Asperger's syndrome - child stuck in an imaginary game - suggestions please?

Question

4 year old boy in reception class, recently diagnosed, currently highly involved in his 'Sonic' game on his Nintendo DS. Trying to 'play' the game all the time in his imaginary play in school, using toy cars as the characters, but also trying to stab other children with a pencil as he pretends Sonic is trying to kill the other characters in the game. How can I help him out of this loop he is stuck in?

Answer 1

children have a very high imagination capabilty. my son   playes with his fingers, and hands by making people legs, and stuff. ur child is NOT strange. ur child will grow out of it!!! his  doctors are giving false info.

Answer 2

I've worked with children with Autism and Asperger's syndrome, from reception age until 19 years old.

That's a tough situation he's in, does he use flash cards? The kids I've worked with did alright with the cards. Simple pictures to let them understand what's going on. For example, writing time, "good listening", play time and home time. If so you could get some faces, happy and sad. It's sometimes difficult for for the kids to understand other emotions.

When he hurts one of the kids, show him the sad face and tell him he's making the child sad, and that's not nice. If he does it again, he should be removed from the situation, shown the card again so he knows why he's been moved. He should sit for a while, and then return.

You should also speak to the parents, the SEN-CO teacher and his assistant teacher if he has one(idk if that's you or not).

You'll find that some other parents will be telling their kids to, "stay away from him because he's naughty", shocking but true. It's also worth talking to his classmates try to explain to him that he doesn't mean the things he does, it's just that he doesn't know that it's wrong.

Answer 3

seriously think that needs more help than this site will ever give..... really advise to get professional opinion on how to sort this out..

Answer 4

A firm no and remove pencil from his grasp if he picks it up...its a case of watching him like a hawk at the moment. HE wont really benefit from talking about empathy eg: you're going to hurt someone and if he's off in his own world a long sentence will go right over her head.

Try to get his attention into something else when he's displaying the undesired behaviour eg:have cut outs of the characters for him to hold, or have other actvities he likes eg the carsand extend these somehow eg: do u have cars and trikes for outside he can go on, can you make an obstacle course for the toy cars etc.

good luck

Answer 5

Asperger's is considered to be part of the 'autistic spectrum.'  Very often children who have Asperger's display this type of obsessive behaviour.  There are many theories as to why they do this, but my own belief is that it is an error in the sensory attentional system within the brain.  This produces 'sensory distortion,' which means that his malfunctioning sensory system probably finds something about the game extremely stimulating. - It could be the visual or auditory effects of the game, which he is attracted to and is over-focusing his attention upon.  

This is what I would term 'narrowly focused sensory attention.'  It is the inability of the sensory system, once focused on a particular aspect of the environment to move away from a sensory stimulus. He cannot spread his attention to incorporate several features of his environment simultaneously.

In this situation, the child appears not to be aware of most of his visual environment, singling out one object and almost completely focusing his attention on it.  This ‘over-focused’ attention can appear to be obsessive behaviour to the outsider.  This child plays with one toy and one toy only because he is focused upon specific features of it.  

Apart from a malfunctioning neurological tuning mechanism, injuries to the parietal lobes of both hemispheres of the brain can also create a situation whereby individuals can only pay visual attention to one object at a time. This is known as Balint’s syndrome and it is possible that some children who experience ‘narrow spectrum tuning’ difficulties, will have injuries in this part of the brain.  However, there is also a convincing developmental explanation for ‘narrow spectrum tuning.’  Young babies have difficulty in shifting their attention, - this is well known and is a developmental phase.  Infants who are less than four months of age will sometimes stare at an attractive object, being unable to shift their gaze.  Occasionally this inability to shift their visual attention will make them cry out in distress (Johnson et al, 1991).  

It could very well be that some children who have ‘narrow spectrum tuning’ difficulties, never emerge from this phase of visual development.

What can you do to help? - Well it is a matter of re-tuning his sensory attentional system so that he can more easily 'switch' his sensory focus from one feature of the environment to another.  Let's look at both vision and hearing, because we don't know which system is at fault.

Narrow spectrum tuning: - Vision

Once this child's attention is gained, it is an ‘all or nothing’ affair.  It seems he simply cannot easily shift his visual attention to other aspects of the environment.  The strategy to combat this is to create an artificial environment in a separate room,  where there are a few features, or points of stimulation, which stand out equally.  If over-focusing occurs with reference to one object, that object should be withdrawn.  His helper in this situation should also present him with situations where she / he has two interesting stimuli, which she can ‘switch’ from time to time, to allow him to become used to ‘switching’ his attention.

Narrow spectrum tuning: - Hearing

This child over-focuses his auditory attention on specific noises within his environment and has difficulty ‘shifting’ that attention to other salient features.  Again, the first phase of treatment involves the creation of our adapted environment in which the child can be placed, whilst we provide appropriate stimulation designed to re-tune his sensory system.  The child is then to be placed within that environment several times daily.  Within these ‘re-tuning’ sessions, we must first provide an auditory stimulus that the child will find interesting and attractive; - this will give him a point of focus for his auditory attention.  We must then introduce several competing stimuli in order to encourage the child to begin ‘switching’ his attention.  The intensity of these competing stimuli must be steadily increased until they cannot be ignored.  We must replicate this procedure, over and over again until the child can accept and acknowledge several features of his environment.

Answer 6

cntrl,alt,del

task manager

end program.

Answer 7

The only way to get a child who has Asperger syndrome out of this situation is to substitute his Sonic game for either another less aggressive game or a different obsession all together. It is unusual for a child with Asperger syndrome to his imagination so much. Children with this condition usually lack the imagination to play make believe games, it might well be worth getting him tested for other autistic spectrum disorders. In the meantime he must be distracted on to less aggressive games. Perhaps something that will push his boundaries a bit more with more characters and less violence. Good luck.

Answer 8

sorry i can't help you on this question

Answer 9

my son has this condition and was so into sonic thats all hed do too-everything was sonic at school and at home-and within a yr hed grown out of it all the yr before that he was thomas tank mad-weve now got used to it -but stabbing people with pencils (in any game) is not to be tolerated-he knows that he cant do this and no one must allow it as its a dangerous weapon- i dont think for a minute you will get him away from sonic until he decides to give it up himself ie when he moves on to something else-and believe me he will-.........j.ust concentrate on the behavior that wont be tolerated ie the pencils

Answer 10

I think with Asperger's syndrome, you can't just break the loop.  It's going to have to be something he works through himself.  Even his family will have trouble breaking the interest.  Even if his family took the game away, it wouldn't work.  He would still be into sonic but just be hurt and confused that he can't continue to play with his favourite game.

I think the thing you need to do is just make it more clear that it isn't nice to hurt other children and just keep drumming it in - cos it won't settle first go.  There's nothing wrong with an Asperger's kid being into one thing, that will probably stay with him for years yet.  Just keep trying to interest him in other things, he might get on board, he might not.  For now though, he is still young and it is probably best to just make sure he isn't hurting other children.

Ask him why he hurts the other children and ask him how he would feel if someone poked him with a pencil.  Explain it makes the other children sad and we all need to be nice to each other.  He isn't going to be able to comprehend any one else's feelings, he only knows his own. Just explain it to him regularly so that it just becomes memory eventually.  Maybe take away pencils/crayons and explain that although they could be weapons like sonic has, they are not.  They are pencils and you draw pictures with them and if he can't play with them properly.  He won't get to use them.

There are courses you can go on to help understand Aspergers children better cos their whole mindframe is a different world from ours.   You should def look into it cos its so worth doing. :-)

Answer 11

One, I'd rid him of any more Sonic playing.  Obviously he can't handle it.  Secondly, I create a social story complete with consequences when the attempts to stab the other children.

Answer 12

How verbal is he?  If he's aspergers and not full-on autism I'd expect him to have only a moderate deficit, if anything, talk with him about "That's not the bad guy--that's Joey!  Who is that?" so that he identifies.  Kids with asp. also need a ton of help with transitions, so make sure you give him a ton of cues about what's going on around him (e.g., "That's the carpet bell!  Pretend time is over, time to move to carpet!").  And be firm--it's in his own best interest.

Answer 13

this child needs professional help!also try"help for the child with "Asperger's syndrome:a parents guide to negotiating the social welfare maze. by Gretchen Metz

Answer 14

I would make a short and simple social story about the feelings of others when they are stabbed. I would also talk with him and explain that if he continues to stab his friends then he will not be able to play sonic anymore. Make sure he knows this before just taking the game away.