INSIDE PERSPECTIVES of AS & Neurodiversity

 

 

 

PLAY

 

  

   A TV-program about how different animals play made me aware of how each species’ games were amazingly appropriate for developing the particular skills they would need as adults.

Predators usually played ‘catch-&-kill’, whereas prey animals played ‘run-as-fast-as-you-can.’ Chimps played ‘swing-from-branch-to-branch’ while mountain goats ‘balance-on-precarious-precipice.’ Males of all species played ‘fight-and-compete-with-other-males’ and ‘mount-anything-that-moves.’ The program also made analogies with how human children play.

 

   Perhaps those who play differently as children might also be playing perfectly appropriately for their particular type?

 

 

BORN TO BE A SPECIALIST?

 

   A child who shows signs of having special interests and insatiable hunger for knowledge out of the ordinary before school age, and less interest in common child games, I think should be encouraged to pursue those interests, as there is no knowing if this person will one day become the next Mendeleyev, Edison, van Gogh, Spielberg or Bill Gates, or someone who just follows their interests for the fun of it. Either way, having special interests may still be useful either directly or indirectly (e.g. in developing one’s concentration, coordination and perseverance).

 

   “Hans Asperger believed that it takes a dash of autism to be good in the scientific fields and the artistic fields (Klin, Volkmar, & Sparrow, 2000). Science and art both require a creative sense, perhaps even a sense of wonderment about the world around us that autism seems to supply.

 

   “I don't know how many of you did this but I drove my parents crazy as a child because I always wanted to know more (my favorite question was ‘why’?). The more I watch other people the more I realize that most people quit asking questions way too early!  We may drive others and ourselves a little crazy at times but this can be viewed as a bonus for us!  We discover worlds of understanding through questioning.”

- Rachele, adult Aspie from USA   

 

   “Katie is hungry for knowledge (ravenous even!) and asks questions well beyond her years. For example, she wants me to explain photosynthesis to her!  I can already see I'm going to have to become very well versed in whatever she chooses for an interest, since explaining what I remember from elementary school is not satisfying her (which reminds me, I've got to do some research)!”

- Wendi, adult Aspie from USA; about one of her 4½-year-old spectrum triplets.

 

   “i took a radio and clock apart when i was 3. i always have been fascinated with clocks and time. i think the main reason was how the sounds came from them and i wanted to know how that happened and how i could make other things provide the same effect for me so i took it apart to explore how i could maybe do that. i think me father was surprised i actually put them back together and they still worked.”

- Martka, female adolescent HFA from Scotland

 

   At 4, I wanted to know why electricity was invisible, why water was see-through, what the brain and the heart looked like and what death is. I was disappointed that my parents didn’t seem to know, or wouldn’t tell me. The only thing my mom would share was the mystery of how babies were made, which I found most satisfying - and shocked my grandma and my poor cousin who had been told that “God put him down on a cloud” and got a hysterical fit when I said he had been in his mother’s belly.

- Inger, site-author

 

   “I was much for ‘investigating’ things. I was obsessed with learning things by rote, it could be books, songs or films for example. Sometimes I would correct mom when she read to me, not because I could read but because I knew the book in my head since I had heard it several times before.”

- ‘Missbutterfly’, adult Aspie from Sweden

 

   To use odd things for toys, taking things apart and examining the details, collecting things or organising toye or other things rather than playing make-believe games with social content, indicates being more form oriented than people oriented. This is perfectly normal for specialist & artist personality types, and the skills one develops playing this way may be of much use later in life.

 

   “i never played with dolls. it sort of just always seemed boring to me. i liked things that do stuff or required putting together or taking apart. i liked puzzles and games requiring logical thought. And lots of science stuff. i never had a dolls house but i made buildings out of furniture. it was never to play with and i got mad when me parents would take them apart.

 

   “also i got in trouble once for creating a lab and hatchery in me baths. i just wanted to learn how to create things. Actually, the shrimp that hatched stayed for days because i still was not sure that i had managed to do everything perfectly right, did not smell so good either! :-P Me father did not say too much because he is a scientist, but me mum sure had issues with that one.”

- Martka, female adolescent HFA from Scotland

 

   “My earliest memory is of carving a truck out of a piece of wood when I was three years of age. Specifically, I learned just how much more difficult it is to cut across the grain of the wood than with the grain. I will never forget this lesson! I can still feel the feelings, see the images, and relive my frustrations.....”

- ‘Rainbow’, adult Aspie wood-craftsman from USA

 

   My own intense interest in colour, design, electricity, language, architecture, reading and sorting things when I was a child, has been tremendously useful to me in my personal, creative and professional life (as a colour consultant, lighting expert and antiques dealer among other things). I’m glad I didn’t waste any time on appalling baby dolls (since I never wanted to have children anyway).

 

   Most of my time I spent thinking of and experimenting with colour; painting, testing various colour combinations (e.g. mixing an endless variety of subtle hues from yellow, cyan, magenta & white Play-Doh and making little cats out of them), making mental notes of which colour schemes match this or that hair colour and testing it on my Barbie dolls (though I had no idea what to do with them after I had dressed them up). Had I not been allowed to pursue this interest, I might not have developed my unique sense of colour and harmony to such a refined degree.

- Inger, site-author

 

   “When I was small I had at school a desk with a drawer. I made a small house inside with furniture and beds and carpets and all that and the thing was making it out of all typical school materials. I became a really nice house. My teacher found out about it and she thought it was too pretty to throw away. So I just had to promise her not playing with the house all the time. But I was not playing with it: I was building it” : )

- Lida, adult Aspie from the Netherlands

 

   “I had dolls and played with them, copying the other girls who lived on my block.  But I didn't have the imagination to play with them and make up original stories - it was all scripted.  I didn't play with the dolls out of choice, but just because I was trying to fit in.

 

   “I did used to set up my stuffed animals like a classroom and read to them though. I used to pick a topic and research in my encyclopedia and copy every word into a notebook for REAL fun lol.  The topics changed, I guess my interest was really the research part (and it still is fun for me!).”

- Wendi, adult Aspie from USA

 

   "The playing house one yeah, like social children just seem to be able to spontaneously play with one another and all know the unspoken rules, I on the other had would make dolls houses, design them, but not really play with them - it was the design and creation, order and structure that to me was important. Other children I just found messy and unpredictable and would mess up my structure and order. I think the way I played (or did not play) house was I was already creating environments that I had total control over - to me it was a solitary thing - if you added people to the equation, they just messed it up" :-)

- Julie, adult Aspie from England

 

   “On my first birthday I got a teddy-bear. When I opened the package and saw it I first looked puzzled. Then I squeezed it a little and lifted it and looked thoughtful. It was big, hard and light. Then I lit up and went off with the teddy-bear. Pushed it beside the front door and stood on it and could then just reach the door handle. Then I pulled it into the kitchen and stood on it to reach the top drawer with knives in it. And I was so happy. They had understood what I needed! My mom also looked happy so I felt that we had some sort of contact. That she had anticipated my needs. That she had shared my mental world.”

- Stefan, adult Aspie from Sweden

 

 

INTROVERSION - extroversion

 

·  Many ASD children prefer to play alone due to being naturally