Is this typical of aspergers?

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I've been listening to the same cd everyday for months now. I will listen to one cd constantly and then move on to another cd that I'll listen to constantly and then another, on and on and on. Movies are the same too; I get a favorite movie and watch it over and over again.

I guess it's just comforting when I can find something I just LOVE to hear or see. It's like I fall in love with it or something, as weird as that sounds.

Obsessive compulsion is not restricted to autistics. I knew an NT guy at uni who watched Star wars 75 times, he could memorise every line of by heart.

I do that, I can do it for hours, listening to the same album over and over or the same song. Im not diagnosed AS but it's been something I've done since I was very young. Someone mentioned star wars? I used to watch the first star wars movie over and over, especially the very begining, In a galaxy far far away...... Loved it, rewind - play, rewind - play. I've never known any of my friends, especially when in high school who could stand to listen to the same song more than three times, I'd often get yelled at for doing that. I think its a soothing/coping mechanism.

In past, yes, now i enjoy in silence. I very often click on facebook homepage.

I played Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication continuously for months; the whole album, not just one song., My son on the other hand, will watch the same episode of The Backyardigans over and over again, even though he has access to the first four seasons. This drives me bonkers, but I love him, so I go along with it. I've just learned to block it out, but catch myself singing the songs, even if the show isn't on. I gets "in there" and then you can't get rid of it!!

Okay, since nothing autistic people do is restricted to autistic people, what does being autistic cause, precisely?

I am pretty sure I read Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass dozens of times because I am autistic and tend to get obsessed with the things I like. This doesn't mean that everyone who reads the same books over and over again is autistic, but it does mean that in my case, this is one of the effects that being autistic has had on me.

Ok I recall you previously stated AS is under the HFA umbrella but then quickly drew distinctions to differentiate AS on the issue of speech delay. An Australian psychologist Tony Attwood has found no difference in IQ, behaviour or cognitions between HFAs and AS as they reach adulthood (this seems common sense given Eisntein and Mozart had speech delays), This will be reflected in DSMV when it's published in 2012 and mark the end of "formal" recognition of AS as a stand alone label.

Your question....What does being Autistic cause?

Lets start by re-inventing the wheel. What is autism? Kanner and Asperger provided labels to patients they saw in the 1940's who exhibited specific traits they deemed they "hold in common". In recent years these collective traits are thought to be under the control of multiple loci (genes). As a result the autism labels that were held to be "absolute" were now found to exist over a spectrum.

I'll pose a question myself:
Can you produce a prototype "autistic person"? what about a prototype "Aspergers"
The answer is no. Because despite the cluster of people conveniently labelled under the autism (or even PDD) umbrella sharing characteristic traits, each one is actually unique in how these traits manifest, like a thumb print.

Think of this like family resemblence. In our immediate family we share specific charecteristics in common like big noses, red hair, freckles or being tall. But if you take 20 members of an extended family the individual traits I described may only manifest in 40% of the group but collectively the shared overlapping characteristics provide a neat way to classify the group as one family. It's the same with autism.

Hand flapping, poor motor skills, speech delay, temper tantrums and a brilliant IQ may all manifest in one individual with autism but another may have a couple of those aforementioned characteristics but in addition have poor eye contact and highly developed speech.

I would listen to the same song for 2-3 hrs straight.

I said that because it is in the diagnostic criteria, not because I believe the lack of a speech delay provides a meaningful distinction from an "autistic" label. I am sorry if I was unclear, I simply meant "lack of a speech delay generally means someone will be diagnosed AS instead of PDD-NOS or HFA," but that otherwise there isn't much of a distinction.

Your response here seems to directly contradict what you said that I responded to, though.



I think you missed my point - this thread is about a trait that seems to be at least somewhat common in autistic people. I've seen it referenced in books and other discussions about it. I may have missed what you were getting at when you said that obsessive compulsion is not restricted to autistics.

The reason I asked the question is that I am a bit frustrated with "Well, NTs do that too!" And I mean, of course they do. And there are a lot of reasons they might do it, but this doesn't mean that a particular thing isn't caused by autism in an autistic person.

Apologies if it came out that way.

It's cool. Thanks.

I wasn't assuming ill will, if that helps. I usually don't assume much at all unless someone's explicit about it.

No worries I think we are generally on the same page then. However, specific behavioral traits in autistic individuals do manifest in NTs due to various disorders. In particular, people with damaged amygdalas (brain limbic system) may often express autistic type behavior. Certain children on the ADHD spectrum are often mistaken as autistic. Having said this, the commonality of a number of these so called "autistic traits" in individuals is what is picked up in the autism or AS scales as indicative of a person who can then be diagnosed as autistic or AS.

This morning i repeat this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JnGBs88 ... dded#at=25

My 5yr old daughter plays Dynamite by Taio Cruz over and over. She's not obsessing about Mr Cruz at all (I don't even think she knows his name), just the song.

I know NTs who do this also

ruveyn

I do that, too. I like listening to the same song over and over and like certain parts of my favorite songs. They sound so beautiful.