Hundreds of questions asked repeatedly by my son aged 5 with ASD. I’m losing my marbles.

[Lunaij]

It’s a relatively new phase that’s driving me insane. Repeatedly asking questions throughout the day, often the same one and if I answer “I don’t know” or “sorry I’m busy” it can result in a meltdown.

Please realise that this isn’t like an NT three year old who is curious. It’s more like a sort of vocal stimming but I cant cope. It is every few seconds and I can’t see it ending. Any advice at all would be greatfully received.

It's fairly common with autistic children to do this - hearing the same answer / asking the same question again and again can be reassuring / grounding. I suppose it is a sort of stim / echolalia.
Or sometimes a substitute for someone else they can't quite verbalise yet.

I find with my DS he almost doesn't hear my answer unless I give him an answer that doesn't feel right! So then he keeps asking, either way!

First off if it is anxiety related (eg has he just started school / preschool) it may be he's just seeking extra reassurance at the moment and you might just have to go with it to avoid further distress.

Things I've seen suggested in here over the years that might help:

I think it was Polter who once suggested rather than saying 'I don't know' if you don't know, you could try 'I'm 80% sure it's x' - which then if it's not the right answer gives you some wriggle room! I've found this VERY useful!
Especially around things like 'how long will it take' etc

If it is time related use a visual timer so he can check that instead

If it's the same question all the time (my DS asks 'are you happy' all the time - because he can't gauge by my face I think), you could use visual cards with drawings on and direct him to those instead.

Set a time limit on when the next question can be (this doesn't work for us and gets DS more frustrated, but I have seen it suggested elsewhere)

Hopefully someone else will come along with a few more suggestions as well.

I had a similar phase with my DS, and I agree that it seemed to be about hearing the reassuing, right and same answer to the same question, over and over and over and over again.

My DS used to get very frustrated if I forgot the way that I had answered previously and gave a slightly different answer the next time. He also liked to hear exactly the same stories about when he was younger, told exactly the same way each time.

He grew out of it. It was just a phase. It was very frustrating, though.

I should have said that we now fulfill the need for hearing the same thing on repeat with audiobooks and noise cancelling headphones

This is from the book 'The reason why I jump' by Naoki Higashida. He's autistic and it's a really good insight