Autistic kids are weird but clever

[Jimjams]

Ds1 had one of his moments today when he stuns me.

He loves looking through home magazines. This week I've bought him three, we've looked through one at the dentist (where he sang happy birthday to a big chocolate cake) and about 10 days ago we flicked through about 5 at Mum and Dad's house. We've also looked though the local paper house bit together and he's been looking at his nursery manager's house details (she's moving).

Today we went back to mum and dad's- they have about 60 magazines beneath their coffee table on this storage tray thing. I picked up one at random. Ds1 immediately started shouting mmda mmda (hoover) I was flicking through looking for hoovers and the screaming was getting louder while he was trying to turn the pages. 2/3rds of the way thorugh there it was- a double page spread on hoovers. Instant smiles and 5 minutes of looking at hoovers.

How on earth did he remember there was a double page spread on hoovers in that magazine? He knew exactly what he was looking for. Dh is happy as he says it means he will be good at chess His visual memory is ridiculous.

That's great jimjams. What do you mean by his visual memory?

I was amazed at ds last Christmas when he was 3 1/2 and we gave him a chocolate santa (the same as the previous year) - he ate a piece and then turned to put it onto the shelf in our unit - exactly where he had kept his santa a whole year previously.

ds also likes hoovers but likes to actually use them.

Lucky you jimjams sounds like you have a 'property developer' in the making so dont get worrying about sorting your pensions out just yet

the memory thing is great...ds1 still amazes me at almost 10yrs when he says..."i remember when....." and refers to something we did when he was tiny

my FAVOURITE 'younger'memories of MY BOYS :

ds1's 'obsession' he had with a particular road sign! It's the circular one which has a motorbike and a car- basically from as early as i can remember he loved the one at the bottom of our road and would start shouting 'ieeeeeeen' every time he saw it!- however the same sign anywhere else was of no interest!I ended up photographing it so i could take it wherever we went...i am still amazed that he even knew the photo was of the correct sign! (understand now that he must have noticed a scratch on the paint etc and that's what identified it as HIS!)

ds2's never tiring game of putting things in and taking things out of a 'smash' potatoe tin (would sit for hours over the course of the day)- and his love of 'thomas the tank' videos- to the point that he knew within 5 secs of the start of an episode shown on sky t.v whether we had it on our tapes or not! He used to memorise the dialogues as well word-for-word and repeat them when playing with his trains!

ds3 is now only 4 but before he could talk he kept geting excited when he saw 'rover' cars- any colour any style! when he learnt to say 'daddy' he began to call all rovers 'daddy'- we then 'clicked ' he was remembering the car we had till he was 1! by 2 (and still not very verbal) he was 'indicating' all kinds of makes- and by 3 had his own words for each make- the bit that makes this remarkable like your child remembering the hoover advert...is that often he did this from a great distance and was clearly not seeing logos etc!! even now he spends alot of time 'examining' wheel hubs,number plates,badges,steering wheels for 'clues' to identify the make

I am like you in awe of such minds and celebrate their 'uniqueness'!

As i've said B4 DS1 is Aspergers, DS2 is being 'observed' at school on 2nd oct and DS3 started school this week...having had nursery say that he has poor eye contact/appears to not be listening/remembers everything that was said when 'he wasn't listening'....and as he reminds me 100% of DS1 at 4 - i expect to have 3 X Boys on the 'spectrum' !

And that doesn't scare me- i feel very much like the 'jackson' family we saw on that Autism program - and infact (luckily because I am managing at the moment to cope!) even feel 'priviledeged' to be blessed with a whole bunch of 'unique' boys and wonder how 'boring' it must be to not experience things like you did with your child - and i do with mine!!

Great stories mrsforgetful

I wish I could show ds whirling something - he can hold his wrist really steady and whirl an object at the end of a piece of string really fast. The concentration on his face is amazing. I tried to do it myself and found it quite difficult.

He gets a bit spooked by yoyos though as he can't manage them.

mrsforgetful our boys would get on!

My inlaws visit from ireland- usually they come by plane sometimes, they drive. Last Easter they took the ferry and drove. In August they came by plane and hired a car.

They arrived ds1 took one look at them and belted up the stairs to look out of his window onto the street - soon started screaming his head off. "a an gan" (grandad's car). He couldn't see my in-laws car. We had to take him out and show him they had a hire one. I don't know what car they drive (I think its blue, but it could be red).

mrsforgetful- ds1 used to carry around a picture of a hallway and some stairs from some house details we were sent- he loved it and used to take it to bed with him as well. He knows the road signs as well. And of course traffic lights (one of the special needs catalogues has a bit traffic light thing you can buy where you press the button and it lights up- I'm thinking of getting him one...)

I think ds1 would like to watch your ds Eulalia!

I LOVE THIS THREAD!!
its amazing that all our kids are so similar ...and wouldn't it be lovely if we could watch them together in the same room!!
Eulalia- DS1 does what youv've described with the string!!!!!! he too holds his hand steady downwards and dangles 'something' he then 'whirls' it so the string is a blur! If we saw eachothers child...would they be doing the same!!! Sounds very similar to me! My motto for him could be 'where there's a string - theres a spin' or 'spin now-play later' or 'if it can be spun...it WILL be spun'

as always could keep typing (i talk non-stop too!!!) so will await eagerly anyone elses input!
Don't let me down...as i said I LOVE THIS THREAD! It's GREAT to have a read of all the 'positive and amusing/ clever' things they do!!!

Well yes the time I realised with a great clang that ds1 really was autistic was when I joined an online support group in the middle of a conversation about traffic lights. DS1 did everythig these kids did. Knew where they were, would get excited to see them etc. It then moved onto the old singing a song perfectly after hearing it once routine and then the obsession at 2 with countdown. Oh and just in case I was wondering it the moved into the old lights on/off routine (at the time every light in the house had to be on).

By then I didn't need a diagnosis I knew for sure.

jimjams, traffic light lamp things. ikea do them, think they are about £20-30, my kids loved them at the store, am thinking of buying them one. (actually i had more fun pressing them than my kids did lol)

oh! The traffic lights!!!!! they really should be part of the 'diagnostic criteria' forget the eyecontact and all that stuff! We even made a set out of cardboard...and all ds1 painted at school was,,,,,,,traffic lights! He loved fans and 'fly catcher' electrical gadgets in chip shops- he LOVED their bright blue colour and the noise as the fly got zapped.
he called hoovers 'hoo- ey- ey- ey- lah'
the other day DS2 got very 'black and white " with me when i 'forgot ' to put him to bed at 8pm- and 'tried ' at 8.10pm- we ended up with his 'reacting' as only he does, to this very badly...he kept saying 'but you said 8 o'clock' and i could not for the life of me convince him that he'd actually been 'lucky' to stay up later!!!

You've just reminded me of another thing I miss living in Devon misdee- IKEA - although I do not miss Croydon

DS1 alays knows if our hoover has been moved an inch out of place- and always checks where it is if he arrives back to find the cleaner here.

Fans I was going to mention fans earlier. Had difficulty getting his attention at the dentist today as he kept looking at the fan (one kept him quiet in clarkes on Saturday as well).

We could draw up our own diagnostic criteria couldn't we.

can u post the ref number of the ikea traffic lights??!!!!
JIMJAMS...you mention countdown...my ds2 loved 'wheel of fortune' and would always say ' i'm the blue'
DS1 if talking to me has a stim at the moment od 'tossing ' in the air so it spins (ofcourse) whatever he's holding- he can't catch it so it falls - then he picks it up and repeats...repeats...repeats!!!
ds3 makes me put everything back exactly too- however he seems happy to tipp toys out everywhere!

i have just looked in the catalogue and on the site but cant find them. they were in the wembley store, hopefully be going back there in a few weeks, will try and the find the ref # for u then. hope u can hold on!!!

And Finally!!!! (for tonight anyway)- Clarks had me in stitches the other day- there i am with my three 'unique boys' tring to get feet measured...when they discovered the 'distorted' mirrors- the ones that actually make me look slim!-- well i have never seen a shop empty as fast....my boys were absolutely 'happily hysterical' about these mirrors and NOTHING could bring them down!! (i wonder if you can buy them too! We should start our own shop too!)the shop didn't empty really (i do get carried away!) but i got the usual 'i know what those kids need ' type looks...but for once it REALLY didn't matter!!
Anyway NIGHTY-NIGHT--DS2 won't settle till I'VE folded his blanket a certain way!

p.s thanks misdee-no hurry--this will probably be a lifelong obssession!!!!

mrsforgetful, again i recommend ikea. the kdis section has loads of weird and wonderful (plastic) mirror boards. have the curvy ones, the bobbly ones etc etc. (i do not work for ikea!!!) lol.

Another car moment today. Ds1's SALT turned up. He's seen her once before 2 weeks ago. He did watch her through the window when she drove off.

Toaday she arrived and he went ballistic as he couldn't see her car. She'd parked down the orad. I tried to fob him off with another car but he was having none of it. He knew which car was hers and had to see it.

He then proceeded to scream the place down, partly because he'd said moo cow when I thought he'd said hoover.

I'm sure you will all know of these things aswell as I do, but my ds (who is not autistic but certainly used to share a lot of these obsessions) always loved those laser discs. They are flat metal discs with hologram type patterns on that spin for ages on a flat surface. He had quite a few of them; it was all we ever needed to take with us to keep him entertained when we went out. He still likes them actually, I'd highly recommend them! He was never bothered by traffic lights, incidentally, but was obsessed by clocks. And I mean obsessed.
Jimjams, that's so sweet about the picture of the stairs and hallway.

ds doesn't have a thing about traffic lights - maybe that will come though. I was watching him with his toys the other evening. He made this great big long car out of stickbricks with about 8 bricks lined together and wheels on each end. He has a thing about trailers and will hook a trailer up to anything he can. He also likes to wind string around things which seems totally inappropriate so that it ends up in a tangle. He used to wind string/dressing gown cord etc round his arms. Another thing I'd forgotten about - he also used to stuff little pieces of paper inside the doors of his toy cars, sometimes playdough as well.

Incidentally just wondering if anyone here remembers doing strange things as a child (I mean do you think you maybe are just a bit autistic yourself?)

Luke Jackson writes about the string thing in Freaks, Geeks

I'm really not remaotely auti- nor is dh (although he does play chess). Mind you I have constant Tourettes these days

BTW whilst we're on the child have a tourettes diagnosis- and if so does it provide any help? DS1 is getting very very ticky and we have a pead appointment coming up. If having the diagnosis makes any difference i thought i may ask about it.

Does tourettes and autism lap over?

I just wondered as ds reminds me of things from my childhood. There were a few things I remember doing eg totally freaking out aged about 6 when I took a bite out of my bread and butter (it was one slice folded over) and it opened up to show a circle in the middle and for some reason I did not like the fact that it made this shape. It just felt so wrong. I had a sort of panic attack and couldn't explain it to my mother who thought I was being silly. A few other thigns like me and my sister humming while we ate (ds sometimes does this) and doing odd things with our toys and I am sure I could bore you with a lot more stories... we are twins and I beleive they have a higher incidence of autism. I don't know though - maybe we were just eccentric - the whole family is to some extent. I think dh is definately aspergers though.

Yes they often go together. I don't think there's much help that can be given for tourettes, but if there is I think we're getting to the stage where we might need a dx as he's got quite bad over the last year (I think tics etc have to present for a year before a dx can be made). He's also started shouting odd words in a tourettesy type way.

My ds has been diagnosed with Tourette's. Not that it actually makes any difference, because the consultant basically said there is a medication they could give, but that he considered that in general the medication causes more problems than it solves, so probably wasn't worth it. Which is fine.

He stared off with frequent eye blinking, which gradually developed into a whole face grimace. Then he added throat clearing (which he combined with crossing his ankles over whilst he did it). For a while it drove me nuts - he reached the stage about 10 months ago where he was never vocally silent. There was a constant stream of little noises issuing from him. Happily it has abated a bit, although it is still frequent (just not every few seconds any more). At the moment he is tensing/hunching his shoulders, making littel odd whooshing noises, and humming incessantly. Interestingly enough particularly at mealtimes. The problem with the humming is that I can't really decide whether he is doing it involuntarily, or just because he likes doing it and can't see the problem. So I can't decide whether to tell him to stop it or not.

But, really the only thing the diagnosis has done is get people to back off a little and stop telling him off for making weird noises. Which in itself is useful.