More fun from the world of autism :)

When William has a question or problem, the world has to stop until it's solved. When he is certain of something, he won't budge. Cases in point:

• At school, they use magnetic letters to practice spelling words. William wouldn't do it yesterday because the letters weren't shaped right. They curved a little on the ends. So he had to get a new set of letters that were perfectly straight.
• Also at school, they are writing letters to pen pals in Idaho. They are giving info. about the state of Ohio in their letters. He refused to finish his because no one could tell him how the Black Kingsnake got its name. He wanted to know and couldn't get past it. Horrible to say, but I think I would have made something up to tell him so that he could quit obsessing and get back to work.
• He hates spiders. All of a sudden. During silent reading, the book he was into suddenly had a page about spiders. He backed away from his desk and wouldn't touch the book again. Someone else had to close it and move it away from him.
• When working on irregular plurals, his teacher asked them for the plural of "fox." She was looking for "foxes" of course, but William KNOWS that a group of foxes is called a "pack." So he wrote pack. She told him what she was actually looking for, but he refused to write it. Because more than one fox are not foxes. They are a pack.
• He had a daily schedule that he could check off throughout the school day to help him transition from one activity to the next, as this is usually difficult for him. The schedule had to be abandoned because if the schedule said math started at 1:15 and it was 1:12, he wouldn't start it. Also, if the teacher decided to do calendar after weather instead of before, he would get upset and tell her she wasn't following the schedule.