Once people hear Jonathan has Asperger's Syndrome, and they have some knowledge about Asperger's, they will ask, "What does he perseverate upon?"
Many children with Asperger's Syndrome become experts in an area which interests them. In fact, they can bore the rest of the world with all the detail they know about their subject. For example, Dr. Asperger, for whom the diagnosis is named, noticed children knew the Euro train schedule for every stop, rail line, and country. Yet these children never rode a Euro train in their life. There is local girl who can tell you everything you wanted to know about King Henry VIII's wives. In Jonathan's school there is a boy who can tell you all about WWII battleships. My husband can tell you about every space mission. He can even tell you about every major and minor league player, their stats, their hometown, their college, etc. (Who really needs to know this information off the top of their head? That's what the Internet is for.)
Jonathan has never really had one thing he's been interested enough in that he's become an expert. He'll go through stages where he's fascinated by something, but nothing in my mind typical of Asperger's Syndrome. However, one day Jonathan's teacher pointed out that Jonathan does have a perseveration, a topic in which he knows a lot of details and can bore others to tears about. It just so happens to be Jonathan created his own topic, Purple Man.
For those new to this blog, Jonathan's imagination doesn't end with his talking pickle. He's invented his own comic book character called Purple Man.
Once I started looking at Purple Man through this lens, I have to agree. Jonathan has this huge marketing plan for Purple Man. He's created Purple Man trading cards, monopoly, costumes, theme parks, dinner plates, etc. The other day I found sketches of all the Purple Man characters drawn from all four sides for a Lego package. His people even look like Lego people.
This summer Jonathan told me his goal in life was to make Purple Man famous. So, as his mother, it is my job to help him obtain his goals. Let me start by showing you one of Jonathan's strips. This first one is my favorite. (I wonder how smart it is to give my favorite first.)
Let me set this up a bit. The main character in here is not actually Purple Man. I don't know why. Instead we have Snake Hair, who is one of Purple Man's nemeses. You can always tell Snake Hair in Jonathan's cartoons, because of the tube looking thing over the head. Usually you can see eyes on both sides were the ears would be. Snake Hair's hair is a two-headed-snake.
Snake Hair packed up the car to on go a trip and has hooked up the GPS. I'll let you look and see if you can figure out the rest. I'll help you at the bottom if you need a translation.
GPS: Go left
S.H.: I'm off the road.
GPS: Trust me.
GPS: Go straight for three miles.
S.H. is off road and going straight, driving over real roads and causing accidents behind him.
GPS: Go Left.
S.H. follows directions and splashes.
GPS: Recalculating.
GPS: You're in water.
S
.H.: Aaaaaaaa
Am I being too proud Mama, or is this not hysterical...even if you didn't know it comes from a 9-year-old boy?
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Comments (3)
It made me smile :D I gotta say the little dude might have something there. I am intrigued by Purple Man. Hehe.
Lol. That is awesome. This COULD be famous. The internet loves things like this. Make it bigger so we can read it!
Hee hee hee... that's like Josh's "Ultimate Avenger" comics. Fantastic. It would be interesting to see what would happen if Purple Man and the Ultimate Avenger met up some day. We'll have the next generation of DC or Marvel on our hands. :)