Asperger's syndorme and fixation on sunken ships...any moms / teachers seen it in thier children?

Question

My older brother has aspergers syndrome, or high functioning autism. When i was younger, my older brother had an obsession with sunken ships, we have at least half a dozen models and a dozen books on various ships. Lately I've found out that other boys (its always boys) with aspergers have had the same fixation. I saw something in a documentary about the connection between the two, but i was a long time a go and it was only a few seconds.

does anybody have an opinion on this? or any information? I'm really interesting in the subject as I'm planning on becoming a counselor specializing in autism.

Answer 1

My video might help http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbgUjmeC-...

Answer 2

I work with Autistic children and have seen many fixations (presidents, game shows, pop stars with dark hair, native americans, etc), but never any to do with sunken ships. Sorry.

Answer 3

Asperger's Children or kids with HFA can find anything that interests them and become experts on the subject.  We're Americans, but last year my HFA son memorized the kings and queens of England.  I forget why that interested him at the time, but it did and he sucked up all the information he could about them.  These days it's baseball, chess and possibly the planets now since he is learning about them in school.  Oh yes, right now he is obsessed with Google Maps on the computer.   Next year, who knows what his interest will be?

Answer 4

Many people with Asperger's do tend to have an affinity for detail. They tend to "specialise" on a certain thing and become obsessed by its detail.

It's been suggested that many train spotters have Asperger's, as well as many people working in science fields (especially Computers and IT). Silicon Valley has a higher than average occurrence of Asperger's due to the number of expert programmers that live and work there.

It would not surprise me to find that many people who exhibit an ability to focus on intricately detailed activities actually have Asperger's Syndrome.

Answer 5

I've not seen sunken ships but I have seen interest in the Weather Channel - to an obssesive extent.  Also a huge number of other things including dinosaurs, specific movies, bridges, ships, planes, cartoons etc etc.

Answer 6

I've had students with asperger's fixated on the Titanic. This kid could tell you ANY little obscure detail you could possibly want to know about the titanic. I've had several kids fixated on natural disasters-storms, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, etc, cartoon characters, cats, and in one case long dark straight hair (but only on women). These fixations involved finding information, asking questions, touching objects, talking about it, collecting photos or samples, reading books, etc. I think sunken ships are something that is fascinating to many boys, and maybe some boys with aspergers just become more fascinated than typical boys , as they do with many other things.