Do aspies answer yes or no?

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Was this through a psychologist/psychiatrist? Or an online test of some sort? (the "halfway between" thing has me thrown - not a very clinical response).



The answer cited here wasn't convoluted, just a little more precise than you were expecting. You indicate here he does it with everyone, and you did it as well, but when you did it somehow it comes off as being your positive educational background, but your son's reasons go to poor character or trying to get at you?



The third person in your former household to talk this way, and still you stand as the only shining example of a positive reason for doing so? (The opinions of a therapist who likely has no experience in ASD's and other disorders relating to such a diagnosis holds less water than a sieve in my book).

You don't mention how long you've been out of your original family unit?

And you indicate your "new family" - have you married a woman with children or have you had additional children?

I would suggest counselling for both your sons, and a diagnosis for at least you and your son by a psychologist or psychiatrist, if one hasn't already been secured.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but I think it is important for you and your children to get the help you all need before things go from bad to worse.

Your son may in all likelihood just be a typical aspie. My husband and I were discussing the weather the other day, because it was humid and it never gets humid here. Our son came out and asked what we meant by humid. I explained how sticky it feels, how much more you sweat, etc. To which my son responded, oh, I thought it was a measure of the amount of water the air is holding at a specific temperature expressed as a percentage. Is he right? Yep. I gave him the physical sensations. He gave me the scientific description. Neither is wrong, they're just different. Something I've learned alot about on this journey.

I like being shortwinded myself. Which is why this post will scarsely breach the second line, if at all.

AS myself, I see that being asked a simple question to which the questioner already knows the answer as patronising and therefore undeserving of a respectful answer. I would in his place answer with sarcasm or flippancy. As an Aspie my sarcasm may go unrecongised as such and may be mis-read as me being serious as I am not very able to use the tone to matchsarcasm, jokes, flippancy.

Aspies also like to amuse themselves, and oftenso with words and phrases. As we are not always very good with jokes, sarcasm, idioms etc, we can sometimes become quite obsessed with learning of them and practicing them and mentally logging reactions to them in order to learn what to us seems strange NT behaviour.

Aspies often tend to be pedantic and your sons answer seems to fit in with that, wether he is messing or serious.

Last edited by Bearsac-Debra on 09 Jul 2006, 4:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

[quote=". My husband and I were discussing the weather the other day, because it was humid and it never gets humid here. Our son came out and asked what we meant by humid. I explained how sticky it feels, how much more you sweat, etc. To which my son responded, oh, I thought it was a measure of the amount of water the air is holding at a specific temperature expressed as a percentage. Is he right? Yep. I gave him the physical sensations. He gave me the scientific description. Neither is wrong, they're just different. Something I've learned alot about on this journey.[/quote]


yes you are both right.

when i was at uni the lecturer would come in and slam his books on the lecturn and say "nice morning"?

one student asked i fthat was examinable and another asked what criteria the lecturer had used to determine niceness in a day.


everyone laughed, but i didnt.

when someones askes me if it is a nice day it does casue so much stress as i do want to figure out what response is appropriate.the aspie response takes about 5 minutes , the expected response is one or two owrd....
the expected response of " yeah but i think it may rain later" feels false to me, but more importantly sounds disingenuous to other nt's (im aspie) and no matter how well rehearsed the response is it ssounds false to us and the recipient and the act of actiing normal and not answering questions all day the aspie way leads us to become stressed, meltdown or decompress at the end of a day......so being aspie is tough a simple every day interaction is fraught with difficulty.

Really??

Im always getting harped on about that as I tend to do it far more often than y or n.

I can imagine that an aspie might be doing it for just the sheer pleasure. I know from my son. He is also adhd, so I don't know if it is the as or adhd or both at work here. I know that my son has moods. If he is one of those great moods he will laugh and giggle a bit. He will also try to pull one over on you. He gets very pedantic and full of knowledge. If he is not in one of those moods he is just by himself and refuses to talk. I just know that people think he is different just because one day he will talk your head off and the next he will act as he doesn't even want to be bothered.

I can answer them, my autistic son can... just a matter of me feeling that a yes answer or a no answer alone doesn't suffice so often I embrace the opportunity to give a more detailed and accurate answer.

As you know everything is a spectrum. When my son was diagnosed as aspie, I did talk to my own shrink and volunteered for evaluation, since I did not see that much of a difference between his responses and mine in many situations. I did not score within the typical NT range, nor in the typical AS/autism range. Hence my short hand statement of 'half way inbetween'. My shrink would tell you that I am a normal highly intelligent neurotic man with depressive episodes that has inconclusive testing.
The raining example was only one fairly simple one. Perhaps another example might help Me: "Did you brush your teeth this morning?" Son: "Some could construe my actions as to constitute an episode of hygiene while others would think that other actions would be needed for that to be affirmative." My question was meant to ask very simply, can aspies answer yes or no, since it seemed as though my son never could, unless forced. If his thinking pattern is erratic, then helping him focus would help. If his speech pattern was intrinsic to his AS, then focusing him would/could harm, not help, and I would have to look at other ways of communicating.
My ex was forced to take my son to a counseler after my son threw a desk down a hallway at his teacher at school. My son was diagosed with ADD and AS by a child psychiatrist. My ex moved schools, did not refill the Concerta, and does not allow him ongoing counseling. She also did not tell me when she moved, nor did she tell the school until she had left. She did not tell me where she moved until I filed a court order to do so. She has been held in contempt of court for violation of my visitation.
Yes, I would love to do counseling with my son. My ex filed a court order to prevent me from doing so.
Am I angry? Hell, yes. I am in the middle of a wicked court battle with an ex that refuses to let my children call me, interferes with visitation, and won't let me go to a professional with my son. It's called 'parental alienation syndrome', and it's viscious. So I am trying to do the next best thing, since it is the only thing I am permitted to do just now.

That was a straight answer - is it raining? Substantial precipitation=rain

Your definition of a straight answer is different - you want a simple reply, he gave a fully-considered answer.

I've had a really bad two weeks with my kid and I come here and realize I'm not alone. The child is not trying to be evasive, just trying to make sure he doesn't give a wrong answer.

There was an episode of NCIS that cracked me up - the lead investigator was asking a computer code guru - So, tell me about your roomate."

"One leg is 3 cm shoter than the other..."

It was sooooooo Aspie in the completeness of the reply but it drove the investigators nuts. They wanted pertinent answers, instead they got the Aspie thoroughness.

Good points, and thanks.
The attempt to be precise has been something I did as a child and adulthood and now is an occupational requirement, so can I say my doing so is Aspie-ish, AS and compensated, or inherent in my persona and just happens to parallel what is going on with my son?
I do try to point out more 'typical' speech patterns to help him realize that the 'other world', the ones with nts, can understand him better when he reponds differently. I never say one is better than another, only it's different. He is bilingual, and seems to grasp it at a language level.

I don't think your son means any harm.
Some aspies can say yes or no some needs a longer statement.

I do both, once as a teenager I had seen a movie, and a girl from school asked me: was it a good movie?
She didn't ask if I thought it was a good movie, but, as I understood the question, if it was a good movie in general.
Now, I did not know her taste in movies and could not say if it was a movie she'd like, so I answered: It was a french movie. You see they don't show a lot of french movies in Danish tv, and they are the same style pretty much all of them, so my answer would give her a pretty good idea of what kind of movie it was and wether she'd like it or not (I understood her question as: is it a movie I'd like to have seen?).
Of course she missed my point totally and just laughed at me. In a kind way.

Everything is relative so it can be difficult to say yes or no to a question, on one hand... but on the other hand.... so you find an answer that covers both hands. And save time.

Same here. I just explain everything with no room for error, so I end up going back on myself and changing things as I remember them, and end up confusing people. Oops ...

Actually, no - precipitation = rain, hail, snow, sleet, drizzle ... so it could have been hailing heavily, or it could have been heavy sleet or something. (But I liked the post about covering all bases, because that may well have been what he was doing.)

I am accused of always answering questions with "Yes" "No" or "I don't know". I prefer to talk minimally.

Egghead - in my completely not-professional opinion - it seems to me that you son is A) just a very pedantic aspie as some tend to be and B) craving attention, which given the circumstances you outlined doesn't surprise me at all.

I work in that arena (sort of) and so know what you are going through. I hope for your children's sakes that it gets before a judge who sees the right path.

Thanks. New attorney, new judge. I hope I can make things a bit better.