Autism-World

I was wondering if anyone has run across this.  Our son has always had some pretty strong fears of situations, mostly medical such as hospitals and nurses/doctors, due to his medical history, and in the past he was very afraid of almost anything new, including toys, and would take a long time to warm up to new toys, sometimes even a few months.  He had seemed to overcome that, though, until recently.  But now he seems to be going backwards.  A couple of months ago I purchased a small disco light ball and at first he was a little hesitant around it but at least would watch it from a distance and then go up to it and try to touch it.  He usually likes things that light up and make noise, so we thought he would eventually really like it, and he seemed to be warming up to it at first.  But the second day we brought it out he was absolutely terrified of it and would run away crying whenever he saw it.  So I put it away, and he was fine until he saw the box to it that hadn’t gone out to the garbage and he was just as terrified of that with the picture on it.  Now today he is all of a sudden even more terrified, to the point of crying and going to hide in the corner almost shaking, of an oversized toddler toy police car that makes a crashing noise if you crash it into something.  It’s not loud, and he has lots of loud toys he loves to play with anyway.  We have had that toy for well over a year and he has never really played much with it but has never had a problem with it until now.  He wouldn’t even go into the room that it was in until I put it away, and then I showed him where I put it so he would leave the corner and play again and he practically tripped over himself trying to get away from it again and had tears running down his face.  (But at least he would leave the corner after that.)  He loves his other trucks that make noise when you push them, or when you move their various parts (fire truck, dump truck, tow truck, etc.) so why this fear all of a sudden of this particular toy?  And why after we have had it for so long?  I’ve never put it away so he sees it every single day and again, never had any problem with it until now. 

Thanks for any thoughts!

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 31st, 2007 at 7:53 pm and is filed under Parent Resources.