Did you line up your toys as a young child?

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Yes - toys in order of size, books by category & then in "series" order.

I don't understand why people see this as strange either - to me it is a perfectly logical thing to do and demonstrates that the child understands concepts such as size and numbers.

It was someting I "just knew" how to do, in presumably the same way as an NT would "just know" how to interact socially.

I did it a lot when I was younger. I used to have a carpet that was designed to look like a little town, and I would play with all of my hotwheelz on it, and when I was done I would put them in the designated places, and if they were ever knocked out of place I would put them back. Same thing with stuff such as crayons. If I was drawing in class or at home with crayons or colored pencils, I would always put them back in order from lightest to darkest. And I still do not go out of the house without a deck of cards, and whenever I use them, I put them back in order according to the way Bicycle does (e.g. spades [A-K] hearts [A-K] clubs [K-A] diamonds [K-A])

When I was little, my brother used to complain when we shared a room, because he collects die-cast NASCAR models, and I would arrange them from smallest to biggest, and he would always try and put them back to the way he liked it. I also would bug my teachers by arranging everything on my desk to the way I liked it before I started to do work, and I would have to stop what I was doing and rearrange it if someone came over and disturbed it.

And I would never leave the classroom without my backpack (I have horrible memories of people kicking my backpack and vandalizing my stuff when I leave)
I used to arrange my books by size, but now I arrange them by author and date published.

One day, my brothers were trying to mess with me, so while I was asleep, they unlocked my door, and rearranged EVERYTHING in my room! I woke up and had a meltdown, needless to say, I now sleep with my TV in front of my door.

Yes. I lined up my dinosaurs and horses in order of size or in order of genus; I lined up my books in order of size, color, or alphabetically by author; I lined up colored pencils by the color spectrum; and I lined up pennies (all the time) in order of date and standing on their edges.
Funny enough, the only toy I can't remember ever lining up is my Lego. I would build with it (mostly boxes, cars and towers), but never to my memory did I line it up.

I used to take cans and line them up in a row and stack them on top of one another. My mom would try to entice me with some different toys, but my father asked her to stop, I remember hearing him say "if she's happy playing with the cans, then what's the big deal? It's not like she's running around tiping things over"

My father never tied to make me into a NT like my mother did, he was more 'if it's not harming myself or anyone else, let me be'

Wow, that was a shock to see you young Danielismyname. I kind of forget that other people were once children too.


Yes I lined toys up. I'd line them up and then destroy the line to start anew. I did so even during the night.

My mother never got upset over this behaviour, although it was very apparent. I always lined up things across my room, from one wall (window) to the other wall (door). At one time I started making two parallel lines.

I didn't have a real order. When I lined up all kinds of toys including plastic baby toys, marbles and cuddly toys, I'd just make sure all groups of items were together. All marbles after each other and just then all cuddly toys of one type after each other and so on.

Last edited by Sora on 30 Apr 2008, 5:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I would occasionally line up all my dolls in a couple of rows and take a family photo of them. I also did this with My little Ponies and Trolls. This wasn't all I did with them, though. I acted out imaginary games with the toys too, just like normal kids, only i prefered to play alone and insisted on the way the play was done if I had a friend over.

Come to think of it, I also slept with all my stuffed animals in a line around the 3 perimeters of my daybed. That was mostly for protection, though. They had a set order which I would sometimes change.

I loved arranging my crayon and marker boxes (and those of my classmates) in rainbow color order. Couldn't stand a disorganized box of art supplies. I offered this as a free service to my classmates. I don't think they cared, but it made me happy.

Now I keep my clothes and books, and cds in rainbow color order (as well as my professional art supplies).

Ha! I still do! The sheer number of rocks on our windowsills is driving my partner a bit mad!

I would play imagination games with my toys, as in, I'd pre-pose the scene, and play the rest in my head, a bit comic-book style. I think I did a bit of both imagination play and lining things up like books, pencils/rulers/drawings.

If I had to tidy my room, everything had to be sat right, even the way the books sat had to be at the same angles and lines found in the rest of the room.

Even today, if you gave me a square coaster I would HAVE to line it up perfectly with the corner of the table I'm placing it on, it couldn't be squint, that would upset/annoy me too much.

I didn't really like toys as a child, it really annoyed my mum apparently because she wanted to buy them all but I didn't want them.

The only toys I liked were my duplo and my toy cooker.
My duplo I didn't organise but my cooker I always had to put away in the right order and in the right place.
I used to have all my Beanie Babies in a special order as well

I have my stuffed animals line up along the top of my couch. :O)

Last edited by CockneyRebel on 30 Apr 2008, 10:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

i never really was one to play with toys... does constantly arranging my desktop icons a VERY Certain way count?

i go nuts of someone moves a single icon on my computer.

I don't remember exactly, but I always put my kids' toys in order. I'll even spend a relaxing evening putting all their lego into blocks of all the same shape and size by colour.

Wonder why we do this?

Order?

It's common for individuals with ASDs to get upset when the order they've created is slightly moved/changed [no matter what it is in relation to]; perhaps it's a way to try to control the unpredictable environment.

Creating the familiar in a "logical" pattern is molding the chaos to one's own routine which they can understand.

Prior to the battle or race the soldiers or cars would, of course, be lined up. Once the battle, or race, started then it got chaotic and things would be all over.

I also use to make 3 walls of stuffed animals around me in bed (for protection). I loved sorting through my rocks by mineral and color and still do. I think it was "artistic" in some ways. I would make little still life/shrines out of different bits of my "finds" and collections and still have them all over my house.

When I get the most frustrated is when soething fits into more then one group or I'm not sure if I should put the tape in
"the drawer of things that stick things to other things"...staples, paper clips, glues,etc...or in "making collages drawer"...magazines, cut up backgrounds,cut up figures, scissors,etc. My house is a clutter of indecission with small pockets of order.

I used to always line up my toys :D not just in lines, but other basic shapes as well. I was very organized in some areas.

I used to line up my collections of toy cars.