Use of stuffed animals as therapy?

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Hi!

I've been told that Aspies tend to respond well to pets as caring for a pet can help improve empathic skills and so forth.

Well, a few months ago my girlfriend bought me a little stuffed otter. Both of us have been amazed by how much I've been playing with him. I've started hugging him, talking to him, and caring for him. In some cases, I'm actually starting to exhibit what would in children be considered pretend play -- something I never did as a child.

Has anyone ever considered using stuffed animals to improve an Aspie's empathic skills? I would expect they would have several of the same effects as a live animal but without the maintenance costs and the allergies. And best of all, the animal won't die.

I know, the stuffed animals are not alive. However, if another person (a parent or friend) starts manipulating the animal and moving it around, it is almost as if the animal is in fact alive (you have no idea how it is going to behave because you don't know what the friend is going to do with it).

My girlfriend, on the other hand, got a stuffed animal for herself -- and made the animal an Aspie (she's a beaver). Her animal likes to spin around, hide under weighted blankets (read, eye pillows), and so forth. Both of us have started to create songs about are animals.

I figured: if stuffed animals can help me (even as an adult), can they help other people?

Thanks in advance,

ACG

This could work for a few Aspies, probably - but only ones who are not low functioning. I used to have low functioning autism and I used to play with TY beanies a lot - which in a way made me more autistic. Disney films helped my language skills quite a lot. For high functioning - yes, it could just work! And maybe not just stuffed animals - but real animals as well!

This is just a thought. I'm only fourteen, but you could ask an ABA therapist or someone like that to get a more studied and possibly better answer. I hope I helped though,

I remember being very attached to a toy Siamese cat when I was a little girl. Now I have real cats, including two Siamese.

Real animals are harder to maintain, and they die (I don't want to get a pet because I'm afraid I'll feel awful when it dies). Besides, Aspies tend to have more allergies than most people, so cats and dogs could just make things worse.

The basis for this claim?

I have always loved stuffed animals an have a major sensory love for soft furry things in general. Can it help you be more empathic...I don't know but I don't think it can hurt and I don't see any reason that adults shouldn't be allowed to enjoy stuffed animals. My animals were very real to me. I compleatly believed that they were sentient, just unable to talk to me...so I had to try and figure out what they would want...should I move them out of the sun because it might hurt their eyes...I just am not sure if they "created" more empathy or if they just allowed me to practice it. It certainly didn't seem to cross over to my parents. They always said I was selfish but my mom did admit that I would always help little kids, animals and even bugs since I was very young.

I don't think my stuffed animals are real but I still love to touch them and have several around the house...and I'm 44.

I have an extremely cute Harbor Seal that I am very attached to. He makes a tooting sound when squeezed.

i've had Softy since i was two. he's not as important to me as he was even just a few years ago - since then i have another person in my bed so Softy wasn't as necessary - but he was a big deal. i left him at a hotel once and, despite being in my teens, started to cry when i realized i might not find him again.

Yes. Instead of carrying a blanket around as a kid, I always carried a stuffed animal. Should they become lost I would have a panic attack.

I have a few tiny ones that I take with me in my pocket sometimes. I don't really play with big ones anymore, just use them for sleeping with...I feel really uncomfortable if I don't have something to hug while I sleep.

My favorite is Happy the Hippo, a Teenie Beanie Baby...I'm not a Beany Baby collector, I just found him, but he's got a pretty high bean:stuffing ratio, so he's fun to toss around and stuff. I toss him back and forth between hands...good weight, nice "snit snit snit" sound =D

There are probably less distracting stims I could be doing ¬_¬

When you let stuffed animals sit in the sun a while, that's one of my favorite scents.

I've seen several Web sites which indicate that Aspies are more prone to allergies than NT's (some people claim that the AS symptoms themselves could be an allergic reaction of their own). Here's a thread on Aspies for Freedom:

http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/showthread.php?tid=5996

I have negative experiences with this...

I didn't recognise other children and all other adults as real people when I was really little. Like, below 5-6 years old. And at one time I developed a caring for inanimate objects. I wasn't exceptionally nice to them, but when I saw one of the other children play roughly with toys that mimicked living things, I felt that this shouldn't happen. I was perfectly sure that because both things, child and stuffed toy, had eyes, mouths, noses, arms, legs etc. that had the same right to be treated nicely as a person did.

Everybody told me not to do this, not to do that to others. So I was entirely sure a kindergartener had the same feelings as a toy. (=Next to none.) I didn't understand the difference between the two.

Now guess how much that got me in trouble.

I'd say I was the most stupid kid ever, but I certainly wasn't and can't be the only one who had this issue.