Pookie is going through some really crazy developments recently. They seem to be coming from every direction and faster than we can keep up with them. One of my favorite ones is the way he is playing these days; specifically the way he is playing with Geetle.
Just today, we sent them into the backyard while we made lunch. I watched him follow her to the swing set where they both did the swings. A few minutes later, Geetle wandered over to the sandbox. Pookie followed her and they played there together until we called them in for lunch.
I’m going to go off on a tangent for a second but it will all make sense in a second.
Pookie has been driving us crazy with some of his obsessions. It seems to be one of the autism characteristics that he definitely possesses. Toys the beep get beeped repeatedly. Songs that get sung once get sung 100 times. Shirts frequently must be blue. It has been enough to force us to do a great toy purge which is something else I’ll write about soon.
One of his big, big obsessions has been Blue’s Clues, this Blue’s Clues to be exact
Then we noticed something (and this is where we end the tangent and get back to the earlier topic).
Geetle and Pookie spent about a half hour running around the house singing the songs together and repeating the lines together. They were laughing, they were making eye contact. They were playing. They did it again later in the day.
We decided to try to encourage this by working with the obsession. We bought some handy dandy notebooks. I’ve been running around the house singing “Who’s clues? Blue’s clues” trying to get them started. It has worked a couple times. BeAGoodMom picked up a couple more Blue’s Clues videos.
One of the reasons the teachers wanted Pookie in the class he is in instead of the other preschool class is his class is smaller giving more individual time with the teacher. The other class is a little bigger and the kids in there have some ability to play and learn from other kids. They weren’t sure Pookie would be able to take advantage of that so they wanted him to be able to get more attention from the teachers.
Being interested in other kids and able to learn for them is insanely important for child development. Pookie exhibited almost no interest in other kids until very recently. It should be interesting to see where this new development leads to.
Just a quick note, I am almost equally amazed at Geetle’s role in all of this. Pookie was doing almost all of the Blue’s Clues play by himself. Out of nowhere, I watched her completely jump into his world. She played the way he plays not the way she normally does. She happily skipped around the plot of the story as they reenacted it according to Pookie’s lead. She reenergized the two of them when they started to burn out. It was awesome to watch her naturally do exactly the things that Pookie needs. She is such a good sister.
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He could really like “that ” Blues Clues because he is making a home/school connection as well and that is a big step too.
That’s so great.
I read here regularly because I also have a 4 and 1/2 year old with ASD. She and Pookie seem to be on a level about lots of things so I like to hear what’s happening with him. I also like the way your family deals with his issues just by going ahead with your normal family life with a few adaptations.
Another place I read is a Yahoo group called “Communicating Partners” that’s run by a speech pathology researcher called Jim MacDonald. What you said about Geetle entering Pookie’s world reminded me a lot of some of the things he’s got to say about entering the child’s world and matching his level of interaction so he can participate and enjoy it. That sounds just like what Geetle is doing. I wish Linnea had a twin! We get the same effect sometimes with the ASD kid across the street, though.
Oh the obsessions!
My younger brothers obsession was Sonic the Hedgehog. It was pretty much all encompassing! Untill he got to around the age of 14 or so, and then he learned to hide it well. He’s so self contained anyway, that keeping that aspect to himself wasn’t much of a stretch.
Actually, i remember repeating lines from TV with steven too, although it was always lines to adverts, which we’d re-anact to a degree.
It’ll be grand to see where this interaction leads to
Keep us all informed aye?
(I’ve just woken from a nap, so my apologies if I’m not as coherant-ish)
That all sounds great. I’m sure you are very happy they are playing together and he seems to be developing socially.
Though probably not to the same level, my daughter can be obssessed with things. She’s always asking us to play “Odie Song”, which is really the Garfield Thanksgiving Special.
Ah the blissful days of Blues Clues. I only have one word for you…Yu-gio…..or is that really two?
Cheers
Yep, been there done that. Actually, Christopher still likes Blues Clues. And my twins love it!! Now we are obsessing over Spongebob and Garfield. I worry about whether we should be feeding his obsessions. At times, that is all he has on his mind and he can’t concentrate on anything else.