ASD and Imagination

[moira199]

My DS was sliding the greenhouse door to and fro and saying 'Taxi Door' (His nursery taxi has a sliding door). He also says that the cats' toy goldfish is a helicopter ( the shape and position of fins make this plausible). Realistically I know he is probably just seeing a phsyical resemblance but at what point can it be said to be rudimentary imagination?
If an NT 18 month old says a block of wood is a car and says 'vroom vroom' what makes that imagination and not just seeing a similarity?

A lot of autistic children do have imagination, quite vivid in some cases. The issue is more to do with social imagination, knowing what another person is thinking, considering other people's experiences, 'theory of mind' etc. In play it usually means flexibility of thought, being able to follow a game when it changes tack with another person's ideas, rather than sticking rigidly to their own plan of how it should progress.

I see what you mean, that's very helpful so we need to work on ways of getting him to join in with someone else's imagination not just his own.

Yes, but it's often very difficult as children on the spectrum have a need for control over their environment and rigidity of thought is part of ensuring that they have it. Do you have any therapeutic intervention at all? I wonder if an OT could suggest some strategies? Or perhaps you could get some ideas from The Out of Sync Child (Carol Stock Cranowitz) and TOOSC Has Fun (sequel).

the triad refers (or originally did) to 'repetitive behaviours' rather than lack of imagination. Some children with AS have almost overactive imagination with a poor sense of fantasy/reality iyswim.

DS1 (severe) has some imaginative play and some ability to understand another's beliefs/wishes although limited by language etc.

Hi

We have intervention in the form of ABA at his nursery but no one at the CDC mentioned OT (Occupational Therapy?). He doesn't have any physical problems so what ASD issues would the therapy address? I will check out the Out of Sync Child book. He is only three and has only just started to speak so we don't really know what direction we are going in.