Why, why, why why, why?

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As a young child I would stick 'why' on the end of someones else's sentence. I did it even after something was explained to me. It drove my mother nuts.

Is this a sign of Asperger's, or is it what every child does when they are 4-5 years old?

Although annoying, I don't think it's AS related. I have seen quite a few kids with that habit and they were all NT, as far as I know.

It's just what annoying little kids do if you ask me

I used to do that too. I once annoyed my sister by constantly asking 'why?' for about an hour.

It's got nothing to do with AS and all to do with being young and curious (either that or young and annoying!).

I used to ask why all the time to really obvious things, like why my mum was vacuuming. I remember once though asking her why I had to wear clothes. She told me it was because if I didn't, I'd get arrested.

I remember from either a linguistics course, or a linguistics textbook, that a young child asks "why" not necessarily for the sake of an answer, but for the sake of listening to someone talking. The more talking going on, the more absorbing of language can be done (words, phrases, sentence structure, intonations... body language?... or just the soothing sense of hearing a familiar voice). When you think about it, nothing else really has more bang-for-the-buck than asking "why"... make one syllable, and returns many many many more.

BTW, this would put me in the "no, not just AS children" group.

I used to ask why a lot more than most kids, but not to a point of annoyance. I just really wanted to know why as opposed to saying it, so it was only for special occasions (like when I was corrected). The only time I seemed to annoy anyone with it was my geometry teacher who kept proclaiming that one should never ask why in math. But, I probably understand math better than him even though he has the degree because I kept asking why, and I kept trying to find those answers, and now I do know why and could answer the questions that he couldn't answer, although since I've been away from math for so long, I'd probably have to take the question home with me to ponder a while before actually answering, but that's still more than what he can do.

I still ask why because now I know it's only annoying to people who don't care, and it's an easy way to tell if someone cares about something or not. Like one time, my neighbor (who is a friend) swore the landlady didn't like her, and I didn't believe her, but she kept swearing it true. So one day, I started trash talking my neighbor to the landlady, and when the landlady had a lot of trash talking to say back at me, I knew my neighbor was right afterall. I do a lot of little tricks like that, and the why is a good one, but I just can't think of a specific example where it worked in my favor. BTW, I did explain to my neighbor what I was doing before I did it so she wouldn't get insulted, but I never told her anything I specifically said so she wouldn't get insulted. If that makes sense, but it's my way of doing it...different, but it works.

I do that a lot. For example when I hang with my older friends or cousin. When I am asked to do something or stop something such as kicking them.

I wish my son would ask "Why". He's only 3 and I'm just grateful he's verbal at all, but after being told for the 20th time "The light's on!" sometimes I really wish we could have more meaningful convsations...

The 'why stage' is a normal developmental stage that most kids go through at about 3 or 4 yrs of age. However, according to my mom I went way, way above and beyond the norm. She said it I asked "why?" hundreds of times a day, even after things were explained to me. I think it was a form of echolalia for me. My son (who is on the spectrum) would ask "what is that?" literally every few minutes. It finally occurred to me that he wasn't really wanting an answer, as much as he was just repeating a phrase that he knew would engage the other person. Basically, he was just wanting to interact, but had very little idea as to how to go about it, so he stuck with the one phrase that always seemed to get a response from others.

Loads of children do this. It is not a sign of any condition.

My first word was 'Why'. It's an indication of natural curiosity that sociaty begins to stamp out in us from an early age.