Aspergers and fixations

e_uecker · December 2013

We are at the very beginning of looking for answers for my daughter's pica and other behaviors. My question is if your child has an "obsession" like they talk about how often are they engaging in this activity. She mainly plays with a doctor kit, but she does play with other other things. It's just her main thing that she plays a lot every day. I just don't know if it would count as maybe that could be a sign. I feel like it is, but I don't know for sure.

Thank you!

kcisthebombdotcom · December 2013

My child doesn't have aspergers but has been dx with mild autism. Her obsession is letters and reading. For her it tends to be a stim. When she's overstimulated during therapy she'll walk away and read the letters on her toy box--it usually happens 1-2xs a session but she is redirected back to the activity she was doing. During thanksgiving when we traveled to visit family we see once a year in a house full of 20 people she sat and read books/requested I draw words on the magnadoodle to avoid interaction and try to regulate her nervous system. It doesn't really get in her way of playing with a variety of other things though I am nervous how she does in school in a new unfamiliar environment. We do redirect her and limit her exposure to books so she can't get stuck on them though. Saying I limit my child reading books sounds very odd when I think about it. Lol.

pastalady · December 2013

Dd obsession at that age was numbers and letters and still is. Like pp mentioned, she reads to self regulate or does math to calm. In preschool one day they had a student teacher. I was volunteering that day. The change cause DD to count very one repeatedly, then doing math with the 18 students, ie 10 plus 8 is 18, 9 plus 9 is 18, and so on. Shapes have been a special interest that comes and goes. We. Will refer to this Christmas as the trapezoid Christmas. She wanted trapezoid french toast, a trapezoid at the top of the tree, etc. Butterflies are an emerging interest. She enjoys classifying them. Like pp said, it does seem to be all things she can classify. Interestingly, I had pica while pregnant. Is the doctor play a general fixation, or more of a script? DD had Barbie fixation at 2. Her fixation wasn't on the babies at all, just lining them up. If they were a different toy, she would have done the same.

e_uecker · December 2013

Thank you guys! I guess I say aspergers, and really I'm sure they will look at an autism diagnosis and I was assuming if she was it would lean more towards that because she doesn't have any obvious delays that I'm aware of. Really I don't know. I know that the behaviors we see fall in line with an autism dx, but there are some things that don't make sense.

I have no clue what they will say. She uses all her dr items correctly. She has us take deep breaths and all of that. I've never seen her play with it any other way. She also watches different cartoon dr episodes and of course she recently discovered doc mcstuffins. I hate to say this but she is pretty much on her iPad or playing doctor. She does those two things a lot. I'm trying to think of all our concerns and I know they say they often fixate on something so I was just doubting whether that would even count.

She was diagnosed with Pica that she has been doing for over a year. Her iron is fine and the other causes don't really fit her. One is autism. The more we thought about it the more things we saw. Things that never fit together and some that seem to be starting recently.

e_uecker · December 2013

-auntie- said:

Why Aspergers? Is your DD's speech especially advanced? Aspergers is no longer in the DSM-5, so you'd be looking at an autism dx.

Not really. She was a little late in talking, but then seemed to catch on. She hasn't grown much verbally for awhile. She can have short conversations and reply to things. I would say she's half understandable. She does a lot of rambling that sounds like mumbles.

Most people use the term "special interest" to convey the notion of a restricted interest associated with repetitive behaviors.

Thank you for the better term. I hated to say obsession.

My DS does have an actual Aspergers dx. He has the almost diaganostic special interest in trains going back to the first time he saw one at the age of about 5 months. He fell in love. But he's still about to enjoy other topics of interest and activities.

Two things one usually sees around a special interest as it relates to ASD-

1. The interest is often around something that can be ordered/classified or that are powerful/scary. People on spectrum are born systemizers. This leads to a pretty predictable roster of SIs- trains, sports statistics, maps, schedules, disasters, weather, sharks, space, letters/reading and for some reason The Titanic. DS's high SLP used to refer to her ASD speech kids as the "Train and Disaster Table of the lunchroom".

DH's older brother is a fellow traveler with a thing for the Titanic- he has all the books, took a week vacation on an escort ship when Robert Ballard was retrieving artifacts. When DS went through his Titanic phase, the two of them got into a Titanic factoid pissing contest- it was really creepy. DS did hold his own and actually know more about the sister ships than BIL did.

2. The other thing I'd look for is scripted play. Does she have a narrow range of how she uses these objects when she plays? Does it always look or sound kind of the same? When DS was little, he'd replay Thomas videos almost verbatim. When he played with his ships, he'd set up specific battles. He got really pissed when I refused to leave the living room set up as Pearl Harbor permanently. He once turned my mother's beach house into the debris field of the Titanic wreck.

DS had an interest in medical stuff when he was little, too. Not for him the plastic Fisher Price kit, BIL turfed him a real BP cuff and stethoscope. He really wanted an otoscope, but I feared for the cats. When DS was about 3 he asked the vet if he was "going to examine the cat's Eustachian tubes". I don't even know if that's standard equipment on a cat.

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