Obsessions

  Becoming obsessed with things is another major issue children with Autism face.
Sammy will discover or study something and become completely obsessed with it until he knows it like the back of his hand.  

When Sammy was starting to become verbal he had an obsession with his plastic letters and numbers.  He had over 300 of them that he kept closely guarded.  Should one of them become missing he would instantly be able to point it out and he knew exactly which one it was that was missing.  I remember hiding the the yellow 7 one morning after he left for school because I wanted to see if he would know which one it was that was missing.  
I was very selective in which one I choose,  but ultimately decided that since he had 5 more yellow 7's that it may be harder for him to detect.
That afternoon he came home and after having his snack he retreated to his room.  He wasn't in there 2 minutes when he started shrieking for his yellow 7.   
He had memorized all 300+ letters and numbers and knew how many of each he had AND what color they were.


Later he became obsessed with learning about each state and it's capital.  For his 3rd birthday I bought him a talking 50 states puzzle.  Since he was showing interest in geography we encouraged it and helped him along the way.  For 2 weeks he looked at the puzzle.  He never touched it but he studied it for hours at a time.  One night he brings it to me and he dumped it out and in less than 5 minutes he had put it back together.  I had it on video but lost it when our old computer crashed.  
The next day I showed his teachers and therapist and how quickly he did that puzzle and they were astonished.
That's when we started tossing the idea around that Sammy might have a photographic memory.  You show or tell him something once maybe twice and he's got it down.  He remembers EVERYTHING.  He would see a billboard or a sign on the way home from school and he would come home and spell out what he saw with his plastic letters.  I never knew what I might find spelled out with his letters lol.

Right now Sammy has two obsessions.  The first being learning all the countries on the globe,  and studying our solar system.  
Every night we sit together in the recliner and talk about different countries on his globe and he loves it.   Usually I can give him the name of a country and he can point it out fairly quickly.    I was telling him the other night that his aunt and uncle will be going to Rome next month and asked him to show me where Rome was on his globe.   The only clue I gave him was that it was in Europe and he quickly found it.
As far as our solar system goes he can tell you in detail what the planets look like,  he can tell you about dwarf planets and nebula's.  He just has such a desire for learning. 
It's like he becomes fixated on one thing and isn't content until he knows all about it.

Sometimes we have to encourage him to do something else or get him on another topic because once he's obsessed with something it's ALL he talks about.  He would sit in his room and study his globe or solar system flash cards for hours if we would let him.
It's hard sometimes to break him away from something he's consumed with and try to get him to do something completely different.
I wonder if it's something he will ever grow out of or if it will be something he will have to learn to deal with and battle all his life.
I guess ultimately time will tell.