A person as a "special interest"?

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My almost 6 yr old spectrum son has developed an interest in one the the teachers at his school. It is not his classroom teacher, but a teacher of another grade down the hall. He talks about her all the time, he now has a little toy doll that he pretends is her, and he wants me to pretend to be her sometimes too. It seems as though this has become a new special interest. Was just wondering if any of you have had this experience with your child?

My kiddo has a special interest in people. He is 6 also.

There is one kid in his class that he gets stuck on sometimes. We had to talk about trying not to follow someone everywhere, and how to notice if someone is done having a convo.

He seems to have a special interest in teachers in general. He has a much easier time talking to adults than kids, so it isn't surprising to me that he is always interested to know where teachers are and what they are doing. It was hard to explain why teachers usually aren't invited to birthday parties!

My son has always been interested in women in general. I guess that is not a bad thing LOL! Anyway he knows the names and faces of many of the teachers at school. He knows what kind of cars they drive (another special interest). Everyday when I pick him up from school, he wants to run up to this particular teacher's window and look in. I and his teachers have explained that it is disrupting her class, so they make it a point to let him see her in the mornings before school starts. I just wonder what it is about this teacher in general that is so interesting to him.

Alot of times when I take him somewhere to play, like a park or something, he is more interested in the mom's than he is in the kids. I have had to explain to him that when 2 moms are having a conversation, we don't just run up to them and say "what's your name"?
It was cute when he was 3, but now that he is getting a little older, we get some strange looks when he just runs up to a group of women and wants to socialize!!

I'm a 24 year old adult and looking back on past mistakes I've had this same issue. For me personally it fills a void. I am in college now but mentioning the most basic Psychology/math/Moby Dick confuses my parents (Who don't even have GEDs) so it's a lot fun talking to the PhD professors people with experience. The professor who assignment Moby Dick obviously knows it like the back of her hand. Also at the college level you have socializing with friends and all of that type of stuff when I just want to be there to get an education and further my career goals not party/drink and other such nonsense. As he gets older he needs to understand the concept of space (a behavior issue I'm learning of at 24). Try to e-mail/call the professor say you want to pop in with questions or make sure you stop in during there office hours. (I know your children are young around 6 and in Elementary but if this behavior stays as it has for me it can get you into trouble. NT's don't understand are Aspie obsession towards them and just expect us to behave like them which ISN'T going to happen. I wish people could see this and accept us for who we are. Hopefully outside of teachers your child can have friends or a love relatioship and become obsessive (in an ok manner) with them instead of teachers all the time.

My "special interests" were typically other people (or animals and insects) but I made them into what I wanted them to be in my head. So it wasnt really the person it was what and who I made them up to be. When I got older I created my own characters with their own names but sort of modeled the way they look on famous people or people I saw or knew and started writing stories. I still do this and keep many of my stories and characters in my head but also write and share with other people. Your son could possibly be doing the same thing. He may find something he likes about his teacher, maybe many things, and has made her into his "friend" or someone who understands him.

Thanks for your posts Zelda and Lilolme--It gives me insight into my son's head. I am thinking this will be a challenge down the line to help him understand that just because he is so interested in someone, that doesn't always mean that they will return the interest. Right now he is just a very cute little boy, and the teacher (it is not his teacher, but another teacher down the hall) has given him some attention, but really all of the teachers at his school think he is adorable. So I think he gets lots of attention from them which is fine with him because he doesn't really find the children all that interesting. This is something I think I just need to be aware of for the future. I don't want him to become known as a stalker or anything like that.

Zelda, I do my best to get him around other children, but no matter where we go or what we do, he always gravitates to the adults in the crowd. He will always greet adults on his own, but will never greet a child spontaneously unless prompted by an adult. It breaks my heart that he does not have any real friends his own age, but I have tried. I have sort of given up because I just feel like the desire for a friend has to come from within him. I try to talk about how Mommy has friends and how nice it is to have friends to do things with and to help you with things, but so far, this hasn't really registered in his mind that maybe he could have some friends too.