My poor speech processing meets his literalness

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I don't have kids, but I've seen adults make similar errors. I think it needs to be made clear to him that words are only the beginning of communication. There is also context and common sense. I think sometimes we use our literalness as a weapon.

With regard to his disliking clothing, I can totally relate. I'm sure you already know about cutting out tags and getting soft seamed clothes. But again I think he knows better.

He may simply have seen an opportunity to get out of his clothes, but again context (being in public) should have given him pause.

Arguing about who said what and trying to choose words that won't confuse is counterproductive. Because you're still playing the game. He needs to understand that literallness is limiting. Words have to be put in the larger framework of communication. He may never totally get it. I don't and I've been trying my whole life. But if he can be aware that there are other factors at play even without understanding them, he is playing with a better hand.

This has been true for my son. Understanding the difference between literal and figurative, and that he has a tendency toward literal interpretations, has made the difference for him. Now when someone says something to him that makes no sense, he recognizes that it may be figurative language, so he either seeks clarification or he searches for clues to possible alternate meanings. Even if he can't figure out what it means, he saves himself from acting upon an inappropriate understanding of someone else's meaning. A lot of the time.

Exactly. Being aware of the existence of the figurative has stopped me from making an ass of myself many times. And learning to ask for clarification is a huge step.

How was looking behind him literal? He did exactly what he was told. Or am I missing something?


I guess I was also taking "you break it you buy it" literal too. I just knew I better not break something or else I will have to buy it and I wondered what would happen if you didn't have any money, I guess it would be jail time because you couldn't buy it. If you are so afraid of breaking something, be very careful. If you are afraid it will break, do not touch it. All this anxiety. Even telling someone a simple thing can give someone anxiety because of their literal thinking and I guess they also have to have an anxiety disorder for this to happen. Maybe someone without wouldn't be worrying about breaking stuff and thinking about the what ifs and then having stress being in the store with their parent and anxiously waiting for you to be done.


I used to always look up whenever I would get asked "what's up?" and my parents could never understand why I never listened and why I would always find something else to do that was mischievous. My mom would tell me to stop that so I did and did something else. To my mother stop that always meant quit doing whatever, for example stop that teasing meant stop teasing. I didn't know that then so I kept doing another tease that she will like. Then she says finally she told me to quit teasing her and I kept on doing it so I told her "no you said stop that teasing, not stop all teasing" and my mother remembers it differently than I do so apparently I had argued with her about what she said and I said "I did stop that teasing" and she said "No I said stop teasing me, stop that teasing" and I said "I did stop that teasing so I kept doing another one to make you laugh" and she was like "Oh my god are you serious?" Poor me, I was so confused that day and I thought a joke I had done made her really upset and then I thought it was all a misunderstanding because my mom had misspoke and then I thought she was very weird and had a strange way of telling you to quit teasing her and blamed it on you for not reading her mind. She did realize afterwards what she really said. I didn't even know then I was literal so when someone tells me something and then they change it, I just assume I took them literal so now they are being more clear and I don't argue with them about what they said. I just accept I misunderstood. I think being aware that you're literal is a good thing because it makes situations a lot easier because you have that self awareness.

League_Girl, that sounds a lot like what my son and I do...except I don't have the verbal abilities of the average adult.

And then, he has a temper, so feeling misunderstood all the time makes that worse. (He screams/shouts, he isn't physically aggressive.)

I think we have very different types of ASD, actually.

He seems more classic Aspergers and is left brained. I'm so right brained that my doctor first considered left-hemisphere brain damage.

I can understand figurative language. Even growing up, I understood them algebraically...you take these words out and they equal *this* (which is usually a picture/video in my mind). ...so later, I will use that same script I heard to describe the pictures in my mind.

I never took all language literal either. It's amazing how something can be interpreted in different ways. Like "driving into a well." I picture a car driving into it and it crashes so the car is wrecked. My ex with his literal thinking pictured a car going inside the well like down it so he said "They probably think your car went inside the well" and to me that made no sense because cars don't fit in the well, they are too big. But he was acting like us aspies would be that stupid to think a car would go inside the well. So driving into the well can be interpreted to driving inside the well and going down it. I would expect a child aspie to get confused and wonder how does a car fit inside the well, the well must have been huge if a car went into it lol. But an adult aspie I would expect them to know the car crashed into it because wells are too small to fit a car. But my ex knew what I meant by driving into the well and he was always stereotyping us.

When someone drives into a house, I picture a car going in a house and it crashes through the wall but another aspie may not picture a crash and will picture a car going into a home like cars do with malls when they do car shows in mallways.

Another time my ex and I were driving somewhere and I see a neighborhood across the river where my third grade teacher lived and I pointed to the green water tower and said "See that green water tower, that is where my third grade teacher lived" and he said "He lived in the water tower?" and I said "No he lived in the neighborhood" and he said "That's not a neighborhood" and I said "yes it is, see the neighborhood over there where the water tower is?" "Oh you didn't say that." "Yes I did, I showed you the water tower where the neighborhood is" and he said "no you said there is the water tower and that is where he lived." I said "You can't live inside a water tower." He said "They might have turned it into a home" and I said "but there's water in it" and he said "Maybe it's abandoned and they turned it into a home, it's happened before." But this is what happened and I was annoyed and it's amazing how literal someone can be and he was more literal than me. he even told me as a kid he was tested with a high IQ and he was told he had a high IQ with no common sense. The thing that annoyed me about him was how he would say I didn't say this or that instead of accepting that he just misunderstood and took me literal and move on than arguing what I said. He knew he was literal so all he had to do was go "oh" and move on realizing he took me literal and move on than argue like what I do.

Raining cats and dogs, someone on the spectrum might think you are just joking and another person on it may think it's actually raining cats and dogs and get upset because you lied. First time i heard this was in Rugrats so I thought Stu was lying and the second time I heard it was from my speech therapist and this time I knew she meant it was raining hard.

I have met several people on the spectrum who never took "stop that" literal nor did they ever think that they could only do certain things at home but not in school or could only do certain things at school but not at home. That was my literal thinking there too as a child. I asked my mother how was that being literal and she told me when you are given rules and taught how to act, you are expected to follow that everywhere, even with your parents not around but me I took it as that only applied at home and with her around so I would go to school and act different there. I have also read how aspies may be confused with the word "that" such as "why did you do that?" "Stop that" "Look at that" but I never was confused. I just always knew they meant what I just did because I was in the moment child. Like if I had just threw something and right away you asked me "Why did you do that?" I would knew you meant why did I throw that item. But don't tell me to not throw that or else I would throw another item, just not that item.

The word anymore, I was an adult when I learned what anymore actually meant. As a child I did not understand the word anymore so my mom had to say "Not today, not tomorrow, not next week, never." If you told me to not do something anymore, I would stop but then do it later in the day or do it again the next day. Then when I was an adult, I told my first boyfriend I wasn't going to be talking to him anymore if he was going to be joking around. Mom told me my ex took that literal so he thought I was rude. I was confused because how is "I am not talking to you anymore if you will be joking around" to "I am not talking to you ever again, not today not tomorrow, never." But that is what he thought. Then I learned that anymore does mean that. So I then thought okay if he is so literal, then wouldn't he be thinking instead "damn, if I keep joking around, she won't talk to me ever again, not today not tomorrow, never." But instead he thought "Damn, she won't talk to me ever again, not today not tomorrow never." I did thought at first he only heard the "I am not talking to you anymore" part and didn't hear the rest but no he said he heard the whole thing. Everyone tells me he was just being a jerk then because he heard it all. So it's amazing how someone on the spectrum may not take something literal due to not understanding what a word means. I can remember being in 6th grade and I wouldn't stop calling this one girl from my school so the parents would tell me to not call them anymore. They really did mean it but I just didn't understand the word so I wouldn't call them for the rest of the day or whatever and then call them the following day again. I was in 7th grade when I found out they meant never again and I wondered why didn't they say so. Uh they did say so, that is what anymore means. They were literal and concrete and clear, I just didn't understand the word. That reminds me of a assignment I saw posted online, it said to put the words in alphabetical order and instead the child put the letters in alphabetical order from each word and I said he didn't take it literal, it said to put words in alphabetical order, not letters, he has a language problem. But everyone was saying he took it literal and did what he was told to do and my argument is "nuh uh, it said words, not letters." He probably thinks words are letters but they're not. Chair is a word, c is a letter.