When I was a kid I would say from around the ages of 5 until around eight I would sit in the corner of the room with a straw or string and “twick” it back and forth in the air for hours. In my mind I was reliving the pilots of Battlestar Galatica fighting off the Cylons or the Six Million Dollar Man fighting against Big Foot or that robot which kicked his ass. Okay, I was an only kid with too much time on my hands. Did anyone else ever do stuff like this?
No.
In elementary school, I recall playing Cat’s Cradle with other girls, though.
We lived in a house which all my friends called a treehouse. It was on a steep hillside, the road was cut into the hill, with an embankment on one side and a dropoff on the other. Our house’s front door was about twelve feet off the ground on the dropoff side, and connected to the street by a little wooden bridge. The back of the house was in the treetops and had a balcony all around. It was on pylons. This environment was perfect for making aerial cablecars out of meccano. The supporting string would be tied to the balcony railing at one end, and to a tree at the other, and the cablecar would run along it on little pulleys. Then, there’d be a driving cable lopped around the balcony railing and the tree, and tied to both ends of the cablecar. This meant that there’d be three strings slung out to the trees from my house. They weren’t very durable, as the strings would wear through and break eventually, but I was addicted to making them for a couple of years at age seven or eight, so when I ran out of string, I’d use dad’s fishing line, mum’s cotton… her wool! This last one eventually made her cranky. 
Well, see, your childhood was before computers became extremely widespread. Nowadays, if a kid doesn’t really like to play with other kids, s/he doesn’t have to resort to straw and string.
I guess that’s true. Actually, I really did like playing with other kids, but as an only child living in a very rural area the opportunity did not often present itself.
If asked, would you have been able to talk about what you were thinking about?
I ask this because a 5-year-old daughter of a couple we know will play with ribbons/strings to the exclusion of all else - even undoing ribbons from doll’s hair and using those - but she shows other issues as well. She barely speaks at all (supposedly she’s merely infantilizing due to the arrival of her younger sibling, but he’s over a year old now), and she will simply make squealing noises while playing. She’s nearly injured herself trying to climb to get ribbons when in an otherwise-stocked playroom that was missing her favorite toy.
Well, strings and straws are choke hazards, so they are not recommended for those under three years old. So we supervise our daughter when she plays with them.
I used to play with sting and straws, sometimes at the same time!
Not to be alarmist, but have they considered having her tested for indications of Asperger’s Syndrome or autism? The delayed development of speech, obsessive focus, and isolation are characteristic of that. IANA psychologist, and it’s certainly possible (and indeed likely) that the girl is just going through a normal developmental phase, but it’s something to keep in mind if she has significant social or educational difficulties.
Stranger
I’m fairly certain that I did verbalize what I was “thinking about” when asked in an attempt to comfort my alarmed parents. I had no delay in speech (I was talking away by one according to my parents). To me it was a form of “guided imagery” I could live out scenarios from my favorite TV shows with the straws and strings that could not be done without the straws/strings for some reason.
My big sister had a piece of string that was apparently a weasel named Alice. Until it got vacuumed.
When I was about 7 I was at a birthday party and everyone was mean to me. So, to kind of try to impress them, I pretended to eat a styrofoam cup. That got their attention, so I proceeded to to eat some string. That was no fun when it got to the other end, let me tell you.
When we would go to the beach, I used to play with the stuff I found in the sand. Sometimes there were straws, but mostly there were cigarette butts and little pieces of driftwood. I remember finding cat poop once. I didn’t play with it, though.
No.
But I did play with socks.
And ants. I could play with ants for hours at a time, letting them run over my hands, then squishing them. I was the Ant Goddess.
I don’t think you’re being alarmist, or at least in that case we are too. We only see them a few times a year, but a friend who lives in the same town has told us about similar stuff she’d seen from the girl over an extended period of time. The mother was very resistant to any idea of anything being wrong, at first; she brought up the jealousy/infantilism response, which isn’t out of the question but went on for a long time. I gather that within the last year, the girl has been getting some developmental assistance at school. Last I saw her - she should be 6 by now, I think - there did seem to be a decent amount of improvement (interest in other toys, more verbal communication, more interaction with people). She still seems like at the very least she’s extremely shy and inward-directed (and hell, I’m a huge introvert myself), or perhaps something like Asperger’s is quite possible. I think Asperger’s is too readily thrown around as a label at times, but I wouldn’t be as hesitant in this situation.
In my opinion, kids will play with any damn thing that catches their fancy. String is hardly unusual.
That reminded me of this story from The Onion (Premium Archive, sorry):
Giant Six-Year-Old Devistates Area Ant Community
Thousands of Worker Drones Perish In Attack; Queen Unharmed.
Excerpt:
“According to eyewitnesses, the young Timmins utilized a fully poseable Superman action figure as his primary weapon in the attack, holding it by the feet and sweeping downwards in a hammer-like motion. ‘Die! Ha hah hah hah!’ he was heard shouting throughout the attack.”
At night, when you’re alone in the dark, do you hear the silence of the ants? 
Stranger
Stranger:
I did see that article at one point, or someone showed it to me and it made me laugh. That’s not quite how it used to be, though…I was in India for the first four years of my life and they constantly would catch me, sitting in the doorway, watching the ants go by and playing with them, squishing them, or **eating ** them. :eek: I didn’t have any Superman toys at that age, or I’m sure they would have been in for worse.
(Come to think of it, the fact that I *was * in India and really entertaining toys were in short supply might be the reason why I was playing with ants.)
I don’t recall playing with string all by itself but I would collect bits of string and fabric and make things like clothes for my troll dolls and weapons. (I liked to diversify.) My brother and I had this small book sized bit of wood with two nails in the top of it sticking slightly out that was everything from a remote control to a ray gun. We’d play with anything from cardboard boxes to an old book (which I used to pretend it was the book Penny was always carrying around in the cartoon Inspector Gadget. I was Penny. My brother was the dog. )
My mom also used to make microphones for us out of a toilet paper roll with a tennis ball taped on top and the whole thing covered in aluminum. I, every time I change the toilet paper, contemplate making myself one so I can rock out to the radio in style! 
We have had a computer in my house since I was probably 4 or 5 years old and we were WAY more interested in things like string and boxes than the computer. I think it depends on the situation. My parents always encouraged playing outside and using our imaginations.