Difficult to putting thoughts into words..?

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I was wondering if anyone has experience of the following.
My AS/ADD son (11) has difficulty expressing his thoughts. If I ask him a question e.g. How was maths class today? he cannot give an answer, he will hmm and haa and get flustered. He has a default response for everything "I don't know". Now, he is very bright, loves school and his teachers tell me he is coping, he thrives on the routine. But even they have noticed that any sort of direct question will not get an answer. Conversations with him are like pulling teeth, leaving us both frustrated ':(' He has told me the words are in his mind but get lost on the way to his mouth? (if that makes sense?)
Is this typical of expressive/receptive difficulties?
How can I help him?

(Also he takes concerta for his ADD would that affect his conversation skills?)

Instead of asking him a question for which there is no specific answer, try asking him what he learned, did he do well on his work, what was lunch - and did he like it? That sort of thing. Stay away from the abstract, try to focus on things for which there are solid answers.

I wonder if it's not so much him not being able to express his thoughts as not knowing what it is you want to hear? Aspies tend to be literal thinkers. There are entirely too many variables to go through to winnow out an answer to a question such as "How was your day?" if you haven't learned that it doesn't mean what it sounds like it means. You might also point out that if nothing bad happened it means it was an "ok" day, or if something especially nice happened it was a "good" day, whatever your criteria are. Just so he knows what it is you want to hear from him.

Forgive me if I'm way out, but here's what in response to your inquiry.

I imagine your son, and I think of myself, and I imagine that I am a lot like he is. I have described myself sometimes as like a computer that needs very specific language imputs to elicit meaningful responses. I often need to rephrase things people say to me. I am forever asking people 'what they mean' by particular things.

'How was math class' isn't a very specific question to my mind. A specific question is something like 'What is 2 + 2'. 'Did you have math class today?' 'Do you like spaghetti?'

You could try asking more specific questions. E.G. did you like math class. Did you pass your math test, did you talk to anyone in math class, did you have any problems in math class, what did you do in math class.

Basically, just try restating your questions in different ways, see if any particular way of couching your questions is more effective.

You could elaborate on what kind of things you might like to hear about when you ask 'how was math class'. Demonstrating or practicing common responses to such questions might help him.

Or you might try less specific questions, like, 'is there anything you'd like to talk about'? It might just be a stream of special interest, or it might not work. I forget what I was like as a child, but my parents didn't ever really want to hear what I wanted to talk about, maybe your son is luckier than that.

I agree with the above posters; to an Aspie, "How was [such and such]?" might not seem like a very direct or specific question. I used to struggle with such questions a lot, but have learned how to respond to them (I may not know "how" they were, but I can describe what happened, for example). Also, this

does make sense to me, if it is anything like what I experience. I wouldn't say that the words are in my mind, because they're not words--just understanding/knowledge/thoughts/feelings without specific words put to them. This makes it difficult to translate them into speech. This can get better with practice. To illustrate what it is like, imagine that someone asks you the definition of a word. You know exactly what this word means and how to use it, but you just can't seem to give a good definition for it. We can also get very caught up on giving the right definition for the things we want to say, which can slow down or stimy our ability to give any definition at all, opting not to say anything rather than to give a wrong or not wholly accurate description.

Being asked more specific questions can make it easier to find words to describe the things inside one's head.