Mum needs advice on Asperger & Angry Birds obsession

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I haven't read this book, but this sounds like the system we've come up with for my son: he has to "earn" video game time with whatever chores we assign; minute-for-minute with the caveat that if he is staring off into the distance we will reassign the chore not by time but by work completed. The trick with these kinds of systems is to be SURE you are offering achievable goals; DS will melt down and freak out if it's something he's struggling with and can't complete (even if we realize this and change the goal at the time.) Chores right now include self-care (room cleaning, laundry) and homework (math & handwriting practice, reading chapter books.) None of these chores are difficult for DS, but without motivation he will resist them.

We do have some behavioral things in there, but they are much more mild. Right now, we are working on respectful language. We make sure he understood exactly what language we were trying to replace or eliminate, gave him tools for replacing it or for alternate behaviors, and THEN we take 5 minutes off his game time (he gets either 1/2 hour on summer weekdays or 1 hour on weekends) If we found that he was unable to earn a reasonable amount of game time because the goal was too difficult (for instance, he lost 20 minutes of his half-hour) then we'd change the time to 1-minute increments. The goal is to pointedly illustrate the behavior so he recognizes it enough to change it, not to be punitive. We've learned (and we had the same problem with sticker charts) that we have to be very, very conservative with this type of arrangement.

Hello,

I have a five-year old son who probably has (mild) Asperger syndrome. We are on a waiting list to get him tested by a professional team (in Belgium, waiting lists are +1 year). He's very intelligent, funny and curious, but also has poor social skills and very intense emotions which he has trouble dealing with. I won't elaborate on his persona, because I have a very specific question.

Lately, he developed an obsession with Angry Birds. He did have previous special interests, but none of them became so important and intense. He talks mostly about Angry Birds, he only draws Angry Birds, he continuously hums the song and makes the birdsounds. If I try to change the subject, he turns any conversation topic into something related to Angry Birds. It's come to the point were the other children in his class are starting to ignore him when he goes on and on about it. At home, he can become furiously angry when I tell him it's time to stop playing the game.

I allow him 15 minutes a day to play the game on my iPad, I let him play with the construction game (where you have to build the structure and use actual Angry Birds figurines), and I told him he could draw what he want, but I would like to see some other drawings as well. I also explained to him that some people don't want to talk or hear about Angry Birds all the time.

I understand the world of Angry Birds might comfort him and it could be that there's something about the 'angry' part that attracts him, since he gets angry very fast and very intensely. I decided, therefore, that I might try 'the anger managment for kids using angry birds-technique' because it uses his obsession to teach him about how to deal with anger. I'm not allowed to post the link here, but it's basically using the birds features to explain appropiate / non-appropiated behaviour, like 'don't throw stuff like the white bird throws eggs, but take deep breaths like the inflatable bird'.

But, I don't know how to handle the conversation-thing. Should I tell him to stop talking about it when he's going on and on about it? That seems harsh. But how do I explain 'moderation' to a five-year old? I want to respect him and his interest, but sometimes, it scares me how he gets carried away.