good evening everybody!

a few weeks ago i posted a blog titled "rambling thoughts after reading recent study", or something very similar to that. during that blog i tried my best to explain the overall characteristics of autism and how to recognize them. i hope that i was somewhat helpful to those of you out there that may be wondering if your child is autistic.

when trying to verbally explain some of the things that sir dantes does, i have some people respond, "well, i do some of those things" or "it seems like we all may be a little autistic". and i can see that understanding. after all, there are a lot of people who are shy and don't do well in social situations...so are they autistic? more than likely not. it takes more than that; but there are a lot of people who have habits or personality traits that are similar to those of an autistic person.

Follow up:

so, i decided to use my camera and try to provide a few visual examples of one of the characteristics; the lining up of items.

now, i am not autistic. but, i do like to arrange things such as my candles on the dining room table. i try to organize my clothes in my closet. so, how do you know if the arranging of items is a signal of an autistic trait? then add in other variables; straight lines, circles, patterns....

as you will notice, there are a lot of patterns involved here. one is a pattern of magnets on the fridge, while another is a pattern of blocks that are normally part of a puzzle (a wooden train). others are just sir dantes lining up his pillows and books. the couple of shots that may be hard to tell what is up are of a wooden puzzle that is actually four puzzles.

he has a box that contains four separate puzzles; a plane, a train, a car, and a bike. not only does he line the puzzles up next to each other; he lines them up to match the decal on the box that holds the puzzles.

i hope that the examples are helpful to anyone looking or wondering. good night all!