendancies.
My older DS is neurodiverse. Not on the spectrum. A language disorder. He has obsessive as a child - different phases of things. He can still be very single minded/obsessive now too.

If he doesn't have other signs then he could just be good at maths

@Harping0n i hope you don mind me asking you this but how did you know your son had a language disorder? This is something I have considered with my son and I have arranged a private SLT assessment for him to find out basically.

My little one does this too - points out numbers, likes to count things. I am not worried I think he just likes it 🤷🏼‍♀️
how is your little one socially

Hi @BigGlassOfRedPlease he was diagnosed aged 8. By an educational psychologist. With expressive and receptive language disorder. He’s in his late teens now.
He always had issues with pronunciation, low muscle tone in whole body - including lips, understanding language and expressing himself.
However he was in SALT since reception.
Good resources are the charity Afasic, ican charity. If you Google speech and language charities uk for chikdren some useful links appear.
There is also a Facebook group: Developmental Language Disorder (formerly SLI) Support they can be helpful.
First port of call is to check for glue ear - and if your child has it to push for grommets insertion. There can still be a language disorder but at least they can hear you properly without the glue ear.
My son has needed a lot of help and support over the years. But he has grown into a lovely young man and has worked hard. He could be quite obsessive when young eg he only liked Thomas the tank, lots of lining up of his trains, counting the numbers of a particular biscuit he had eaten, wanting to read the most books from the library of all of his year group. That kind of thing. Speech disorders and autism can look somewhat similar - but they are different.
As well as a private SALT I would also suggest an educational psychologist to test for working memory, processing speed and other assessments. Then you get a picture of your child’s profile. Pre teaching has in the past helped my son a lot. Good luck!

Thankyou for your replies. He is generally very friendly and sociable, interested in other children, says hello to absolutely everyone but CAN be overfamiliar with adult strangers (more so men) ie running up to tap them repeatedly to say hello in soft play for example. able to read people’s emotions and understand if someone is happy/sad/cross. doesn’t mind people being in his space, very loving and affectionate.
speech wise, very clear speech. I have wondered if he has an issue with social communication as anything fact related he can answer very well (if you ask him what something is for example) but anything where it’s a bit more open ended and he needs to “think up” his own answer, I don’t get much back. Hence me arranging the SLT assessment, to see what they think. He has gone through stages of lining toys up, but he also plays in lots of other ways too (can use imagination lots more in recent months). He does sometimes have tantrums (this is nearly always when he is tired, or when he’s stopped doing something dangerous like leaping off something etc).

Your son sounds delightful! Totally neurotypical. And absolutely not autistic!

If that description of him is accurate there's no way I'd have him assessed for anything!

As a 3 year old, being asked open ended questions can be a challenge, and requires a totally different thought process than fact questions. Especially if they seem to be coming out of the blue or distracting them from their thoughts/play etc. That doesn't mean that he has a diagnosable condition.

I would have chats with him about tricky adults/stranger danger just because his warmth towards unknown people could put him at risk.

I go back and forth between thinking he shows signs of being on the spectrum (at the high functioning end) and thinking he’s not that different to other boys his age (bar the number obsession!)
His preschool have said he has been lashing out at others (TOTALLY out of character) in the way of slapping and throwing things about, they describe him as having tantrums but again I do think this is tiredness related.
i wondered if it might be a combination of tiredness/totally new environment as only been there 5 weeks/frustration if he has a language issue.

DS1 was obsessed with numbers and counting as a preschooler. He’s 6 now and still loves doing maths workbooks to relax!
He’s definitely an eccentric kid and there are aspects of his personality which are very similar to friends’ kids with diagnosed ASD. I don’t think he would be diagnosed though and in any case he doesn’t have any issues requiring support for now.

Wow he sounds just like my 3 year old son at the time. Even down to being over familiar with strangers. My son at 3 would go and sit on other mums laps at toddler group and he was obsessed with numbers and lining things up. He too could count to high numbers and sing them. He was incredibly active too so at one point I was sure he had ADHD.

Anyway, he’s 13 now. He is not on the spectrum, neither does he have ADHD. Very well behaved and compliant, a real joy. He has lots of different sets of friends and he’s very socially aware. What I mean by this is, he seems to be quite socially gifted like a bit of a chameleon. He has friends spanning different demographics and can easily fit in with different groups.

He plays football to a high standard and he is incredibly academic. To be honest he’s just a really bright boy who is a good all rounder, and his teachers have always described him in this way. Compared to my other two children he does seem to be gifted.

He sounds like a totally neuro typical boy of his age. Stop worrying and enjoy your son

Yes, some children love numbers. and that on its own does not mean ASD or any other condition. I suppose, that, like any other preoccupation, it could indicate ASD in combination with social and communication difficulties, sensory processing problems, and/or lack of interest in much else. But on its own, no more than a preoccupation with dinosaurs, cars, drawing, music, or any of the other interests that children may have. I think that people in this country tend to have a rather negative and/or overawed attitude to maths, and therefore assume that any child with an interest in numbers must either have a disorder or be a genius or both! Not necessarily the case at all.

My DS was the same, counted everything, lined up anything in rows to count it.
He has physical health issues but is NT - but I remember his nursery teacher coming out to our house to meet him before he started (during to his physical health) and telling her the best way to calm him down if he cried/was upset was to let him count.

Hes now 10 and loves maths, watched maths 'tricks' on YouTube and will still count/line things up if upset. He also +/×/÷ car number plates when we drive anywhere.

Hes a Quirky one but completely NT = just marches to the beat of his own drum, and believes all the best people are weird, which I 100% agree with.

My DD was always quirky and showed subtle autistic traits when little but I brushed most of them off as being an only child. She didn't demonstrate blatant autistic traits until starting Secondary school and that's quite common. Your DS may be autistic or not but if he has more subtle / low needs autism that will probably show itself as he starts Primary or Secondary as his world loses some of its structure and becomes more unpredictable. Just make a note of anything unusual as you'll need them if you choose to go for a diagnosis in the future and enjoy your little boy.

One of my boys is like this. His brother is autistic. He was always absolutely on it with maths. Knew all his tables without learning them in year 1. Doing maths and further maths A level. He just "sees" maths as a language he is fluent in. He is probably not fully NT - quite a few of his friends are autistic, but not all. However there has never been any reason to pursue diagnosis for him as he has never run up against or clashed with the systems and expectations he operates in.

He isn't obsessive about maths either. He has a variety of interests - vinyl collecting, gaming, coding, maths, cooking - and I wouldn't say any one is particularly an all consuming special interest.

There's no reason it couldn't - but fwiw, my son (4) sounds a lot like yours and he's autistic. He has been obsessed with numbers for as long as I can remember - his first words were 'one, two, three, four'! By the time he was three, he could recognise numbers up to 1000, knew the times tables up at least 12 and basically just wanted to do maths all day, every day.

At 3, he was pretty much solely focused on maths (it was that and some social issues that prompted his preschool to refer him for assessment), but now at 4 he's really started to broaden his interests - he still loves numbers, but not in the all-consuming way he did a year ago. He's also very sociable and has lots of friends at school. I guess my point is that, even if your son does have autism, that doesn't necessarily mean he's going to be hyperfocused on one thing forever.

Look up hypernumeracy if you haven't already, and see if any of it seems familiar.

Possibly...but the likelihood is that he is on the spectrum and very gifted with numbers.

Hi I am just wondering how your little one is now. I also have a number obsessed toddler that isn’t showing any other autistic traits. Google seems to say all number obsessed toddlers are autistic.

My husband is a mathematician on the spectrum. I have never heard from him or his family that he behaved like this as a child. I don't know if that is reassuring or not for you. A fairly high percentage of maths academics will be on the spectrum but by no means all. Of those academics who are, these are very smart people who often would not present as being neurodivergent because they have learned social rules.There will be the odd eccentric of course.

Sometimes the early skill with numbers doesn't extend to more advanced maths either so just because a young child is on the spectrum and likes numbers does not mean that you have a future gifted young prodigy on your hands either. I have seen that happen and the child was very disappointed when contemporaries began to surpass him at around 12 so you have to be careful with expectations. (He discovered a love for an arts subject and did a degree in that.)

My 11 year old DS was obsessed with numbers when younger. At aged three we used to calm him down by giving him a starting number and asking him to double it until he couldn't anymore - he regularly got into the millions before stopping.

He's still very good at maths and very very bright. Not autistic though he does have OCD and anxiety. He is a very social little boy with lots of friends and interests.

Sounds like my son. He's almost 2.5 and reads out numbers wherever we are. Today he was asking me to write numbers for him up to 70 and I had to stop and he threw a tantrum. He also likes to say the alphabet and knows all his sounds from sight. He's very limited with what toys he plays with and often needs adult leading and will open and shut doors and drawers a lot, he also arm flaps which leads me to think he most likely is autistic. I'm hoping these flaps and door fascinations subside by the time he's 3 because it is getting very tiresome. He also wanders a lot which worries me. He needs reminding with saying hello to people as he often daydreams but I hope he gets more sociable as he gets older. He's under SALT, he's saying a bit more now counting to 20, asks for help, says most animals and foods says nunight hut not always hello. Just shows how sociable he is, wants to say bye but not hello! Haha.

An obsession with numbers is a very typical autism trait, but on it's own it's not a red flag as far as I'm aware. I work in preschool and a lot of kids have obsessions and routines. Some play with cars only, some blocks only etc and they are very obsessive and we just roll with it. Some have strange quirks like will only sit on the blue chairs or will have to line up the dolls first before playing, that kind of thing. It's all normal! Your boy sounds great OP and maybe in time you'll have cause for worry, who knows, but I'd say enjoy him now! It's great you are being concerned and vigilant and if something needs addressing you'll be on it.

I would trust your instinct... which sounds like you do think he is ND. Despite what many PPs have said, lots of children go undiagnosed, although more get picked up around later primary/early secondary. I would just be keeping notes of any concerns so that you have a record if you ever do go down the assessment route.