Fictional lands, geography and autism
My youngest showed an interest in geography when he was younger and still enjoys looking at maps when he visits the bookstore or library. I came across old pics of some of the fictional lands he drew and thought I would share. One land he drew was with a friend at a wedding. They found a dry erase board in the multipurpose room and proceeded to create a fictional angry birds rio land. This was when the angry birds game was all the craze. This is a unique situation when he played alongside another child with interaction. The other child has since been diagnosed as on the autism spectrum. The parents went back in forth with whether he had autism or ADHD. This has been a wonderful opportunity for our son to interact with a child outside of a classroom setting that is also on the spectrum.
The other creation I found is a fictional continent he created around 5th grade. He created several of these fictional maps with fictional countries and we found them to be very creative including having similar country names for north/south, etc.
He now plans to go off to college and major in political science/ history/ international relations which corresponds with his interest in countries and geography.
Feel free to share your child’s creative interests. It’s fascinating what children on the spectrum create.