Reading clocks.

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THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!! !! !

This thread has helped me soo much - my 10-y-o was taught how to tell time in 1st, 2nd grade. I never realized he hadn't actually _learned_ to tell time. We moved here and he wanted a clock in his room. So, we put a battery-operated analog clock on the wall.

But, mom, can't I have a clock that works right? (i.e., digital).

So far, he still has a weak concept of time and can't really gauge 10 minutes or an hour, but he wanted a clock and then he couldn't read it.

I thought it was just odd but now I get it - like all other AS things, you either do it really, really well, or don't do it at all. I've noticed it has to be important to him before he'll learn it, it's like he has to own the need to learn.

Now I can scratch "telling time" off my list and just let him go digital. If he ever needs analog, he's smart enough to learn it.

I don't have any problems reading analogue clocks, but I prefer digital for time-telling; I like the preciseness. Much better being able to say, "It's 10.09", rather than, "Just coming up to ten past ten."

I say for time-telling, because I love analogue clocks in an aesthetic way. Especially the skeleton kind where you can see all the mechanics working away. The more things they have that move, the better I like them. I love anything that's mechanical, delicate and intricate like that.

Yeah I like those old mechanical analog clocks where you can see the gears moving as well (so long as they dont tick).

As for stimming the difference is for most people they are simply nervous habits.. for people with AS its something you do nearly constantly whether your nervous or not and its usually more intentional than a habit.

I've always wanted an analog clock where the second hand doesn't do the whole 'start-STOP!, start-STOP!, start-STOP!' routine (ie. the thing that caused it to tick), rather one that has the second hand slowly move at a constant speed around the clock. They had one at the local swimming pool, but it only measured seconds, not hours and/or minutes. Where do you get those kinds?

I absolutely hate analog clocks. I'm 27 and I still have trouble reading them. I also have no tolerance for the "half-past, quarter-til" crap. I want to know the exact time, down to the minute.

Over the summer I took a public speaking course, which was terrible enough, but one night I had to be the time keeper during all the presentations. That was a pain in the ass as people would start their speeches at random times, and I had to use the analog clock on the wall to figure out how long they'd been up there. At the same time, I was supposed to be filling out my evaluations of the speakers just like everyone else in class. I can't multi-task like that... especially with an analog clock. I had a really bad headache by the time I left that night.

I can read both kinds of clocks pretty well. I like digital watches for daily use, since they tend to be more durable, and they have a backlight that helps me see the time in the dark. For fancier occasions, I prefer analog watches, since they have a more dignified look, and often fit better under dress shirts.

I recall I got it stuck in my head somehow that there were 12 hours in a day, and 5 minutes in an hour. No matter how hard my parents and my teachers tried to explain it to me, I was just stuck on that idea and couldn't get around it. When I finally figured out where I was going wrong, that feeling of "oh- I get it now!! !" was priceless, though!

I think that understanding a lot of this sooner could have made things much easier for me through childhood. My parents, bless them, tried as hard as they could to "get through my thick skull" so many things like telling time, or tying shoes, and so on, and they about drove themselves crazy trying; I guess it could have saved them a lot of trouble, too.

Best of luck to you and your family, three2camp

Oh, and I don't know if it helps or not, but when I was your child's age, some of my favorite toys were things like building blocks - I really liked being able to put things together... usually the same thing over and over, with slight variations each time. I also had a habit of taking all my toys (and everything else) apart to see how they work, and what they look like on the inside. It always used to baffle and confuse my poor parents, who really wanted to go out of their way to buy me nice things they couldn't afford when they could, which I would either ignore or take apart.

I saw that I'm not the only one who was fascinated by the inner workings of clocks - sadly, I took a couple of those apart, as well, at about that age, one of them was my parents' alarm clock while my father was at work and my mother was asleep - I remember doing my best to try to re-assemble the alarm clock, and I think I did alright, except for the main spring - I just didn't have the manual dexterity for winding the spring back up and holding it together while putting the other parts in place

Hehe I took my toys apart as well and would do weird things like recombining them into new toys or redesigning it (I rewired my slot cars to go faster.. unfortunately that made them fly right off the track it was a little too fast) whether or not I put it back together depended on how much I liked the toy and when I wanted to reassemble it I dont recall ever having a problem with that. I dont think my parents minded but then again Im fairly certain they were ASD as well so they probably understood my facination.. or didnt care not really sure which

As for learning to tie my shoelaces.. I clearly remember them teaching me to do that.. when I was 8 and for hours.

Dont think I ever did get it right they just slapped shoes with velcro on me and was done with it.

Eventually I just put on shoes and tied them without really knowing how I knew how to do it.. same with riding a bike.. no one taught me just one day I decided to try it, took off and got about halfway down the road before I realized I shouldnt know how to ride one.

Went into Brown Alert, I suppose?

I've always had huge problems with shoelaces. I couldn't tie them at all until I was about 11 and had to have shoes with velcro fastenings. Then I sort of learned how, but used to tie the bow in the wrong way so it somehow ended up upside down. It's actually only in the last couple of years (I'm now 32) I've started tying laces absolutely correctly.

Funny about bikes. My son was 6 and had been riding about a year on this tiny little bike for kids. About 3 days after I took the training wheels off, we went to the park were we had gone many times. This day he wanted to go on another trail (paved for old people) and away we went. I was concentrating on my daughter and her trike when I looked up and he had gotten way out ahead and was heading downhill TOO FAST, with a tight curve coming up, nothing but big trees, thorny brambles and poison nettles to stop him.

He had hit the top of the hill at full speed and I was hoping to have him stop on the hill and then start downhill. He would have been fine, but I got distracted with the younger one and he was headed for a lot of pain. You know how fast your mind works when you see an accident happening and you can't stop it. In my mind, I had him laying in the nettles surrounding the trees he was going to run into, with a busted lip and screaming bloody murder, before he even got to the curve.

There is no way to explain it, but he made the curve and hauled ass down the trail, no problem. There's no way I would have thought his skill level could possibly handle the speed or the curve, but he was unfazed, and the deeply feeling, guilty conscience laden dad lost even more hair. I actually felt my scalp spitting out hair follicles in response to this anxiety.



I taught him to read an analog clock one hand at a time. He's slow and always says he doesn't like these kind of clocks, but he can do it.

I'm interested to know that other people can't stand ticking clocks! Ticking makes me anxious! I always feel time pressure and it makes it worse. I have weird issues with time generally actually....

Omg analog clocks are so evil I couldn’t tell you what time it was if i had to look at one to save my life.

But I always thought this was a Dyslexia trait and not an AS one.

Even worse, those people who buy "fashionable" analog watches that don't even have numbers on them. Sometimes they don't even have markers for where the numbers should be. These make me lose my mind. I cannot understand why anyone would want something so useless.

I can read analog clocks fine but it takes me a few seconds to verbally state the time to myself

having one would drive me up the wall too.

but the binary watch on thinkgeek does appeal to me because i like the concept of it. i just won't be able to read it is all.