Aspergers and comprehension of NT instructions/questions?

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I had terrible trouble in school understanding what it was the teachers wanted us to do and was constantly asking streams of questions to get clarification. I was always asking them "do you mean X, Y or Z" and felt that their words could be interpreted several ways and didn't know which interpretation was correct. Even if I suspected which was correct, I was rarely sure of it, so felt compelled to seek clarification. The teachers used to get really angry with this and in the end I was too scared to put my hand up anymore, so I would just sit there not knowing what to do or which interpretation of their words to choose and getting more and more desperate.

Sometimes, I'd eventually just guess and end up getting it badly wrong, when what you were "supposed" to do was apparently so "obvious" to others, even those who were clearly much less intelligent than myself. Often I would reject the simplest possible interpretation of an instruction in class because I'd think "He can't be asking us to do that. That's far too simple. We're not infants. He can't possibly mean that", only to find out that was exactly what was meant.

I always felt they weren't clear and specific enough and I was always being told off for my lack of "common sense" and failure to intuit their meaning.

In adulthood I still have trouble like this and it often shows up in my inability to comprehend what exactly is being asked on forms of various types. It's made me virtually form phobic as I just associate them with stress and frustration. I dread them. The questions always seem vague to me and imprecise as well as open to several interpretations and I get into a kind of paralysis and extremely worked up because I can't bear to proceed without knowing exactly what is being asked. I need to know the 'rules'. I need to understand.

I experienced this almost as what I see as a "learning disability" although I don't know if it is or even if it is anything to do with AS.

Although not a "social" problem, as such, it felt like I just couldn't get on their mental wavelength or intuit their thinking and wishes delivered as instructions or as questions on forms etc. I felt like everyone was using a kind of shorthand in their language that they all understood but which seemed desperately vague and imprecise to me and which provided insufficient data for me to proceed confidently, or at all.

Is any of that familiar? And do you relate this to AS or do you think this is a separate problem?

Last edited by Maolcolm on 01 Nov 2010, 1:44 am, edited 2 times in total.

I believe this problem is related to Executive Dysfunction. Other sources could be Auditory Processing Disorder, or simply taking things too literally. Depending on the situation, and how the instructions were said and/or delivered, it could be any of the three, or perhaps something else entirely. Other suggestions would be great!

I've always had trouble with instructions. I can be tiring to deal with when it comes to instructions because I guess I ask too many questions. I require that people be direct with what they want, not ambiguous. I always thought it would be stupid to just assume what the instructions meant, but clearly most people don't seem to have an issue with them like I do.

NTs lacking ToM

Other people don't know what you do!

That's a huge problem for me & always has been. People never include enough details in their directions & I'm never sure exactly how to do something. I either end up doing it wrong, or asking & then being told that I'm an idiot for not knowing.

Oh yeah, I know what you're talking about. Fortunately I'm not too often in the situation where I need to ask, so I didn't have that many problems with that.

But when my mother wanted to show me how to cook something, she was always very surprised at how accurate the instructions need to be.
Once she explained to me how to cook a pumpkin and then went off shopping. So I cut the pumpkin into pieces and put them into the pot. I knew that I had to fill the pot with water to a certain height, but I didn't know whether I should measure that with the pumpkin inside of the pot or the pumpkin outside. I did it with the pumpkin outside, and it turned out to be wrong

I always seem to find every possible meaning of an instruction or question, and when having to find the right one without help, I usually manage to get the wrong one...
I'm afraid the problems with that will increase.

I'm the same. The problem is over interpretation. I see too many variables.

Yup. It drives people mad when you point all of them out. In a corporate world where the meeting seems to be the primary modus operandi, they want solutions not more questions, even if the solution isn't a great one.

If someone asks me to go somewhere to get an item for them, expect me to come back 2 or 3 times saying I need more information to find it. I just can't extrapolate instructions very well.

Oh yes... school was hell because of this. Teachers kept saying I made everything too complicated .

Even today this causes so many embarrassing situations

People don't get away with blur instructions when they are in conversation with me.

Wow, thanks for the replies.

Lot\s of people seem to know exactly what I'm talking about and had exactly the same problems. Many of you added details that I really identify with also, such as the accusation from teachers etc that "I made everything too complicated". And I also agree wholeheartedly with being aware of "too many variables". Actually my feeling is that things are that complex and that there are that many variables but many NT's have a poor awareness of the true range of possibilities and permutations of what they say and because they generally share this severely limited perception - which they commend as a virtue and call "common sense" - they can communicate easily with each other with what are little more than grunts and gestures.

My grandmother used to have a saying she applied to me as a child and which my parents adopted, I can't remember the exact wording but the gist was that "I was so smart I was no practical use". I imagine something similar was said to many people here.

I've had my fair share of problems.

My take is that NTs must share a common set of comprehensions so when they say "BLAH" they all seem to generally know what it entails.

I, however, normally do not. And I will follow what appears to be the common sense literal interpretation of "BLAH." Then they get upset that I didn't catch the unspoken nuances of what "BLAH" conveys.

Asking questions is the core of my strategy for dealing with people.

I often don't know what people mean, so I have to ask. The question that comes to my lips most often is "Is that good or bad?". People forever make statements and expect me to know. Ambiguity is fine, as long as no one expects me to react a certain way.

Yes, I do this too, at lot, and it does help. But in my experience it's not always well received. In school, teachers generally don't like lots of questions, they see it as "disruptive". In work situations it can be seen as dullness or a lack of initiative and in family and other relationships it can get very tiresome - apparently. But I don't have any other option really.

Yeah, I'm glad I'm not at school anymore. Without understanding, school was useless for me. My parents also hated my infinite stream of questions. I'm glad for the internet, it seems to have an infinite capacity for enduring my curiosity.

I think as I got older, my questions got more concise. Also I got politer, which helps. I think one problem is that aspies are prone to discursive thinking, where one question leads to wilder and wilder tangents which actually are disruptive. It's good to reign that in, and just stick to the matters at hand, though that goes against our natural way of being.

These are the exact problems that I have. From my perspective, most people come across as ambigious and vague. For most of my I could not get anyone to understand that. I finally found a group of people who do. My fellow aspies.

Here is what happened to me one time with my wife and I. She told me to put a pot of water on the opposite side of the stove. I was anxious and did not know what to do. Here is why. On the stove we have four burners. One burner is on the left and back corner. Another is on the right and back corner. A third is on the left and front corner. A fourth is on the right and front corner. We were dealing in two dimensions here for the top of the stove. The pot of water was on the front right corner. How do I tell what was the opposite side? All of them could've been the opposite side. The left was opposite of the right. The back was opposite of the front.

Both back and left were opposite of the front and right. This was more opposite. On which, axis was she talking about? Was she talking about the x,y or both x and y? I had that problem along time ago.