[pollywog]

MIhomeschooler,our granddaughter is obsessed with " SPirit and Rain" from the movie , Spirit. It used to be Lilo and STitch. She talks horses, takes toy horses with her everywhere she goes,looks at the world through the eyes of a horse. She also used to get upset if our 12 year old daughter( yes we are raising a teen foster daughter too) didn't order the identical food that she did.) Her knife, fork and spoon have to be moved to a different postition, and in general it is difficult to take her out to eat.*sigh*
When she comes to visit, she moves my chairs all in a different setting. If shades are up, she pulls them down, if they are down she pulls them up, just basically reversing everything. You can tell her not to do it, and it seems to be such a compulsive need, that overpowers her. We definitely choose our battles with her.

[monkey]

looks at the world through the eyes of a horse

Could you expound a bit on that, or give a couple of examples?

You might be interested in this article, by a high-functioning autistic woman who is a professor of animal science:

I credit my visualization abilities with helping me understand the animals I work with. Early in my career I used a camera to help give me the animals' perspective as they walked through a chute for their veterinary treatment. I would kneel down and take pictures through the chute from the cow's eye level.

Does your grandchild also think visually? There is some evidence that paleolithic people may have been somewhat autistic (as we say today). For example, the representational (animal) cave paintings seem to be drawn componenet by component, as many autistic children draw today, rather than by drawing an outline first. It may be that the "autistic" mindset had advantages for hunting, and tracking in particular.