About Michelle Fattig Expertise I can answer questions about educational testing, autism, Asperger's Syndrome, ADD/ADHD, Special Education, IEP, Learning Disabilities, Sensory Processing, Parent Advocacy, Response to Intervention, living and parenting with disabilities, parent rights in special education, school psychology, and more. I cannot provide a medical diagnosis.
Experience I am a school psychologist, medical technologist, author of the Annie Books series: Experience Aspeger's Syndrome and Attention Deficits Through the Eyes of a Child, RTI facilitator, ILCD facilitator, parent advocate, presenter, and researcher. My children and I have Asperger's, ADD/ADHD, and learning disabilities.
Organizations National Association of School Pyschologists, American Medical Technologists, Learning Disabilities Association of Nebraska
Education/Credentials Ed.S. in School Psychology, doctoral studies in SPED Law, SPED Systems Enhancement Leadership, and doctoral candidate Education Leadership. MT(AMT) and MLT(ASCP)
Question QUESTION: I have a question about pretend play. It seems that everywhere you read it is a criteria for a diagnosis and seems to be very important, yet there seem to be many children that do have pretend play and are still on the spectrum? Would a child that initiates his own storylines while involving another person ex. pretending to drive someone to Dunkin Donuts in a small life size car, run out of gas, get there and then pretend to be the server, ask what kind of donuts you want ect., and then tell you they need to bring you home because they have to go to work,) ever happen with a kid on the spectrum? This kid is also not even 3 years old and plays pretend games constantly. He actually hates games of repitition like board games ex. Candyland or memory cards. He has enough other "spectrum" qualities but this pretend play thing is very conflicting. Please advise!
ANSWER: Pretend play is a tricky one, because so many of us look like we are doing pretend play, when in actuality we are devising an elaborate constructed (almost scripted) scenario. Looking to research in the UK by Baron-Cohen, it is described as the ultimate organized play, where we construct, organize, and plan. If another person wants to "play" with us, and they disrupt or alter our configurations or rules, it can cause discomfort or resistance. You can play by our rules, or not at all. As a child, I would decorate, coordinate, and set up my dolls or doll house, but never pretend played in the neurotypical fashion. If you are interested, a place to start reading or researching (google or other search engine) folk psychology versus folk physics, in the US it would be considered intuitive psychology versus intuitive physics. Those of us on the spectrum tend to be more gived in the intuitive/folk physics versus intuitive/folk psychology. We can figure things out and manipulate things better than we can figure out people or social play. Please let me know if you have any other questions, or would like more information.
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QUESTION: I think what this kid is doing is more than organizing and planning. He has alot of symbolic play ex. pretending a jumprope is a snake or a humidifier is a rollercoaster for his plastic dolls or a washcloth is a seal jumping around in the bath. I was just wondering if there are kids that can genuinly pretend play on the spectrum?
ANSWER: Interesting. Can he involve others actively? Meaning, if they join him, do they have to play by his rules or does he prefer to play alone or with adults? Children with Asperger’s Syndrome may have difficulty with too little or too much eye contact, an odd quality to speech cadence or volume, flat voice or expression, self-centered conversation patterns, obsessions or perseveration about topics or interests, writing difficulties, awkward or clumsy gait, lack of common sense, limited abstract thought process (very literal or concrete), overly particular about routines or rules, sensory dysfunction, and self-stimulating behaviors, if these behaviors are present, an evaluation may be helpful in order to determine what kinds of supports may be needed. A cognitive "trick" to help determine his ability to test the part of the theory of ToM "seeing lends to knowing" (Baron-Cohen) Show him a doll or stuffed toy, touch one to a box and have the other pretend to look in the box. Ask him “Which one knows what’s in the box?” "Normal" children, the researcher suggests, will correctly judge who knows what's in the box. Children on the spectrum will potentially fail because of the difficulty understanding another's perspective. Obvious this will not answer the question of is he or isn't he, but the results would be interesting! Let me know if I can provide any more information.
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QUESTION: Yes, he can involve others in pretend play. If someone else initiates a storyline he can go back and forth for 15 minutes with spontaneous dialog appropriate to the scenario. This includes some of his own ideas with the other person's ideas. In this case he's very flexible. He does pretend play with other children. It's a little less sophisticated though than with an adult b/c most kids his age (34 months) are not at that level of pretend play. They will usually pretend they are animals, or the dogs owners etc, house things like that. He is not literal or concrete at all and loves to joke, including dirty jokes he knows will get a reaction. To go through your list ..eye contact ok, speech cadence and volume prefect, has expression, conversations NOT self-centered, Obsessions a BIG YES that play a bit into his own routines, Yes to self-stims. The problem, if there is one, with the pretend play is that he gets lost in it. It is the preferred activity whether with a partner or alone. As I mentioned it's the predictable games, tasks that he does not like to participate in. A game of catching little fish on hooks "Gone Fishin", I think it's called, gets dumped in a filled up sink so they can swim in "the river". All toys with rules are not played in a conventional way. They are all turned into pretend games.
I did the test on him and he failed it. He did not seem to understand the question. When I asked "who knows or which one knows what is in the box", he would come up with his own guess of what was in the box. When I asked "who saw what was in the box" he got it right. I don't think he has made the connection between seeing and knowing. I found some studies on it though and it says between 3.5-4 years old. Could he still be too young to fully process that language. That is a very interesting task because it goes back to the pointing and showing gestures. Why would they show you if you already knew? Anyway, thanks for that info. It was very interesting. If you have any other ideas about him let me know.
Answer I would love to be able to conduct an evaluation on this child, he sounds very interesting. The "mixed bag" little ones are my favorite to work with in our schools! This is a website that you may find helpful/interesting. http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/aspergers.htm
Thank you for your questions, and let me know if you would like any more information. I will be posting a preschool/Early Childhood questionnaire and information on our website www.anniebooks.com later today, which can help to identify children who may be on the spectrum or in need of further evaluation. Best wishes.
