An Aspie Obsession: Clackers

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To me at least, clackers are the definitive aspie childhood toy. I played with one of these (although I don't think it was this particular one) to help me enter my own little "autistic world." I moved around holding one of these in my hand as it represented a character in an imaginary world. Sometimes I still do this kind of autistic play--but without a clacker.

I'm not entirely sure I understand the question...

My parents gave me an old cigar tin with a coin in it when I was a baby, it would keep my occupied and happy for hours and hours.
Is that the same?

GA

Clackers were always pretty straightforward to me, but I used to make up some rather intricate backstories to the Lego models I would build. Who knew there was so much political intrigue among those little plastic people...

I play/ed Legos too, and I had some really intricate and full on stories to go with them. I swear it'd make an awesome TV or movies series... hehe

GA

CLACKERS ! !!

these were banned from my primary school, due to their causing broken wrists and all sorts. this was in their first incarnation, when they were made of very heavy plastic (late 1960s).

however... recently, i have had cause to get hysterical whenever i think of them. can't post it here, but i'll tell you if you PM me!

On high-school it was all rage in my time to yoh-yoh. That was about 30 years ago.

You could obtain yoh-yohs with the text "Coca Cola" on them. I think you had to buy these. I can´t remember.

Unfortunately I haven´t my yoh-yoh anymore.

Around my 10th Year of school (commonly called Year 8 here (counting kindagarten and prep)) there was a Yo-Yo hype for a while.
This was back in 1997.

GA

That must have been a second wave.

I also liked diabolo´s.

I had that exact type of clacker, same colors and everything.

I don't understand what you mean when you say you used it to learn imaginative play. I just used it to "clack." I still remember enjoying the weight of it as it swung back and forth.

I used Legos. LOTS of Legos.

NeantHumain, I think I understand what you were saying. I used to use them to escape my own world and drown everytihng else out. They were a helpful assistant in voluntarily "spacing out".

I never used yo-yo's very often, but I liked legos. Does anyone remember POGS? Those were fun.

One toy I really like is the stick thingy with a basket on top. There was a string with a ball tied at the end that'd you try to swing into the basket. It's about the same size as a clacker. I wish I had one to take to school, it'd be more fun than napping.

I got a yo yo once for easter 1990. It even had a small instruction book on it for doing tricks. The first time I tried to do a trick I managed to whack myself in the head.

No. I was a LEGO kid, and everything I built was based upon something I saw (concrete thinking vs imaginitive thinking) so those didn't help my imagination skills at all.

I was parital to LEGO technics becasue I could then build things that actually worked, and of course all of the things I built had to have symetrey in them if possible.

My dad at one point even yelled at me out of frustration, lamenting on the fact that my room was total opposite of the lego models I would build.

Another thing about legos, as a kid, I never developed the dexterity to handle the smaller pieces, so when I was taking something apart, I would often use my teeth to dislodge something. As a result, a lot of my lego pieces are loaded with teeth marks.

I liked both clackers and yo-yos, but they never really furthered my imagination- I just liked being able to DO the yo-yo (I was so short I'd have to stand on something to make it work right when I first started using yo-yos) and the clackers were just fun. Yay for repetitive actions! Yay for repetitive actions! Yay for repetitive actions! ((Sorry))

I did have little fantasy plays with my utensils in restuarants but I'm not sure that's very unusual/aspie/relevant.