Talking

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BG- My son, 11 has Asperger's.


I have been sick with some kind of virus for over a week so we have been watching way more TV that we usually do and he has a horrible habit of doing a running commentary during shows or movies. I'm not sure he is stressed or what but fifteen minutes can't go by without him him saying something. To top it off it isn't usually something short, but something long and occasionally drawn out.

Obviously this is completely rude and it needs to be stopped. Any suggestion?

It is entirely possible I could go insane from this.

Have you asked him about it? I think it can be hard for AS kids to hold in their thoughts. My son seems to talk out loud more than most kids his age; he seems to need to to think and process some things.

I would try hand signals to let him know when he is being disruptive. That gives him control over the ending the speech. It works well for other pragmatic speech issues; may as well try it.

If he can't control it is it possible for you both to watch in separate rooms?

To be honest, he probably considers your lack of interest in conversation to be rude. Imagine if you went up to your friend and started talking about things. If your friend said, "ugh, I can't believe your talking again, dont you ever just shut up?", wouldnt you consider that to be rude. What is the point of gaining information (watching TV) if you arent going to think about it, and process it. He is just trying to process the information, and also talk with you about it. If anything, that is a compliment because he considers you somebody worth talking with and discussing things.

What is and is not rude is a matter of perspective.

That being said, if you dont want to have this discussion with him, the best way to prevent him would be to tell him directly that you arent interested. Something like, "Sorry son, but I am not watching TV to learn or think about anything, I am just watching it to fill time and entertain myself. As such, I do not wish to have a conversation about the program."

15 mins is not that bad. if he can be quiet for 15 mins and than you can talk to him for 5 that would be a fair solution don't you think.

Wow! You make it sound like I never talk to my kid and I don't think he is important. That is really hurtful.

We talk all the time. I just a break sometimes.

I watch tv only to comment it. It's our family sport, is basically impossible in my house to see tv without 2-3 family member commenting (sometime in a rude way) what people on tv are doing. Many times we simply put "mute" on tv to avoid tv overtake our "commenting"

So I think it's a matter of habit. It's rude what you consider that.

We got the cable box with the DVR on it. That way we can hit pause when my daughter wants to talk about the show and we don't miss anything. And for every hour of TV, about 15 minutes of it is commercials anyway....so we hit pause for talking breaks, and can then forward through the commercials. It works out well for everyone. Her talking can be rambling and uninteresting at times...usually it's just a summary of what she's seen, but even at that, I would rate it as more entertaining than the commercials so mom and dad are happy, and she's happy that we are interested in her summary of the show:)

I have a 10 nearly 11yr old son, he does this to. It used to drive me crazy until I realized even though his conversations didn't sound like questions, thats exactly what he was doing. He uses this time to make sense of every thing he is seeing, its actually an eye opener, things i thought he understood he was so far off base with. It can be very annoying though. I tried telling my boy to wait until the commercials, but that doesn't work either. They need to make sense of what they are seeing at the time. By waiting my son would lose his whole train of thought.

I didn't read that in the posts above this one. I think they just wanted to provide a possible, different perspective. If you know WHY he talks during the shows, it might be easier to solve it.

My son finds it very hard to stop talking. I very rarely watch television, and when I do I am concentrating on the programme and I can't do that if someone is talking to me, or making a noise.

Actually, now I think about it, I've only watched television twice with my son about. Both times I told him in advance that there was something I wanted to watch, when it was on and how long it would last for. He really struggled not to talk, and when he wasn't talking he was between me and the television banging toys together!

After a while I told him that if he wanted to play noisily he would have to play in his room until the programme was finished, which he did.

I used to pray my son would begin to speak....and now I pray he would learn what "quiet" is. My son has severe autism, and his talking isn't conversational or even observational talking, it's mostly a mix of echolalia and jargon dysphasia, and sound effects. All day long. And sometimes even when he is asleep. So I can empathise with the OP, when you can't even negotiate some quiet....

I tried today, he can understand some things if you phrase them in certain ritual ways that they also use at school. So it was "working for a biscuit by being quiet for 5 minutes.." Still a fail, as he repeated the phrase over and over, then attempted to haggle 5 minutes for one biscuit down to three minutes for two biscuits......by which time the local weather report which i needed to hear had finished. Oh yes, and just try telling the tax people not to phone because he will scream throughout the duration of a phonecall and bite you....


I have AS too, so I have a hard time dealing with the wall of noise. And it's at the point where it's almost impossible to get a babysitter, because it is constant and even "normal" folks can't tolerate much of it. He seems to have been particularly bad with it recently, hopefully it will diminish soon. That, or I may have to puncture my eardrums

Oh my son does this too! I empathise with the OP completely but I must admit I read that he couldn't be quiet for more than 15 mins and I thought " 15 mins? that's great" lol. My son did not say one word for his entire first two years, he is definitely making up for it now.

Seriously though I just gave up on tv. Now I watch dvd series that I can at least pause and get the news and weather off the net. Funnily enough when I watch Friends with him he thinks I am rude if I don't talk to him during the show. He says we are spending time together and we should talk as well. Fair point I guess. It's odd though because he hates noise and I can only listen to my music when he is at school.