Buses and numbers

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My son is almost 7 and will be tested soon for ASD. I believe that I am on the spectrum, and I go back and forth about my son. He sometimes exhibits behaviors of a NT and sometimes ASD.

He has what might be called an obsession with school buses. He has about 7 toy school buses of the same size. He lines them up and has drivers for them exactly as he has at school. He even uses their names. He started writing numbers on the buses. Now he is obsessed by the numbers. He changes the numbers frequently and goes on and on about the bus numbers, telling me he has numbers 18, 12D, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, etc. He will sometimes put kids on the buses and take them to and from school.

He really likes the bus drivers too. One wears suspenders so my child asked for those. He dresses up like the bus drivers, wearing a hat, sunglasses, etc.

To me this seems like obvious ASD behaviors.
Thoughts?

To me it does, yes. I think an NT kid playing this type of pretend play would focus more on different aspects of it. There would be more about the interaction between the children or just going "vroom vroom" with the vehicles as opposed to the details you are describing.

By any chance is your child hyperlexic? My son was always fixated not only on numbers, but letters and logos. You can be hyperlexic and not autistic, but it seems more common amongst autistic people.

My thoughts are OMG, that's adorable. I hope you enjoy him.

He is not hyperlexic. He doesn't possess gifted reading abilities. He is bright though. The numbers thing just started. Like I said he's almost 7. His favorite number is 23 and he goes on about it and tells me this same thing several times a day. He disliked math earlier in the year, but has now picked up on it, and seems to like it. Yesterday he was using math on his own to add and subtract buses. Similarly, when I was a child, I really enjoyed math and was good from an early age.

I do enjoy him. He plays outside in those flinstone type cars and takes the kids to school. It's just that he imitates exactly the bus drivers at school. He talks about their days off, when they have a sub, who drives what bus, talks on the CB. And these things MUST be a certain way. He also freaks out if his little sister goes in his room. He doesn't want her to touch his buses or mess them up. He wants to be a bus driver when he grows up.

When he was smaller he lined up matchbox cars instead of driving them.

Anyways, I'm rambling on. I just want the diagnosis already. They've delayed it several times so it's been irritating to wait. His teachers don't think he has it.

Are there labour laws in your country relating to the age of bus drivers? If not, it sounds like you should try to help him get a job driving buses. 10-4 breaker breaker.

Well, I don't put too much stock in what someone says they want to do at age 6. If he's happy in life, then I will be. But I certainly hope he gets an education and can utilize his talents.

I just woke up and, before leaving bed, I calculated 581x621 in my head (using the so-called Japanese multiplication), got an answer, and got up to check it with my smartphone. Yeap. It was 360,801. I was trained to do multiplication the old-school way. I find it interesting at my age that I still get excited at learning things. I had a linear algebra professor in college that was able to invert a 4x4 matrix of real numbers, to 5 digits of precision, in front of the classroom. I am no way there, but Japanese multiplication definitely gave me a glimpse of what human brain is capable of. And it certainly feels like anybody can do it. All this came about because I recently met a 9-year-old boy that was fixated in the Fibonacci series. He had an "elevator play date" with my son, and afterwards, when the families went to dinner, I gave a paper napkin to the boy, in less than 3 minutes the paper was full with large numbers. So I thought it might be fun for the boy to learn Japanese multiplication. I haven't done the Japanese multiplication recently with my own 7-year-old son, so it's time for him to start more seriously, too.

So I cut some solid copper wires. You can be creative. Not shown in this picture, I also got some thicker wires, to represent the 5s (or 50s, or 500s). My daughter doesn't need the wires, she just need to draw the lines. Actually I am already training her to draw the lines inside her head, and she can do very simple 2-digit multiplications in her head. But for boys, especially the hyperactive ones, I think solid copper electronic wires are definitely more fun. My son certainly likes it a lot more than drawing the lines. It's just more interesting when you can touch and assemble the color lines.

Here is a picture of how you do 14x14=100+40+40+16=196. Once you get used to it all, you can really draw single lines instead of multiple lines (e.g.: one single line to represent 4), and you will be able to do higher-digit multiplications, all inside your head. Sure, nowadays we don't even need computers or calculators to do multiplication: you can simply talk and ask the question to your smartphone. But, finding out symmetries/analogies and using them to solve problems, that is still a crucial skill.

It's not just about math. After I am done teaching my son, I plan for him to give a presentation to his class. That'll train him on the public speech side as well, not mentioning all the benefits on self-confidence and making friends. That's my point: as long as these children are developed in what they are good at, there is nothing to worry. We've been wrong on how to develop these children's verbal and social skills. As long as you develop your children intellectually, verbal and social skills all come later, for free. There is absolutely no need for speech and social classes for young autistic children. All those classes are so foreign, that they end up damaging the self-esteem of these children. My point is: why fit in, when you can stand out?

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As for your son's special interest, like buses, you can always make a poster, and let him do a presentation in class. I've done that when my son was in kindergarten and was interested in the water cycle (sewage, ocean, cloud, rain, etc.). Also right before the this recent President's Day, I made a poster for my son to explain to his class about the elevator inside the Washington Monument. (The cool thing was the elevator on the poster could really move up and down.) These children's special interests are like an anchor or hook, from where you can develop a lot of other skills. I don't have time to whine about my children's autism. I've had fun. Always.