thomas the tank engine obbsession!

[missmiddy]

can anyone please help? my three year old son is currently in prosess of a autism diagnosis, (all we know for sure that their is some delayed development and social interaction problems as his specialist put it) he has recently become obsessed with thomas, if i let him he would spend all day in his room with thomas on. i really dont know how its best to approach this....has anyone had any similar experiances????

So very common, you do know that the NAS linked with Thomas a few years ago and there were badges and events?

www.thomasandfriends.com/uk/parents/tours_and_events_with_thomas_the_tank_engine_and_friends.htm

www.myfavoritetoys.com/autism_thomas.html

Use it, get some of the toys and use the DVDs to teach all sorts of useful skills.

no i didnt! i will look into that further. he has alot of the dvds, by the tine christmas is out he will have loads of toys. im less worried now, ill let him carry on watching. :)

You are not alone, there are a lot of us that either remember that phase or are going through it. My DS is now 17 and remembers Thomas and co with fondness.

My ds obsessed over Thomas at that age, he graduated to obsessing over the star wars cartoons when he was 5, and zzzzz is so right, ds can be so hard to engage, especially academically and without having this to, dare I say, bribe my little toerag to try and do his speech therapy/attempt to read/try to understand social stories I'm not sure what I would use to motivate him :)

Yes... A very common obsession.Ds is now 15 but such was the level of his Thomas obsession that I can still not quite look back on it fondly God ...those awful books! Ds still loves Steam trains and heritage railways. As somebody has already mentioned... Use his obsessions as the 'carrot' to entice him to learn / do other things. So... If he does ( whatever) he can 'earn' an episode of Thomas (etc.)

DD1 also loves Thomas-only tonight she was obsessing over the name of a part of Thomas she particularly likes, I had to get DH to come and remind me what it was called as she likes talking about it-it was the traction rods lol! She also repeats bits of it and talks to me "through it" (ie me- I'm just going upstairs for a minute" DD1- "OK Gordan said" )

I agree its a great incentive-we did speech therapy using phonics sounds on a cut out train and watching it is often a bargaining tool.

And DD1 does not have an autism diagnosis (about to post on this!) but has learing difficulties and severe language disorder. She definately has obsessions though and thomas was one of the first (we also have fans, fire alarms, clocks and batteries )

Another one with a 3 yr old (ASD) DS obsessed with Thomas. He talks in Thomas metaphors a lot of the time (eg will say "I need to go to the water tower" if thirsty or "I need a wash down" if his hands get dirty). Also finishes a lot of sentences with "Henry said" etc just like usedto's Dd!

Like others have said, it is a great platform to use for teaching purposes, from exploring different emotions to recognising numbers and counting (trains/carriages). I am fed up with reading the same stories every night though!!

DS2 was also obsessed with Thomas, however,it was fairly short lived,and he is now obsessed with Toy Story.

I just keep telling myself "it's just a stage" and use it as a tool as much as possible.

Ds has become re-obsessed with Thomas over the holidays. There's been lots of "blistering boilers" and "bother" round our house the last few weeks. Last night was spent pointing out discrepancies between the storybook version of a tv episode. For some reason he loves the live action film which is the worse thing I've seen since that episode of Home and Away where Bobby came out of the fridge.

Its kept him happy so I've just let him get on with it. There's a ton of episodes on Netflix so that's worth getting if you don't want to be messing around with DVDs.

Get this too

That freaked me out when I first came across it mariam!

Oh Thomas!

My DS is still rather fond of Thomas at 7, but has began some new obsessions lately.

I agree with the others that you can use their current obsession as a bargaining tool. My DS gets so much pleasure from his obsessions, I do end to use them as rewards or wind down time.

Thomas and his friends taught my son his colours!

Similar to the transporters mariam linked to, we borrowed Space Place from our local NAS library and DS loved it. It's very mellow narrating style, and similar faces like Thomas meant DS warmed to it, and it very slowly and repetitively teaches them about emotions. It was designed specifically for children on the spectrum.

www.spaceplace.tv/

TIP: my DS will never let me put a new dvd on and is very cross and resistant. I tell him I just need to check it is working and he doesn't have to watch he can play with his favourite toy while I check it is working.

'TIP: my DS will never let me put a new dvd on and is very cross and resistant. I tell him I just need to check it is working and he doesn't have to watch he can play with his favourite toy while I check it is working.'

Works every time Fallen. I do use this to mix things up a bit, the repetition is the one thing I struggle with, I have to try and get new things accepted or 'd go stir crazy!

I did regret it last week though. I'd put Star Wars episode 1 on knowing he'd love the robots and space stuff, only to have him absolutely devastated by the death of the jedi at the end. He cried for an hour! Then asked to have it on again.