Insight needed from autistic adults

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I need insights into my 4-yr-old's behavior.

He does not seem to be paying attention to a lot of things, BUT he is able to retrieve his stim toys no matter where they are "hidden". Before you go off on me for "hiding" his toys, this was just an experiment to find out if he was as unaware of his surroundings as he portrays himself to be.

I am not going to get all excited and happy - I have had many "false positives" before with his development - but he has been pretty consistent with ferreting out his toys. Does this mean anything at all cognitively ? Should I start feeling less panicked about his lack of awareness of the world around him ? Help ! !

I am not an expert at all so I don't know if I can give you a real opinion. But I think that the fact that he finds his toys where ever they are shows that he definitely has the ability to figure things out. I don't know if that helps you at all but I think he would have to be pretty smart and resourceful to always be able to find them no matter where you hide them. It might be a cool experiment to get him a Fuzzy Tangle JR and see if he can put it back together when it comes apart.

I would love to teach him to find my husband's glasses!

He's in there. He is not just an empty vessel. I wonder if people thought that about me with my 14 year long selective mutism. She doesn't talk so she's probably not that intelligent.

Sorry. I've just had it from hearing that whole 'lights are on, but no ones home' thing from parents who truly believed their child did not have a personality.

When it comes to special interests in autism it is all we care about. I might have been more higher functioning than your son but I also didn't want to learn things I wasn't interested in, but I showed real skill in those subjects I was interested in learning about.

Even now I seem really self-absorbed because all I care about is my interests, mainly TV shows, writing sci-fi, reading comic books and actual books, and taking photos.

He has a hard time paying attention, I would imagine. At age four, there is a lot of development that has yet to take place. It is hard for me to explain except saying that autistic people tend to have a one-track mind. We focus on one thing at a time.

Well of course he is 'in there', also I remember a lot of teachers told my parents I didn't seem to be paying attention in class but I still retained information...sometimes I still missed things, because my mind did wander but I still did well enough on tests and homework. I don't know that I did much aside from play with toys, or play outside especially in tall grass and eat random vegetables out of the garden when I was 4.

Aww, I am sure you have not jinxed anything.

Your son is definitely in there. Like Pensieve said, he is probably not interested in anything but his toys right now. But don't lose hope. I can imagine this is very difficult and frustrating for your family. But I know that even on this forum, like Pensieve shared, there are people who were like your son who are able to express themselves very well now. I know that we have non verbal members here and they are just as eloquent and insightful as the rest of us and sometimes even more so.

You asked that people not "flame" you. Sorry I don't know what that means. I got visions of blowtorches when I read that. But I don't really understand that reference either. But whatever it means, it sounds very unkind and disrespectful and hurtful so I hope no one would want to to that to you here. I can't imagine that anyone would want to.

But I just want to give you a big hug. I can feel how hurt you have been by this.

He's definitely "in there," as many others have already said. He may give the appearance of "not paying attention" because he may be doing what I call "going inside one's head" when he feels overloaded with too much sensory input or is frightened or bored by whatever is going on. I do that quite frequently, but just because I go inside my head doesn't mean I'm not aware of what's going on - I'm still present, just not to an extent to which I would feel too vulnerable.

By the way, if you were thinking of getting a fuzzy Tangle Jr (or any kind of Tangle toy for that matter) for your son, I'd say go for it! I have a fuzzy Tangle toy myself (and a plain one on the way) and I can hardly put it down.

Hismom, Something LtPinkCoupe said in her post made me think about this more. I am wondering if the reason why your son may only visually stim with his toys is that he is so incredibly overloaded with sensory input that that is the only way he can keep from exploding. That is how I feel when I have too much sensory overload. He may possibly be focusing on looking at his toys because that might be all his brain can process with all the overload. Almost all of us on the Spectrum know how that can feel. I wonder how he would respond if he had an environment with as little sensory input as you could provide. Maybe turn off the lights, get sunproof curtains, keep sound and movements at a minimum, let him wear only his underwear in case he might be feeling sensory overload from the fabric of his clothes, try not to touch him, things like that. Maybe try that for a few hours and see if anything changes with him. It would be worth seeing if this could help him. And at least it could give you an idea to see if changes in the sensory environment make a difference for him.

Just because he looks unaware of most things, and isn't interested in the same, doesn't mean he isn't looking at what's going on.

Plus, his toys are probably something he focuses a lot on, so he'll be putting a lot of brain power into what's happening with them.