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Is Your Toddler's Obsession a Sign of Autism?

Exploring a Toddler's One-track Mind

By Melinda Copp

If you're like most toddler parents, you can probably recite your child's favorite movie line by line. You've probably fought with your child over a toy, or collection of toys, that he insists on taking everywhere you go. And you probably have his favorite book memorized word for word. Because once a toddler is hooked on something, anything, that's all they want to do, over and over again. These similar behaviors – obsessing about or fixating on one toy – can be completely normal, or they can be a sign of autism in some children.

"Among the many issues that signaled us that our son was not developing normally was a fixation on toy animals," says Mike Dawson, a dad from North Kingstown, R.I. "With many autistic kids, it's trains."

Dawson says the behavior started at age 2 1/2 with horses, progressed to elephants, and then by age 5 his son was completely manifest in dinosaurs. But with Dawson's son, the behavior was slightly different than other toddlers' fixations.

"Most kids show an interest in things, but his interest was exclusive," Dawson says. "He focused on the animals – he had to hang on to them, he made noises like them. He didn't make child-like dinosaur noises, but guttural, realistic sounds, which he incorporated into speech and used in response when someone spoke to him. Whenever we tried to go anywhere in the car or on foot, he had to have just the right assortment of these toys, and it was always just a little too much to carry, which inevitably created a tantrum of frustration over needing the objects but not being able to hold them all."

In the Dawsons' case, and for many parents, a toddler fixating on a particular toy is one of the many signs of autism.

Autism frightens parents because research has advanced dramatically, bringing the topic to the forefront of attention. And with better knowledge on the condition and its signs, diagnosis and frequency have increased as well – pulling developmentally disabled people from other diagnosis categories.

Want to see more?

• Is My Baby Autistic? Research May Result in Earliest Diagnosis of Autism
• One up on Autism: Learn the Signs of Autism and Act Early
• An Attack on Autism: Early Diagnosis, Genetics and Intervention
• Jenny McCarthy and Autism: A Mom on a Mission for Change
• Join the discussion on our Family.com community!

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