Harness special interests for growth
Posted By Dan Swearingen on July 7, 2009
One of the core values of Autistry Studios is that the students’ interests are the key to their growth and the foundation of our work.
People with ASD can have extremely intense interests — so intense and obsessive that parents and caregivers can feel they need to treat them as perseveration. However, those compelling, obsessive interests are places you can reach and teach your children.
Our son Ian loved Thomas the Tank Engine wooden trains. Shortly after Ian was diagnosed low-functioning Autistic (he was three years old) we went out and bought a set of the wooden Thomas trains.
Everything.
All of it.
Name it — we had it. Probably thousands of dollars worth.
I know I was so upset and frantic to DO SOMETHING that buying felt like doing. We set up the special table in the living room where you’d normally have a coffee table and I glued down a loop of track so he would not get frustrated when the track would move and Ian started to play with it.
Round and round.
Different trains, different cars.
For hours…
… and hours.
Hour after hour.
No eating.
No sleeping.
Had we done the right thing? Should we stop him? How would we take it away? Was he going to starve?
To our immense relief, he finally stopped. The play got calmer. He took his meals sitting on the couch — near the trains. He would watch Thomas videos on the TV nearby and he started acting out the shows with his corresponding toy trains.
Despite being largely non-verbal, Ian started to talk and reenact the conversations between the trains. At night he would set out the trains on the dresser near his bed facing him and in the morning he’d carry them in to the train table and continue their adventures.
Over time Ian played with the trains less but he started to build huge networks with the train track all over the living-room which evolved to being local roads and freeways — not tracks (there are not many real trains around where we live). We bought those trains eleven years ago. Ian is now very verbal and has far outgrown his original diagnosis.
Janet and I are strongly convinced that the right move was to engage Ian’s obsession — not to fear or avoid it but rather enjoy and admire it. We continue this approach today with Ian and with the students we work with.
Lisa Jo Rudy has a similar discussion at her About.com column in Harness Autistic Special Interests for Success
Boing Boing article Do autistic kids especially like Thomas Tank Engine?
Hi Dan and Janet,
Your approach, both with Ian and Autistry Studios, gives all of us hope. Many of us spent years in our early careers trying to redirect these perseverations, resulting in lose-lose power struggles. At UCPNB, we also feel there is great power in supporting our children on the spectrum to use and channel their intense interests, to honor and respect them.
Thank you so much for the great work you are doing. Margaret
Wonderful story, Dan.
Hi Dan,
Loved your story regarding the train. Do you have any suggestions for translating this to late teen (Aspergers) gaming obsession. How do we turn this into a positive?
Hi Diane,
Yeah, I need to do a whole posting about video game addiction. The quick answer:
Overall, video game addiction is a net-negative and the energy and time need to be channeled elsewhere if the person cannot self-regulate.
Obviously that’s the topic sentence and I need to write the rest of the essay but I’ve got this nasty Battlefield 2 level that’s kicking my butt…
On the subject of video games, I’m with Dan at net-negative.
However… I do believe there are some software apps that have proven to be powerful tools for reaching autistic children. Not sure where the whole Living Books family of products has gone since I stopped working with them, but I’d be interested to see if they have evolved and continued to be regarded as highly as they were in the early years. And I wonder if any other publishers have picked up the thread and explored the opportunities inherent in interactive edutainment for helping to reach some of these kids.
Oh, and I must share my ongoing – 10+ year – struggle with FreeCell has left me with a great appreciation for just how detrimental and ultimately destructive that type of addiction can be.