Imagination and autistic kids

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Hi,

My 5yo daughter was only diagnosed with autism a month ago. One of the assessment tools used was the ADOS and that's what confirmed the autism. The pediatrician said that her play was abnormal and she didn't show much imagination in the play.

So I was wondering (seeing as I'm still learning all about ASD) does lack of imaginary play in autistic children = lack of imagination in general?

My daughter does seem to have an imagination, but a rather quirky one. For example, she'll pick up random objects and say that they look like something else. For example, she once picked up a really long french fry and said it looked like "Rapunzel". Today she had a piece of pyramid-shaped jello and she said it looked like "trousers", then she looked at it from another angle and said it looked like "an ice cream cone". I thought it was pretty cool that she was able to visualise other things from these objects.

Also, when she's stimming, she tends to race all over the room yelling and making different sound effects. It sounds like she's actually imagining scenarios like a game of chasey or a sport. Or she'll make up a scenario, like pretending that she and a bunch of classmates are running away from a monster.

So how come she's not imaginary when it comes to toys but she shows vivid imagination in other ways? Is that typical with kids on the spectrum?

For starters, Welcome to Wrong Planet

I have met many people, and I have yet to meet anybody who doesn't have an imagination. Just because the imagination doesn't present in normal ways doesn't mean that it isn't there. So, yeah your child has an imagination, just not a normal one.

Also, if you are looking for more info about autism, I am also looking for some help. Take a look at my thread here:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt128944.html

I think kids on the spectrum have really GREAT imaginations, it's just that, as Tracker said, they aren't your typical imagination.

Think about it -- all the really great comedians, scientists, musicians, artists, etc. think outside the box, which is exactly what we want and expect in our great thinkers. That's what your daughter is doing. Hooray!

My son was/is imaginative. When he was younger we were always buying him small figures of characters that he like (scooby, toy story, star wars, disney movies, etc). He would play with them forever. I'm not sure how much was acting out scenes and how much was making up new scenes but there was definitely some of both. He also used to come up with creative uses for household objects. For example, a jar opener was turned into a magnifying glass...and my favorite, I caught him using tampons as chop-sticks in his pretend chinese restaurant.

Jess

When I played, it was very imaginative, and I didn't usually use props (i.e. toys).

I hear that a lot from teachers and psychologists for my son and after trying several times to explain to them that he is not interested in their imaginative plays I gave up. It is very unimaginative to be unable to recognize other ways to be imaginative beside standard fairies and magic and all the social play. Honestly I expected more from people that work with special needs children.
Luckily both his father and I are inventors so we know for sure that "the other type of imagination" is possible so I don't stress that much now.

The ADOS test is just looking for (among other things) "typical" (whatever that is) imaginative play in children. It doesn't mean that your child, or anyone's child, isn't imaginative. The test is a measuring stick to see where kids are on the spectrum it is not a condemnation from the teacher/psychologist/psychiatrist. My son is similar to the OP's child. The ADOS test indicated the same thing about him, that he didn't engage in "typical imaginative play scenarios" with the tester. However, I know and his teacher knows (and the psychologist who administered the test admittted) that he has a brilliant imagination. For him a block is never a block, its a space ship or a race car (he's 4) or a snowboard or the curved blocks make the letter C, the utensils, espcially the big spoons and tongs, are all manner of different objects to him. I think the truth is that the connections our AS kids make (the french fry is Rapunzel!) are so far above the level of their peers that some people fail to see the absolute genius. Whenever I get a chance I try to write down some of the amazing things my son thinks of and says!

chaos - I love the one about the tampons, reminds me to keep them out of reach!

My middle son, who is 5, loves to "play." His idea of playing is pacing and doing scenes of a movie that he has watched. He also makes up new words. Like hopsula means queen. He loves to make up new words. Also he loves making me the queen and he is the knight and he has to save me from the stinky monster, aka daddy. I know that all of these ideas are coming from movies but he puts a twist on them.

I agree that imaginary play in Autistic people (children or adults) may present a little differently, but the notion that Autism = No Imagination is simply a myth.

As a kid, I was not particularly comfortable with role-playing fantasy interacting with other kids, but I did plenty of it on my own. I made a career out of creating and playing imaginary characters, in a closed room alone. If it weren't for obsessions with creative writing, drawing and making zany noises, I'd have starved.

My almost 9 year old is the most imaginative child we have. He is the kid that loved dress up, but wasn't obssessed with it. He was the one that made up the fantasies for all his sibs. Today, he wrote and illustrated a comic strip for his younger sisters. The kid he plays with at recess is into Harry Potter and makes up games about it and he follows whatever game this kid makes up. However, the school's example of him being too literal and unimaginative was that the speech therapist pretended to eat play doh and his comment was "Play Doh is fun to play with, but not to eat." Seems like an age appropriate response for a 8 1/2 year old to me. I think he probably thought she was out of her mind to be pretending to eat play doh at her age.

Agreed with the others. It is about the type of "imagination" they are looking at (the ability and desire to pretend to be mom, for example) and not a broader lack of all types of imagination.

I was always complented on my imagination as soon as I learned to talk. The myth that people with autism don't have any imagination is an outdated sterotype from the days when "autism" was just the severe Kanner's type. I'm not saying the most severe low functning autistic dosen't have any imagination, it's just that since they had no way to communicate people assumed they didn't. Austistics seem to have better imaginations than most NT's.

Thanks for clearing up the confusion, everyone. The part of the DSM-IV that talks about lack of imaginary play was confusing me; perhaps the criteria should say "atypical play compared to peers of the same age" instead. My daughter does show creativity in her play even if it's not the typical sort of play for 5-year-old girls.

When she's racing around acting out her scenarios, I think she looks like she's having the most awesome time ever! I had a brilliant imagination when I was a child; sadly a lot of it was lost as I became an adult, but I remember how much fun it was to have an active imagination.

My son has a great imagination, although he does not play very much with toys. Last night he was pretending that a round slice of zuccini at dinner was a piece of pie. Then when he was in the bathtub, he was pretending like he was riding in a Volkswagon Bug. (Bugs are one of his special interests) Anyway, he does pretend he is going places and he loves to make up crazy words to make us laugh. But, he has never really played with toys except for toy cars. That is it. So I believe that children with ASD do have an imagination, but they just maybe can't act it out with other children? My son also always wants me to pretend that I am our cat and that I am scratching him or rubbing him with my tail. Most of this pretend play was delayed though. It didn't start until he was about 3.5 or 4. I think typical kids start it around age 2.

When I played as a young child, I played differently from others, and often did it in less of a group or alone, but I was far from unimaginative - the very opposite, in fact; I spent the majority of my time as a kid in my own little world!

My 10 year old son has never done imaginative play (unless they involved his special interest- like when he was little all his toys were replicas of machines- he had hoovers, telephones, even a little washing machine and an iron). He will actually play imaginary games with his sister (7), but they revolve around his interest (computers and gadgets), and he must have a physical "job" to be doing (he has cardboard laptops and iphones) and sometimes she will even come up with a sort of a script for him! It doesn't last long before he loses interest. He also doesn't read novels, perhaps because of this. His imagination involves him taking apart computers and developing software and building his own computer- is that creative- I don't know what ist is- but we think it is fantastic!! and we can't wait to see what he does with his life. School is a huge issue- they aren't teaching him anything he is interested in, or anything that will be of value to him, at least not yet! And they don't know how to serve him ( he has an IEP and has been diagnosed with AS, ADHD, major depression and minor anxiety) because he doesn't fit into any of their boxes (they say he is too "aware" of himself to be an Aspie). How do you write "build self confidence and teach something out of the box" into an IEP??