Narrow Range of Interests . . . ?

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I wonder sometimes if I am over-interpreting this one. The criteria makes it a little difficult to understand.

My son--4 1/2--has what I would think qualifies as a narrow range of interests, but they are also what I would sort of call 'normal'. He is basically only interested in Lego, cars, and space. (He is also very interested in his brain/body and how it functions and wants to 'learn more Science'.)
I would say Lego is his main obsession. I call his interests narrow because he isn't really interested in much of anything else. We have some logic puzzles--he'll do those, he'll do craft projects sometimes (as long as it involves tape and no drawing), but only for about 15-20 minutes a day if we can get him to. Pretty much every day it's only Lego--sometimes 5-6 hours of it is spent just building/re-building Lego structures/cars/etc. It's always the same stuff--cars, spaceships, ninja men, but re-created and he's very good at it. He can do it alone for hours. Thing is, Lego is normal for a little boy, though maybe not some 4-year olds? He will only wear his Lego shoes every day, and he wants to wear his Star Wars Lego shirt every day but he can't.

As far as the pretend play--not much. A little with his cars, but actually that follows an exact script every time. And occasionally his play with cars is just 'organizing' them by color, category. His little sister will get him to play 'kitchen', and they have a blast. He has occasionally played making a 'train' or 'house' out of furniture, but that's not often.

What I read most of the time, though, says narrow range of interests is 'unusual' . . . as in a child obsessed with tupperware lids.

The only truly 'unusual' narrow interests he has is the brain, and TED talks. Or listening to the Cars 2 soundtrack over and over and over and over. I think he has 'normal' interests played out in a slightly 'abnormal' way. All that 'official' wording just gets so confusing. Getting ready for our evaluation next week.

What, specifically, is your concern? This does not sound too different from myself as a kid and I am still alive.

I was into Lego, Star Wars, Transformers, astronomy, and dinosaurs. I'm in my late 30's and I still like all these things to a certain extent although of course I developed many other interests over the years.

My view as diagnosed aspie, first year psychology student, and one with great interest in these matters is that it "qualifies".

I think the view that the interest has to be obscure or weird is fundamentally wrong, although it is shared by a lot of clinicians. What someone interprets as weird is subjective and the focus when evaluating should always be the intensity of the interest (how much time the individual uses, if it makes it hard to do other "normal" things etc) and not the topic.

I had narrow interests also in reading encyclopedias and weather particularly hurricanes and tornados.

I personally wouldn't sweat it. Thankfully, my own kids seem to be NT. But they and their mother all have the misfortune of being subject to MY narrow interests. I apologize if I tend to go a bit long, but I've made a life of those things that I've taken an interest in. Personally, I think that encouraging those things in children when they're that little and taking them seriously is a good way to put them in a constructive career path that leads to success in life. As a parent, you're the guide that helps transfer these abilities and interests from one developmental stage to the next.

I would say encourage the narrow interests he DOES have. My little boy has difficulties with Legos, and he's about the same age. If he's building things out of Legos, then that shows he's got some really good fine motor skills, an ability to follow directions, and probably good memory. What your job is eventually going to be is finding ways to transfer those skills to other applications. Today it's Legos. Tomorrow it should be building models. The day after that it should be putting together a train set--a NICE one, and it's an expensive hobby. Later on, he'll need to synthesize those skills into realizing his own creative side, like computer 3D modeling, kinetic sculpture, which could lead to casting/molding, and ultimately metal fabrication. You might have a great architect on your hands, or he might design a new luxury car body--or even design a new kind of car engine... And all because he had a special interest in Legos. You just have to gently guide him from one interest to the next so it's like, "hey, Legos are for babies--NOBODY is doing ___, and how cool would it be if you ___?" I'm exaggerating a little, but hopefully you get my meaning.

For me it was music. I just couldn't get any older people to take me seriously. I'd get a dinky little drum set that sounded like the piece of junk that it was, and I'd end up breaking the heads within a week or two, it would end up in the attic, and I'd never see it again until we took down the Christmas tree. I'd ask for an electric guitar, and I'd get a plastic toy with monofilament strings. When I finally DID get an acoustic guitar, it wasn't set up right and hurt my fingers so much I couldn't learn anything (experienced guitar techs can correct this, but most parents don't know any better and they end up killing their kids' chances of success. I think some parents do this on purpose to make their kids lose interest). I really did NOT want to learn piano, and I only took so the grownups would leave me alone. I quit within 6 months and took up clarinet after that. I ended up being so good at clarinet I made a career of it. I saved some money, bought a bass guitar so I could play in jazz band at summer camp. After getting my master's in music composition, I got a "real job" as a teacher--which didn't go very well but did allow me to save up enough money to buy a few keyboards, a good computer, and proper recording hardware and software. I ended up buying a couple of electric guitars, adjusted and/or customized them, taught myself enough to just get by, and now I play keys/guitar/bass in a rock band and am now on staff at a church playing piano and rehearsing the rhythm section as well as coordinating all instrumentalists and working with the sound tech guys.

I don't ordinarily do very well working with other people. The only success I've had in that area comes from just being the default go-to "point man" for what I do every week from church service to church service. I'm not leadership material, but I'm knowledgeable. I let people know right off what it is I know and do and the extent of that, and you'll just have to overlook my excitability, hyperactivity, and low self-confidence. Pay attention if I stutter or speak in broken, incoherent sentences and do your best to put it all together for me. Certain people trust me, and that's all I need. I've gotten so used to having to do everything myself that it's difficult to assign jobs to other people, let go, and leave the final result to the people I put in charge. But it's just a necessary thing to do, and I've learned to just let go.

The hardest thing for me is my desire to put together a handbell choir at my church, one goal of that being to create a group of people to play my compositions. I can't get parents and other church youth leaders to give me some kids for half an hour a week, and the retired people "don't have time" (WHAT???). So I taught myself and my wife how to ring solo, and I started making up duets for us to play.

Besides that...

I've had an obsession with New Age, ambient, and space music going back to late middle school, and I finally have the proper means to indulge in that kind of thing. I've taken up synth programming and sound design, something I was weak in back in grad school. So I create the sounds I want to use and have been making my own kind of space music to use as background for slide shows of NASA images (I was really deep into astronomy when I was a little kid). I post my work on youtube, and I'm hoping in the next year or two to have enough GOOD material to maybe release an album and start getting some kind of return on my investment!

Meanwhile, my wife and I are talking about the possibilities of doing lecture/recitals with my solo bell work and putting together a TSO-inspired band to tour churches and maybe even purchasing our own set of handbells and tables. I'm looking at taking the church band I've helped put together and using that as a platform for getting some of my original songs out there--maybe even ultimately going into the studio and touring local churches.

And all that after my mom, grandparents, and aunts/uncles stayed on my case about taking piano lessons! My mom HATED me for majoring in music in college, and I reminded her that she end everyone else in our family gave me such a hard time about it I couldn't understand why she was so surprised. You never know where these interests are going to take you. I'd planned on forcing my own little boy to start lessons as early as possible. He's only 4, and as hard as it is for him at his age, it's all he talks about. He's only into his second week and already halfway through his first book. But more than just learning how to play a keyboard instrument, he's a raging storm of emotions and doesn't handle failure well. So part of the lesson focuses on dealing with childhood stress, relaxation, breathing, and focussing on building the necessary skills. There is a lot of play involved, and improvisation and ear-training. After the weekly hour-long lesson, he has supervised hour-long practices every day. Skill-building exercises involve a lot of memorization and endless repetition. I remind him that so much of his life as he gets older is going to be upsetting and frustrating and by learning to relax and endure piano lessons and practice, he'll be able to handle so many things life will throw at him. Not only that, but by concentrating, paying attention to detail, analyzing situations, and practicing new skills, there really isn't anything in life he CAN'T do. It would break my heart if he didn't choose music as a career path. But if I can't have that, I'll be satisfied if he develops high standards for whatever work he does and a strong work ethic.

Regardless of the child and the child's special interests, I think it's important to take the abilities that are there and figure out how to transfer those abilities to the next stage of development. I know a kid who possibly is AS and is obsessed with Rubik's cubes. Once I talked with the kid for a few minutes, I figured out that he's not really as brilliant as everyone thinks he is. He just figured out how to get on youtube and memorize the various ways of manipulating the cube. Beyond that, he's either glued to the internet or the cube, so he's had a lot of practice. That he's extremely good at that seems to impress the adults, which only reinforces the behavior. His hyperfocus on things will allow him to be good at pretty much anything he wants, but the important thing to note is that it's not a natural reasoning ability but rather his ability to remember the information and repeat it. His natural reasoning skills seem actually pretty low by contrast. The same thing happened to me with clarinet. I already knew how to read music--treble and bass clef from learning piano. My real ability was not that I was a natural clarinet player, but rather I was good at transferring the ability to play and apply theory from one instrument to another. This note is HERE on the piano--where is it on clarinet? After that it was repetition and practice. My real desire, however, was not to merely recreate someone else's performance but rather notate the music in my head. So early on I was trying to move from mere repetition to an actual synthesis of the information. It takes a long time. But you help the process the more you encourage your child to stay in his interests and gradually increase the stakes. Today it might be Legos. Tomorrow it might be the next-generation ISS.

It sounds like you are about where I am with my son. He is 4 and has always loved things that are mechanical. But so does his daddy, his grandpas, and his uncles. We come from a long line of mechanics and engineers. I hope your evaluation goes well!! Good luck to you!! !

My son always had narrow range of interest...most were age appropriate!

As a baby till about 2, he ONLY watched 1 tv show. It was music based for children. His first love was music. He then went on to watch ONLY another show. He was always obsessed with electronic toys. Like learning laptops, computers, toys that you pressed and something showed on a screen. BUT he was social with them. He LOVED for you to play them with him. He LOVED to show us his toys and what he could do, or make us do the same with the toys. He tought himself all letters, upper and lower case, all colors, shapes and numbers by 2 1/2 but these toys. Also sounds the letters make and words that start with the letters. And he was able to generalize to other things. Like if I held up a letter he could tell me what it was, the sound it made and words that started with that sound,s o it wasnt just repeating the toy when he was playing it. He KNEW the stuff.

He then went on to obsession about the WIGGLES, he had every DVD, every song they ever made. Watced only wiggles, listened only to wiggles music.
he then went on to Obeseeing about Seussical the Musical, andother broadway shows (ok not typical for a 5yo), then classical music, composers, instruments, songs of classical periods.
now at 6 his latest obsession is Mario and Luigi vidoe game, Sonic the Hedgehog, and the iPad games like Angry Birds and Cut the Rope. He still loves music, plays the piano, etc...but his focus of interest is mainly Mario and Luigi. So, yes that is age appropriate, all the boys his age love the same video games.
I am sure the obsession will change focus soon...I actually HOPE it will change soon, I'd rather him be interested in composers and broadway plays again...lol.

That's basically what I was wondering . . . I'm not worried about him per se. Of course finding some broader interests, playing with his sister more, and not listening to the Cars 2 soundtrack non-stop would be nice, but I'm quite happy he is talented and definitely good at what he does and we are using that to our advantage. We have even used Lego to help teach him ABC and adding.

Yes, AngelRho, I think he may very well have a fine chance at being an architect, an engineer, or a designer. I'm glad you shared about your love of music. Good insight. Yes, my son's obsession with his narrow range of interests make transitions difficult, make his play with others limited, and make it difficult to introduce anything new. But he is smart and I am sure he will end up doing what he loves most. I'm find with that!

Thanks for good thoughts . . .

This is one area I have struggled with.

One article described it thus:

Repetitive activities are a defining characteristic of this disorder. These activities are preferred and engaged in at length. Similarly, the individual often has an intense preoccupation with one or two areas (i.e., weather, history, trains, or dinosaurs). Therefore, the child may engage in repetitive play surrounding his area of special interest, such as, lining up his model car collection on the floor. This preoccupation is abnormal in its focus and/or its intensity. In the area of interest, the individual has an incredible capability to memorize facts. Although overall conversation ability is typically poor, when discussing his area of interest, the individual may possess advanced knowledge on the topic (Treffert,1999). However, when discussing his area of interest, the conversation is usually one sided and the child may not pick-up on social cues regarding the other person’s disinterest or know when to stop speaking.

http://www.ocfoundation.org/EO_Aspergers.aspx

Looking at my 11 DS, he has so many characteristics of AS, but does not seem to have a repetitive area of interest on the surface. There is no one topic he is interested in enough to research/find facts/or read about. He does not seem to move topics to one area. BUT... My son is very interested in building (cardboard and tape, sheets and chairs, legos, bionicles, snap together models. He loves to build. He is not interested in talking about building, but he likes to watch shows about building skyscrapers, how things are made, and building cars and planes. He also loves video games. He does seem to cycle through games, playing one game the same way over and over for weeks, then switching to another. For example he likes Halo, but he plays in one area the same way over and over. He likes the Halo toys, but he is not interested in talking about Halo. He loves zombies (a family shared interest) and will watch zombie movies and play zombie to the point of becoming annoying. So, he seems to have some special areas of interest, but not in the way they ask at the evaluations.

I also wonder about the way our family interprets special interest. I am an information hoarder. I love finding out information, researching, especially the origins of words, psychology, and science. I also love making crafts. My husband is a technologically minded person. He loves working with his hands, wiring, cabling, computers, some programming. He does lots of projects. Last year we all made a 6 foot tall Dobsonian telescope. If the kids have a question, we do searches immediately on the ipad, or have an impromptu science experiment. My daughter loves artistic, crafty stuff, like fashion design, painting, and doing projects. When the kids are interested in something, we often go overboard finding and getting them what they need to pursue their interest. To anyone on the outside, we all appear a little odd. I know many of our extended family members just smile and shake their head when they hear about our latest endeavors.

I think that special areas of interest is probably one of my favorite aspie traits.