Repetitive Questions

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I am writing an article for our magazine about repetitive questioning as it's something we often get asked about - why and how can I manage this.

Any thoughts/anyone want to contribute to the following.....

My little boy asks the same questions over and over again. No amount of answering seems to satisfy him. Why does he do it?

Why don't you ask him.

Good point! the question isn't directed at one child in particular but lots of children. I work with lower functioning children who can ask the questions again and again but their language skills aren't quite up to answering. That's kind of why I posted on here so that individuals with more expressive language ability can perhaps give us some insight into some of the things that baffle us about autism.

It has to do with anxiety and needing to be reassured about something again and again. This is what my mom says. Also I remember enjoying asking people's ages (when I was obsessed with ages )and getting answers, even if I already knew the answers and was asking multiple times. It was fun for some reason.

I used to do this as a kid though I'm high functioning (in theory anyway...).

Last edited by daydreamer84 on 20 Dec 2012, 6:13 pm, edited 2 times in total.

one theory i heard is that people can ask the same question because they already know the answer. this means social interaction suddenly becomes predictable to an extent (that is if you repeatedly give the same answer and not start saying things like "i already told you" "stop asking"). maybe a sense of security of being able to predict how you will behave when otherwise social interaction can be very unpredictable.

it may also be a way to interact with you, i.e. they know you will pay attention to them and answer them when they ask you a particular questions.

here is a bit about it at 7:15 mins: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPR2H4Zd8bI
it says about "pleasure hearing the answer", "zoning in on a specific topic" and also difficulty processing your answer the first time around and so there is a need to ask several times.

hope that helps.

personally i still ask repeated questions when i already know the answer, but not several times within a short period but rather distributed throughout the day or week. partly because i like to confirm things to see whether i understood that right when i asked that the first time or to see whether things have changed. i.e. when are we going to leave to see my grandparents on saturday. i may ask that question once a day because i know people change these things but dont think much about it, but for me (and many other people on the spectrum) it is important to know beforehand when i can expect us to leave. so i need to ask repeatedly to have people confirm this and to make sure that this hasn't changed.

Last edited by dvvv on 20 Dec 2012, 6:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Maybe the sales method of reflective listening: repeat the question so that the person knows he or she has been understood, then answer the question.

Probably help with some cases, certainly not all.

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Sounds like an OCD thing.

And one study found that 50% of rapid-onset OCD in children is caused or worsened by PANDAS.

I do that when I can't pay attention to the answer. My attention keeps being drawn from the outside world into what is going on in my head like a magnet. I usually really want to know the answer but my attention just can't stay with the explanation. I gave myself a rule of not asking the same question more than 3 times to the same person in one day.

i do this because i cant come up with any other social interaction at the time,, its lame and i am learning not to do it.

Sometimes I voice the same words over and over in an attempt to get different/more information -- the reason I don't change the words is because I can't (meaning I can't think of new words to use, but want so much to communicate that I keep trying even when it really doesn't seem to be working).

Additionally, when I was a kid I sometimes asked the same thing over and over because I wanted to see if the answer was going to change...People are inconsistent in their responses to things (including other people). As a child I had absolutely no idea why this was -- I couldn't see the contextual factors that influenced what people said and did (I still can't, most of the time, but back then had no awareness of the fact that context influences behavior).

The inconsistency was sometimes terrifying, and always frustrating. I was generally overwhelmed by the world (sensory overload -- making sense of very little around me in most environments, whether I was shut down or screaming), and I was extremely dependent on people I couldn't understand (in terms of their speech and in terms of their behavior)....so a consistent response provided me with safety and lessened some of the confusion in my interactions with others; A consistent response was a small island of experience where I found I could actually understand the mechanics of an interaction with someone else (i.e. I say this, you respond that...consistency in "that" meant the same or similar words, no drastic changes in tone of voice or nonverbals -- it's those very concrete and immediate parts of an interaction that I understood....not so much the meaning of the words and/or the "why" of how it was said). I would ask the same question over and over in an attempt to establish whether or not I actually had knowledge of the answer (which really meant the interaction, not the answer per se) -- I wanted to get to the point where I was sure the answer wouldn't change, to get to the point where the answer changes, or to get to the point where there were no more changes in the answer and I thought I had become familiar with all the possible responses.

This definitely seems to be case with my son. He wants reassurance that the answer hasn't changed

How should I say this? AukidsMag, this isn't meant to pick on you. It's about a pet peeve that many of us have. I'd just like to ask why this wasn't the first thing you considered. The child can obviously speak. Why wouldn't asking him be the first thing you thought of?

This is one of the most frustrating things I've encountered with professionals working with my own kids. For years some of them would email or call me at home asking me why I thought my kids were behaving a certain way at school. Every time I would ask them, "Have you asked him?" It's unbelievable to me how many times the answer has been "No."

How do they think I figure it out?

Again, I don't mean to pick on you or criticize you. I would just love it if more people in your line of work would do more communicating with those kids that can speak for themselves. Some of the people working with my kids were so focused on methods, scores, and getting my kids to perform, they never bothered to really get to know them and how they think. That's what is needed more.

As nicely as I can manage, I'd like to ask you to ask yourself why simply asking him didn't occur to you first, before asking others. It really should have been the first thing you did. If a child can't speak, or can't articulate why, that's one thing. But the primary source of information about any child should be the child if possible. If you can get any insight from them, that's the most valuable insight you can get.

Sorry if I didn't explain myself, initially. We are writing an article for a magazine for parents of children with autism. The child in question is a "theoretical child" based on queries we get from parents asking how to deal with some of the challenges that come with autism. We ask a panel of professionals, people working in autism and write their responses which can vary greatly. I often post on this forum as it gives an insight that neurotypicals can't have. The child in the query doesn't actually exist to ask, but you have made a very good point in always asking the child first why they do it. I personally work with lots of young people and adults with autism and am always asking them why they do things. I have some insightful friends and others who don't know. The majority of children I work with are on the lower functioning end of the spectrum and don't understand the question "why" to reply to yet ask questions repetitively all the time - which is what my initial response tried to suggest.

Well then, I commend you for asking here first. Sorry about the misunderstanding.

I do this, too!