Managing Autism - A Personal View

Lion Boy - yes, this is how we often affectionately refer to Jack.  You see, lions are his ‘thing’, his interest, or focus you could say.  A common thread with people having ASD is that they have an interest that is quite obsessive.  With Jack, tigers get a look in too, but the lion is the king of his world.

In our house we enjoy daily viewings of the movie The Lion King.  In fact, if we miss a day (when we refuse to allow it on the television one more time!) Jack simply replays a live version for us.  And we always know where to find Jack when he is playing outside - there are dirt hills in the vacant block next door to us, and without a doubt Mufasa (Jack) will be trying to scramble to the top yelling ‘Scar, help me’!

Jack’s kindergarten recently had to invest in new animal figurines - particularly lions and tigers.  We didn’t ask why, we had a fairly good idea that Jack had probably worn the old one’s out.

Whilst Jack’s ‘thing’ can be extremely frustrating (like when he roars his way around the shopping centre, and leaps his way around the house, wanting his food in a bowl on the floor like our cat), it could be worse.  We have heard stories of autistic children being obsessed with bringing home strangers, or being obsessed with ‘escaping’.  At least the jungle is fairly containable - for now anyway!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 12th, 2007 at 10:53 am and is filed under Jack's Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.