Turning Obsessive behaviors into functional tasks that are appropriate.

Often times those who harbor an intense obsession is deemed “bad” but if we use the motivation behind the activity or interest then we can try to make something productive and enjoyable for kids on the spectrum. When I was teaching in my classroom I had one such child who was very Obsessive compulsive about the order of things. If I would move a book on the bookshelf wrong he would go over and try to get it back to just the right spot. At times the behavior would be very disruptive and lead to problem behavior if the student weren’t able to “fix it into place”. I realize that the compulsion had no true function to our classroom but here is how I turned it around to make it appropriate. I used his obsession of neatness to start a small job at the school cafeteria. The job would be done the same way every morning. The job was to put juice, milk and water into the cooler. I set up the job to help him use his OCD to be productive and start a job where other students could see my student on task and in there community of school life. It turns out that it was the best idea I had for my student’s OCD behavior, in fact it no longer was obsessive but more natural and the job was meaningful to my student as he looked forward to going to the cafeteria. The behavior in class diminished and the focus now was doing the bottles in order in the morning which got my student a job where he was more social and was able to give high five’s to classmates. I recommend finding ways to transform obsessions into productive activities.