Autistic lad obsessed with hovers,should we ignore it??

Question

i work in mainstream school,there is an lad with Autisum whom is obsessed with hoovers,everyone thinks this is sooooooo funny,and ask him about them all the time,sitting at the internet and printing off pctures,he talks about nothing else and starts crying if he loses a picture, should they be incouraging this??

Answer 1

This 'obsession' in my experience is probably related to a sensory issue.  Many children who suffer autism experience 'distortions of sensory perception,' which basically means that the neurological structures, which mediate and modulate incoming sensory information either amplify or dampen that information.  In this case, I would guess that this child is experiencing auditory undersensitivity and that he finds the sound that hoovers make to be exceptionally attractive, - hence the obsession.

Should you discourage it?  No!  What needs to be done is to attack the problem with a programme of sensory stimulation.  Only then, when the problems of perception within the sensory system been resolved, will the 'obsession' disappear.

Hope this helps.

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Answer 2

I don't think they should be encouraging this at all.    After all, what's funny in a little boy, is not so amusing in a grown man.  No one will find it soooooooo funny when he's 32 and only wants to talk about his subject, nothing else, and has tantrums when disrupted.  

What I would do, and what I've done with my daughter is set aside time for him to talk about, and research hoovers.  Perhaps several breaks during the day where he can have hoover time.  Staff also has to be aware and encourage him for not talking about hoovers when it's not hoover time.  When he tries to go to the subject, remind him with a visual, or social story that "You can talk about hoovers at 11:15"   "I would love to hear about hoovers, but right now we have to study our spelling, at your next break you can tell me about hoovers."  

A social story written specifically for him about his obsession and when it's appropriate to talk about it would be benificial to him as well.  Do a search for Carol Gray Social Stories for information about how to write such a story.  It really doesn't have to be complicated, but it will need to be read and reinforced often before it will work.