Hello all, I'm new here. My DS is 3.5 and I think he's likely to be gifted though we haven't done any formal testing. His most unusual gift is his memory and obsession with cars, which combined into an ability to identify the make and model of the vast majority of cars in parking lots and our neighborhood shortly after he turned 2 (based on the headlights and taillights as far as we can tell). He remembers the cars that all our relatives and friends drive. He's still obsessed with cars and we read library books about cars, tell bedtime stories about cars, use hot wheel cars while we paint and play play dough and of course play LOTS of games that involve cars. The other day he even gave me a decent explanation of how batteries and spark plugs in an engine work to cause combustion and make cylinders move in an engine. In terms of strict academics, he also learned to identify his shapes and colors pretty early and knows his letters and letter sounds and is sorta trying to sound out words, and can count pretty well and understand a few simple math concepts also. His verbal skills have always been ahead of the curve according to checklists and he remembers things from a very long time ago with good detail. He has a mild secondary interest in rocks and planets.

He currently attends preschool 2 days a week and seems to be enjoying it and having a good time. His teacher picked up on the car thing on day 1 (hard to miss) and has lately been telling me how smart he is and that he has an engineer's mind. I think school has been great for him and he's been expanding the type of imaginary games he wants to play in the past few weeks which is wonderful and a welcome change for me (Daddy loves cars too and has fed the current obsession but I'm over playing parking lot and junkyard every day). He also mostly says nice things about his friends at school.

My social concerns are actually more when he's not in school. I've noticed that at playdates and social outings when there is a group of children, he seems to drift to the outside of the group and doesn't really want to join in or stay with the other kids. He doesn't have conflict with anyone, he just doesn't really seem to need or want to stay plugged in with the group. In one on one playdates he seems to enjoy the other kid's company a lot more.

I guess my biggest question is whether anyone else had a kid who was similar and whether the lack of socializing in a group is a sign of something I should be concerned about or maybe just a sign that he's a bit of an introvert and independent thinker. I'm also wondering if anyone else's children sustained an obsession for a long long time and how that's played out in the future (we're at about 1.5 years of sustained interest in the cars).

Absolutely yes to the socializing and introverted angle. My DD found crowds a lot harder than one on one and so do I. She still prefers, at thirteen, small groups or one on one. It has a lot to do with being reserved and the additional energy required to break into an established group. Even at daycare she would hang on the periphery and survey the scene until she knew what was going on, every morning despite daily attendance for two years!

As a reassurance she has friends and is not actually shy...she just does what she feels comfortable doing. As she is getting older she is more able to manage group situations. Drama classes, gymnastics, martial arts have all been engaging activities for her where she can either do her own thing alongside others, the latter two, or move outside her comfort zone in a happy way (drama).

As to the obsession thing.....we have had serial interests rather than one prolonged one. I actually think the interest is good as it is driving him to develop skills so he can better learn about the cars which helps him have a reason to learn, be it colours or numbers or letters. It's great to know if you leave books lying around to do with cars he will progress his reading, he can learn science in the context of cars. Maybe he will grow up to design or develop cars, or maybe he won't but it's fine, apart from driving you a bit nuts. That's always a bit of a drag!

I saw a great science kit a while ago showing kids about car motors....see if you can find something like that.

Let's see...sibling, sibling's kid, other sibling's kid, spouse...ranging from at least MG to PG.

All of them do fine with one or two people, but are observers in larger groups. And two of them specifically had the car thing, one for at least six years, and the other branching out to all vehicles (neither one ASD, either).

My younger brother was obsessed with planes from a young age. My father would take us to air shows and he could identify virtually any WWII plane by the age of 7 (most from the ground while they were in flight). He got his pilot's license before his driver's license and went on to become an engineer. He got married and has a good job, has friends, is not weird. No one has ever suggested he was on the autism spectrum (and he is not). He still flies (but also likes rowing and running).

In short, I would accept this as one of his quirks and not worry too much about it.

Hello and welcome. I had to respond to your post because it really struck chord with me; my DS9 was exactly like this when he was your DS's age. In fact, it was around 2 when he started showing us his incredible memory with cars. He also could recognize model and make of cars from lights and he could also recognize them if just the little bit of the back end of the car was visible (rest of car blocked by car parked next to it). I have to tell you, whilst he has serial obsessions to this day, this one he can't seem to get past. We had a set of approximately 30 to 40 thomas the tank engine books sent to us from the UK and he memorized the stories for the entire set when he was a preschooler. He spends of his free time creating new products for his made up companies and also draws vehicles, then draws the detail of the lights in boxes on the same page. So he is clearly obsessed with car lights! This is how we discovered he could read; by reading and remember make and models.
He also had very little interest in playing with other kids his age in preschool but he wasn't quirky enough to stand out; just always played by himself, and wasn't interested in interacting with them as much as wandering around and discovering the world. We worried about that a lot when he was younger. He is still very introverted today and usually has 1 to 2 close friends but so much more sociable, once he gets to know them, i.e. in a class setting. He is well liked by his classmates.

However, DS used to line up cars a lot and used to love watching fans. He was finally diagnosed with aspergers 2 years ago but I started questioning the diagnosis when I discovered he and his little sister are highly gifted. If he is, he is definitely on the mild end of the spectrum, but the results on the WISC IV did indicate that perhaps he does has ASD. He scored highly on the verbal subsets except for comprehension and average on processing speed. He is also highly disorganized. These are apparently results similar to ASD kids. The tester did not believe he is on the spectrum though.

I wouldn't worry too much about the social piece as you might find once he starts school he really starts to blossom in that area like my son did. And doesn't sound like your DS has any stimming behaviors.

ETA: One thing I always thought was interesting about my DS is that he never shares his intense obsessions (other than minecraft) with his friends. He told me he didn't want them to think he was weird.

Take a look at How Cars Work by Tom Newton on Amazon. They also have internal combustion engines to build when you feel up to that with your DS.

Wow slammie, yes, our little guys sound very similar! Your description fits exactly how DS can identify the cars and his first drawings lately are already of cars, ha. He also seems to refrain from talking cars with his friends. I've heard him give it a try: 'Hey there's a Honda Odyssey!' but then the other kid will say 'No, that's a van!' and he quits trying.

He doesn't stim but he does line up cars around the house quite a bit and he sometimes flaps his hands with he's excited. He also has always shown very very little stranger anxiety and never had any issues at drop off at any sort of daycare/preschool situation. He does love to explore new environments and always seems to gravitate to the edge of where he's allowed to check things out before he returns to the activity at hand. None of it really feels that unusual though to be honest. He mostly just seems like a happy, confident little boy who is very curious about the world. DH thinks I'm nuts for worrying about anything.

I think maybe my main worries are not so much ASD but whether I need to look out for him feeling isolated from his peers and need to pursue getting him into some sort of specialized environment or something like that. I may be projecting a bit though - when I was young we moved a lot and I was always the smartest kid in my class and felt like I was a 'weirdo' (probably a lot more than I was actually perceived).

May I ask why you decided to have your son tested for Asperger's? Or did it come up in some other context?

Thanks aeh, this is exactly what I wanted to hear!

Thanks so much SouthLake, I'm sure DH and DS will be going to car shows for many years in the future. Thank you so much for replying.

Thanks ndw, that was very helpful. DS is still so little as well that he and his friends don't strictly socialize yet in these big groups as far as I can tell. Well, they do but it's mostly running around yelling. The car thing has definitely been a good scaffold for learning, and I'm glad it's an easy one to go into more detail with. It's also pretty great on road trips since he entertains himself looking out the window.

DS had similar traits and a few others that had me thinking ASD when he was younger but now that he's 8 he doesn't fit that at all. He is still introverted and will never go up and play with kids he doesn't know. He still keeps to himself at the park or if he's thrown in with a group he doesn't know well. However when he's around kids he's known for years he is fine. He is definitely better 1 on 1 rather than in a group (and as an introvert myself I totally get that). We have deliberately tried a few team sports since I know this helped me as a kid. It gave me kids that loved something and gave us something in common to talk about. It was easier than completely unstructured play for me.

His dinosaur obsession has lasted for years (and he still will read more if we can find stuff that he doesn't already know). It got easier when he started to read and I wasn't his main source of info/entertainment. Now my main role is to find cool library books to pile beside his bed.

I had to respond because my DS9 had the car obsession too! I would say it lasted about 1.5 years. We would buy him car catalogs at the airport to keep him occupied on flights. Walking through a parking lot with him was hilarious, he'd shout out the make and model of each car we passed.

He then moved on into dinosaurs and is currently obsessed with Minecraft and any kind of rocks and minerals. And the Periodic Table.

At that age (3.5) we were a little worried for him socially, because he did not seem to relate to other kids, but now that he is older he really seems to integrate well into groups. He will always be introverted (as are his mom and dad) and needs to decompress after school for a while, and prefers smaller groups to large ones, but he also seems to have plenty of friends at school and little difficulty adjusting to new social circumstances. It seems like he has different "sets" of friends...ie, friends he plays sports with and acts goofy with, and friends he shares deeper interests with.

Thanks chay! Team sports is a good idea and something that would probably help him in other ways. The funny thing about not him not wanting to join into these playgroups is that he's NOT shy at all. He joins in with random kids at McDonald's, never cries when he goes to preschool, says hi to tons of people in the grocery store, etc etc. It is a LOT of kids at these events though, usually about 15 kids.

Hi Saritz! Yup, we read car magazines as well. He especially likes looking at the alloy wheel advertisements for whatever reason. Thanks for sharing how your son does socially, I think (hope) my son may end up similar. I've been surprised at how fearless he is as a small child because DH and I are pretty introverted and I'm a nervous nelly type. I think as the kids his age become more verbal things might sort themselves out a bit. I'm still planning to check in with his preschool teacher but I'm feeling a lot better after reading everyone's response.

So I met with DS's preschool teacher this morning just to check in with her about the social stuff. She said that he needs to be redirected back to the group activities A LOT which I guess is kinda what I see too. I don't think it has much to do with the activities being too easy because it's also games and things like that (and I've seen the same sort of thing).

She did say that he pals up with one little boy to play trucks on the playground but that he doesn't want to join in with the other two boys that are more interested in Power Rangers (he has no idea what those are so I'm not super shocked). So I think it's more that he likes to share that activity than that he's playing exclusively with the boy (he does mention this boy a lot). She did say that she didn't think it was a concern and she isn't worried about him. Also confirmed that he's a smarty-pants and said that sometimes she asks him to stop answering things in class so that other kids have time to answer but that others she can tell he's the only one thinking through the answer to a question.

So I'm not 100% sure what to do at this point but it seems like just watching and seeing how things go is probably a good idea. I may see if I can arrange some playdates with other kids one our school directory comes out. I do really like his teacher and his school and I think it's a good place for him right now.

Just jumping on the "us, too" band wagon. DS is car-obsessed (especially supercars and hypercars and oh my yes there is a difference). He cannot believe that I don't know how the specs differ on the Ferrari 458 versus the Ferrari 458 Speciale. Never mind the Bugatti Veyron versus the Bugatti Veyron Supersport.

Over his almost-7 years, he has done this sort of deep dive with various thing (rocks/minerals, deep sea creatures, etc.). But cars really have some staying power. In general, wrt social stuff, he has minimal patience with kids who don't understand how very, very important [insert topic of interest] is. But he always manages to find his little tribe, and with cars it's easier than with some topics.

When he was 3.5, one pre-school teacher suggested ASD. He's been assessed a couple times since then, and ASD is not his issue. But I'm glad we ruled it out.

For fun - here are a few more great resources:

1. Top Gear magazine. We get it at Barnes and Noble. At the back it lists specs and stats on many, many cars and includes various "Top 5" lists that are always fun as trivia games that Mom never wins.

2. The Top Gear Show (available on Amazon Prime) is also great, great fun but can have a little bawdy humor sometimes. Edit to add - we've only watched the British version. I don't know if the US version is any fun. You can also watch snippets on youtube to get a flavor of it. DS is "The Stig" for Halloween this year.

3. Dupont Exotic Cars Buyer's Guide. Hours of shopping fun!! http://gear.dupontregistry.com/p/546/exotic-car-buyers-guide-2015

4. Race Car - Why Things DON'T Work - this is a great book for learning how cars work because the book follows the efforts to diagnose and fix why a race car is NOT working. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1410925552/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

5. Name that Supercar on-line game. It works by flipping over one block of the car picture at a time and you get max points by naming with fewer blocks flipped. DS kills this game every time by flipping the headlight or tail light pictures. Sound familiar? http://www.kongregate.com/games/allpremiumgames/name-that-supercar

6. Go racing - we are headed to a huge race next weekend. There is tons to see and learn, and the drivers and mechanics LOVE talking to kids about their passion. At a historic race event recently, my son got to sit in a multi-million dollar car and the grownups all around were groaning with envy!

Enjoy the car obsession - it's great for learning math, science, engineering, currency conversion (Top Gear is all in pounds), design, you name it!

Does he want to join in but don't know how? Or he prefers to be playing alone?

I am an introvert. Even as an adult, it's overwhelming to me when I am with someone who talks nonstop.

It’s nothing wrong being an introvert, but I would try to guide your DS if he wants to join in.

You might look into a social skills group for him. Your child would work on the skills needed to enter a group, strike up a conversation, invite himself into a game, etc.

Thanks suevv! I'm loving reading about all these other car-obsessed little boys.

DH and I actually LOVE Top Gear - I even enjoy it and I'm not that interested cars. DS likes some segments and not others - he's a little young for some of the dialog I think and he seems to prefer car repair shows. Thanks for the other resource ideas though, we'll be adding them to our lists for sure! I do agree that the car obsession is a great one for building on in terms of adding other skills.

I think he sometimes wants to join in but can't keep up with the rules but a lot of time he just wants to play with whatever he's interested in and just doesn't care if they join him or not. DH and I are both quite introverted and I've always been surprised at how social DS really is. Edited to add that I think he has a bit to him that's like my husband: he's pretty secure in his own mind, even if others aren't making the same decision. Appealing to peer pressure has never really been a consistent motivator for him.

Yesterday was interesting because he was trying to join into a playdate that was happening (among some other families) at a museum we were visiting but then he was upset that a girl was trying to take away the toy he was playing with. I can't tell if I coached him correctly or not. I'm also not sure if I should be telling him to leave these groups alone or not. Sometimes I feel like I'm a little too socially awkward to be guiding him in these matters, ha.

Flyingmouse I think that's a great idea but I'm not sure we can implement it just yet - do you know if these sorts of things are usually a health insurance type of thing? I looked up a few online and they seem to start at 4 years old instead of 3 but I'll keep looking a bit. DH is unfortunately transitioning between jobs at the moment and our health insurance is probably going to be expensive and not so great for a bit.

Thinking about it, we really don't do that many playdates with other kids, which is my fault. I think that for now I'm going to concentrate on setting up playdates and 'getting him out there' a bit more and see how that plays out and maybe add a sports team as well if we can swing it.

My DS is the most independent thinker I know I recall a day when we had friends over - he was about 4 yrs old - and the other 5 kids played in a group while DS pushed his bubble mower around the yard by himself. From very, very early on he had an obsession with figuring out how things work. While other 1 & 2 year olds would play with toys, he'd try and take them apart and "test" them.

At school he was initially very independent as well, choosing to follow his interests rather than peers. He was even the subject of a story in the school newsletter about leadership - the principal wrote about how he was engaged in a solo activity at recess and other kids decided to follow him and join in.

Now he's 10 and has come out of his shell and is very social, but for awhile was so independent at school that the staff though he had autism.

FWIW I was always the same way. Outside of school I was more engaged with others, but at school I became more socially withdrawn.

As for long term obsessions... has anyone heard of Thomas the Tank Engine? Holy smokes. He lived and breathed Thomas from about 3-6 yrs old (or thereabouts - I can't recall exactly, other than to say he's long since outgrown it).

My son was 3:6 and had no friends at his preschool. We accelerated him to the 4s room based on a WPPSI-IV test and one day was best buds with 3 5 year olds (the 4s played with the 5s on the playground and at opening and closing).

So maybe his "peers" are not really his peers. He may have a lot more in common with 5 or 6 year olds.

Finding peers is never easy. Some kids are luckier than others and click early, some move in and out of relationships, some take a long time to find someone they feel comfortable with. As our DD developed more interests it became easier to find commonalities with others, which was good, but they still weren't peers.

Based on my own experience, I found peers later in life and I still only have a few. They are distributed all over the world but we stay in touch.

I just observed this today with my DS 3.5 at his preschool. He has always been a talker and enjoys conversing with adults. I always assumed he was an extrovert and I mean a serious social butterfly because he always wanted to interact with every human he came across since he was an infant. But now, at preschool everytime I get a chance to observe (today they had an indoor "pumpkin patch" the parents came in to take pictures and we walked into their normal activities), the group is in one place and he's off to the side doing something else. My heart kinda sinks when I see this. I have seen him try to physically pull other children into his interested activity but my husband and I and the teachers have heavily worked with him on not physically forcing kids to play with him and so now what I am seeing is resign. He's decided he'll do it alone. I haven't processed whether or not this is a good thing, I know it hurts a little for me to see, yet I also know this is just snapshot of his development and may not indicate any real ongoing trait necessarily.

Oh I wanted to add that after talking with his child psychologist (which is really like my psychologist because most of the time he it out of the room while I'm discussing his issues/needs with her and then I cry. LOL), she suggested that we start him in sports and keep preschool at 2 days a week-because he needs something non-academic to bond with other children, something that levels the playing field. I love this idea and that's my next goal. I just posted in the Tests and Assessments forum a post about how we just got approved to have him evaluated by the public school system if you would like to read about that.

readermom123, I sent you a PM.

Ha CCN, yes that's the same sort of dynamic I see sometimes, except he's an explorer more than a tinkerer most of the time. My nephews were Thomas crazy and DS knows a few of them too.

cmguy I've wondered about this a bit. At his old MDO he actually happened to be in with a bunch of kids that were about a year older than him and he did talk about those kids a lot and seemed to play with a larger variety of them. It's hard to tell though, because the structure of the class is also a bit different. I feel like his current teacher has a better 'read' on him and is a bit more involved but maybe he did enjoy playing with the other kids a bit more. Then again, he'd known them for several months by the time we left.

ndw, yeah, I've always had a hard time forming good friendships so I'm feeling a bit out of my depth. Really, college was when I finally found a larger group of people I felt I had a lot in common with. DH also doesn't strike up many friendships but he doesn't seem to care as much. We'll muddle through I guess. We're going to the zoo with a friend today and next week we'll see one of our mutual friends that he really likes (a boy who's 4 and probably gifted himself).

GGG, thanks for your reply! Yeah, it's so hard to know what's a real 'thing' or not, especially at 3.5. They're all still so young and trying to figure things out. I haven't seen DS try to get physical with kids but I used to get after him if he was being overly confrontational and I almost wonder if I scared him away from figuring out how to react to other kids. I think he knows what 'not' to do but is a little flummoxed sometimes about how to actually get along and play. Plus no one wants to discuss Audis.

I'm glad to hear your counselor recommended the sports teams and thought it would be helpful. DS's best interactions with other kids are definitely usually on playgrounds.

Just wanted to post a quick update: In the past 2 weeks I've been trying really hard to arrange some playdates for DS and I think it's been great for him. When he's one on one with his little buddies he seems to be doing great and having a good time. We also went to a big Halloween party and he had fun and we've gotten to visit with a few of his preschool buddies outside of school time (at Halloween activities) and that was good to because it seems to be expanding his social circle inside the school a bit. We've also been working on the phrase 'stay with group' in terms of staying with our class or staying with me and his friends at the zoo.