Am I imagining things ?

[cyberseraphim]

DS1 (ASD) loves bridges. Today he told me there was a bridge in the dining room. I went to look and he was using a place mat as a bridge on the floor. Is this just object substitution to pursue an obsession or could it be considered to be the beginning of imagination ?

I would definitely see it as the beginning of symbolic play. Took DS about 15 months to go from moving sauce sachets around like cars to pouring imaginary water into his windmill water toy.

cyberseraphim, that's spooky, my DS1 has taken to making bridges everywhere all of a sudden, and running across the kitchen in an odd way pretending he's going over a bridge. I'd come to the conclusion it was the early signs of imaginative/symbolic play too.
He calls them "bodges" though, which I love!

Wow that is spooky ! They are 'didges' here. It's got to be a good rather than a bad sign so congratulations to the little bridge builders !

actually ... one of the early things DS did was to take all the chair cushions off to make them into a bridge for him to walk over(!)