Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school How intense when your kids is obsessive with sth

As I know, many gifted kids have sth that they are "obsessive" with, what is your kids obessive with and how intense is it?

My DS3 is obsessive with numbesr and shapes, he write numbers all day long and everything he talks is related to number, for example,

1. When we have a walk, he always point to the trees and ask me how many leaves of each tree.

2. When he play with lego house, he put all the lego figures asides, and the numbers are bathing, cooking, sleeping, eating, driving, swinging, sliding, etc. One day when I was cooking, I heard what he said, " 9 is sleeping, 7 is driving, he is going to supermarket to buy avocado for 20 to eat, 100 is cooking #51 rices for 30 to eat..." so after a while, i went out and said to him, "30 and 51 already finished their dinner and it is time for xxx (lego figures) to have dinner!" (i am trying to ask him to play with the figures rather than number) but here is his answer "mom, 51 is the rice..." +_+!!!

3. He write his number all days long, design dot-to-dot by himself and ask me to play with (he draws them randomly), sometimes when he was overwhelm, it seems that he write numbers to calm down himself.
Draw digital clock with Date and Temperature.

4. Other than numbers, he likes to play color code and lego, especially loves reading lego manual, as there are lots of numbers and x1, x2.

Actually why I ask this questions is that he went through some developmental evaluations, psychologist said that they cannot diagnosed him of autism as he is good in social interactions with adults, but they cannot rude it out either, as he is not speaking english yet, so they don know how he use of language, and they also worry that his interactions are all related to numbers. In additions, he does fall to the "restricted behavior" criteria of autism.

After going to preschool for 2 weeks, his teacher tell me that they try hard to shift his activities to sth else not maths, but fail.

So I am wondering how intense is the obsessive interested of other kids, will your LO refuse to learn other stuff other than their interest?

My son does like to learn reading at home, but doesn't interest to learn it in school.

Thanks.

I disagree with this description. The gifted/autistic (one can be both) can be highly creative in the manipulation of information, while still showing restricted interests.

That the OP's DS won't engage with the preschool's activities may be a red flag for autism. I'd start right away trying to increase flexibility by using the area of interest as a springboard into other activities.

Given that there are many articles and lists of developmental milestones and many lists of common characteristics for autism, and not all lists are consistent, some things which stood out in your post and would tend not to indicate autism include:
1. pointing to the trees (non-verbal communication supportive of verbal communication)
2. imaginative play
3. asking you to play with him (using intense interests as social currency)
Two links which may be of interest: postive traits of autism, recognizing ASD.

Have you seen the SENG youtube video on The Misdiagnosis of Gifted Children? There is also a related book which you may be familiar with, on Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses.

You may wish to become familiar now with some of the support resources which may play a future role with advocacy for your child, such as the website wrightslaw, the book From Emotions to Advocacy, and National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD).

What language(s) does he speak? Being an English language learner might partially explain his interest in learning reading at home but not at school. At three years old, what type of reading instruction is given at school?

I can't say that I've observed this in either one of my kids. DS has various "fascinations" and tends to ramble on. So he might be talking about a certain video game and then a couple minutes later he will be talking about space stations. Then later on, it might be the video game again. But he doesn't seem "obsessed" in the way that you're talking. DD will get wrapped up in something and seem to hyperfocus while she's doing it, but then not think about it at all when she's not doing it. I think what you're describing might be normal if it's just a short phase, and he is interested in other things as well...for instance he is currently learning the numbers and highly interested, and the topic will come up several times per day. But then he will quickly move onto a different interest. However when you say he will write numbers all day and it seems to calm him down...that seems like a huge red flag. Have you looked into OCD?

I am going to ditto DeeDee.

My 6 year old has ASD, diagnosed aspie before DSM 5 came out.

You need to work on developmentally appropriate attending to tasks. Some sort of ABA or intensive behaviour program as soon as possible. No matter if you have a ASD diagnosis or not.

Are you in the states? If so did you go through Early steps yet?
You say he interacts with adults, mine did to. Does he make age appropriate eye contact? Does he respond to his name when called?
Does he get upset if you disturb his interests? Does he have age appropriate conversations in the language that he does speak with adults? Or is it all about his interests?


If the right amount of behaviour therapy can get him to a point of attending to tasks, speaking and listening at an appropriate level, there is a chance that his interests could develop into a gifted type level. Kids with ASD or traits of ASD who turn out to be gifted need to be taught, step by step how to sit down, make eye contact at some level, attend to a teachers requests, be able to show age appropriate work by reading, writing, answering questions.

I have full journals of psychics type work and equations from when my son was 4-5 years old. None of it helps teachers teach him what he needs to learn at school. How to get along with kids and adults. How not to be afraid of toilets flushing, how not to be upset that I turned left and not right in the car because he already mapped out a route in his head when I said we where going to the mall, something he did between ages of 3-4.
It can all be used as a way into the mind, social stories as he reads, why it is great to know numbers, but we also have to sit down at circle time, do what the teacher asks, share, etc.

I recently shared his journals, at this point they are helpful for a glimpse into how his mind works. He is only 6. So we have come a long way!

Do the numbers your son describes stay constant? For example, is 51 *always* rice? Is 100 always a boy & 17 a girl? Do the numbers have "personalities"?

If not, then it could be an ASD-type behavior, an OCD behavior, or even just a particularly strong gifted quirk. It's hard to tell, but good that your pedi is aware & is watching to see how he develops.

If the numbers are personified & those "personalities" remain consistent, then there is only one place I have heard of that - a documentary on a little girl named Joni Schofield, who has childhood-onset schizophrenia. Please do NOT let that alarm you - I have no reason to suspect that diagnosis for your son & am certainly no expert. It just popped into my mind as I read your description & I wanted to point it out in case it is an area of interest. The phenomenon is described below:

"One of the primary symptoms of schizophrenia is the perception and personalization of connections and patterns that do not exist in reality. People tend to make sense of reality and perceive patterns through filters, one of which is numbers. They're the building blocks of pattern recognition and they are also ubiquitous. It's pretty easy to see patterns in numbers that are not there, even if your brain does not have a predisposition towards doing so."

The entire year our DS was 2 was exactly like this, but first it was letters until he mastered them, then is was anatomy, space, etc. He started numbers at 3 and counts everything right now. Just tonight, he typed out the alphabet in order and then in patterns on the laptop before bed and then counted the letters for fun, he said.
Letters became characters to him. He actually drew them as cartoons and gave them personalities and names, they had families, the upper case being parents and the lower case being children, of course.
He explored letters beyond anything I could imagine, he would sort them by the angles of their lines toward 3 when there was nothing left to explore. When he was 18 months to 2.5, I was concerned that he might be on the spectrum, but it was ruled out (several times). He's slowing down on obsessive sessions or they just seem less intense. But, he is very emotionally intense, still doesn't like transitions and is calmed by his academic interests. We talk about it now and he is starting to understand and be able to talk through transitions.
All that being said, continue to talk to the doctor about your concerns. In our case, the doctor and child psychiatrist both said that he had so many traits that would easily sound like ASD but he is very social and wants to share his experiences with others. He wants to talk WITH everyone about his interests not at them, he draws people in and assumes everyone is as excited about these things as he is.

My experience with my son is different. He seems to absorb academic information by osmosis but, despite an advanced self-taught understanding of explicit literacy and numeracy, these have never been his passion. Case in point: he is a decently fluent speller and decoder--has been for over a year--but is not motivated to read independently yet.

Where I see his focus linger is on more global, applied activities, like learning about the components in a combustion engine--and building a working model-- or pretending to take his imaginary puppy on a cave spelunking expedition and explaining the geology of caves. The persistence of topics like construction, vehicles, and tools--which emerged as favourite interests around 8 months-- is undeniable. His interest in the topics has broadened and become much more nuanced.

I think that there is a lot of disagreement about what is ASD and what is not. In my son's case, his preschool teacher raised red flags but the psychologist said his quirks were related to being gifted but immature. He was recently reassessed at age 8 by a neuropsych who is affiliated with the local autism center and she said he was on the spectrum. He has always had friends, he can do imaginative play, he makes eye contact, he tells jokes, etc., but he also has had obsessions with various topics for months (although in a deep way), has sensory issues, he lined up toys as a toddler, he hand flaps when anxious, and is quirky in other ways. If I had to do it again, I probably would have pursued social skills therapy after the first assessment regardless of the lack of diagnosis. If your gut feeling is that he has some issues, I'd try to address the problems sooner than later. We chose to wait and see which probably made things more difficult for all of us in the long run. I don't think that it would have hurt him to have entered a program earlier to learn how to self-regulate emotions better, to work on teamwork skills, etc., even without an ASD diagnosis.

I also want to add that some of my son's ASD characteristics make him a more interesting person. He is much more passionate about things than his sibs. When he wants to learn about something, he goes full force. We have some very interesting conversations because he thinks in a very unconventional way. His PG sister does not operate the same way, so it's not just because he has a high IQ and is a DYS. I just want to say this because I feel like a lot of people are afraid of ASD, but there are a lot of significant figures in history with ASD. I can see that some of his traits will help him out in the long-term if they are nurtured appropriately.