Strong obsession to take things apart (as a child)

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One aspect about my behavior was a strong childhood urge to "tear down" electronic devices, appliances and TVs. This was evident as a small child and continued throughout middle and even parts of High School. Does anyone know if this is a ASD trait, or do others have this type of behavior.

I did it too when I was little but it wasn't a very strong obsession for me. I mean it was not like I was taking apart every electronic device in sight and couldn't be stopped. I would only take things apart that were okay for me to experiment with. I think I stopped doing that by the time I was 10 or so. Then later I became more fixated on hooking up electronics externally and I amassed quite a collection of jacks and plugs and cables to play around with.

I have no idea if that has anything to do with ASD, but I liked to take things apparat too. Not violently just screw them open. Old discarded electronic things like a tape recorder. It was just of curiosity and not a strong obsessing.

I still love to do this

I am still obsessed, it started with mom's iron in my 4 years and I still love it. I disassemble everything, even brand new things, if there are not any warranty stickers. And if I can't disassemble anything, I watch youtube disassembly videos ;c)

BTW, I reassemble everything back, everything works (including that iron), sometimes I even improve it in some ways.

As a child? I'm still doing it (looks left to disassembled Sony TV)

Aged about seven I left my parents with a massive repair bill after I took my Aunt Martha's clock apart and I couldn't get it back together, things have improved now though because I've learned to fix stuff I break.

P.S. www.eevblog.com and www.youtube.com/user/mikeselectricstuff

Just look for the word 'teardown', everything from IR cameras to x-ray machines.

I am watching these too, and I also watch videos about repairing cars, like scottykilmerchannel and ericthecarguy.

Indeed, I was always breaking things when young, usually toys but I did completely wreck a new stereo system when young.

Now it's not so much taking things apart but putting thing back together and repairing things. The trait perhaps endured into my interest of motor vehicle repair before that disappeared but it certainly endures now with computers and common electronics and the ability to explain how to take things apart, repair and seek whom or where to find solutions to problems. Very likely explains my fascination of reverse engineering information systems.

If it is a ASD trait then well... The more I know... I don't see it as an ASD exclusive trait, probably NT's do a lot of this as well...

I did this a lot when I was a kid. I loved taking things apart to see what was inside and figuring out how it worked. When I was young, I'd literally want to take apart anything I could get my hands on and keep and play with the parts I found interesting. Some of my favorite toys were stuff like an old lawn mower engine my dad cleaned up so I could take it apart and put it back together.

I still love taking things apart to see how it's built.

O-GOD!! Was that an obsession for me. tearing apart electronic devices was one of the biggest thing I love to do when I was a kid. In fact, it was a habit that got so bad that my mom stop getting me electronic toys for Christmas. To continue to feed my addiction, I would go dumpster diving just to look for anything electrical I could tear apart. Once I got older. I resorted to residential burglary and even breaking into those small utility shack buildings just to fill my addiction to tear things apart. I would even go as far as getting into telephone boxes on the side of the road as well. By the time I was 16. I finally stop doing that and starting actually fixing things and putting them back together.

I became an electriconic technician working in research n development so that I could continue tearing things apart to see how they work.

i threw things out my window, smashed pennies with hammers and watched toys get crushed by cars for absoulutely no reason, but i did feel an emmense amount of guilt for the toy afterwords