If I say petrol costs an arm and a leg... would that confuse an autistic person that speaks native English? If I explain an idiom to a person with autism... do they remember it and understand it the next time I use it? Do some people with autism have a better understanding of idioms, metaphors, sarcasm, exaggerations, and all that? I imagine the severity of autism could exist on a spectrum. How about people with asperger syndrome... do they also have trouble understanding some speech? I read an article called 'Straight talk about Asperger syndrome' and it said they do. I read some books on transactional analysis and it made me think about communication difficulties. Everyday talk could be very difficult for autistic people. If you have autism or asperger syndrome, is there anything you wish other people knew about it? Please correct me if I am wrong. I have seemingly endless interests and obviously I don't spend much time studying most of them.
My son is diagnosed autistic and he does often have these problems. He takes a lot of things said to him literally and at face face value. He has difficulty reading emotion and has a poor grasp of sarcasm. As he gets older, he is getting a little better with it, mainly because I've had to repeatedly explain it to him and have discussions about it. Whereas originally he took everything literally, he is now starting to understand when you use analogy, metaphors and so on. He still slips up if it's not something he has heard before but he tries hid best and I've been working hard to teach him lessons on skepticism and to think about what is being said and the context in which it's being said. Happy days
I have Nonverbal Learning Disorder which is very similar to Asperger's (not technically on the spectrum but very similar), there are some differences but a lot of the issues like not understanding sarcasm and interpreting what people say or mean are there in both. I used to be terrible at understanding idioms and sarcasm and took a lot literally..that has gotten a lot better but sometimes I still have to ask what something means if I've never heard it before. It really depends on the person though as far as what exactly their experience is. There is a saying within the community...once you meet someone with autism, you've met one person with autism. Each person with autism/asperger's is somewhere on the spectrum and their particular struggles and strengths can vary widely. Hope that helped.
I'm not so sure about autism as I do more readings on AS, but if i'm not wrong both AS [which exist as part of the autism spectrum] and autistic people are affected by the triad of impairment (Integration, Imagination and Communication) meaning they have trouble expressing emotions and feelings, misread non-verbal cues, have trouble giving eye contact in a conversation etc. Based on those articles I have read, the main difference between classic autism and AS sufferer is the IQ level with the classic autism person having below average whereby the person also has a delay in cognitive and language learning (meaning they will start learning to speak a little later in life) whereas AS sufferer have an above average or even superior IQ levels but they develop their language abilities within the expected age range. I could be wrong on this one though In essence, both autistic and Asperger's syndrome sufferers have trouble adapting to social situations and learning and a lot of people do get confused about the differences between those two. I always thought I suffered from AS but the fact that I do express my emotions a lot, can process sarcasm and occasionally make sly or snarky jokes makes me think i'm simply an oversensitive socially awkward person
I'm not diagnosed with autism but I've read a lot about it and Asperger's, and have many of the traits. It is a wide spectrum so some people do indeed have a better understanding of idiomatic language and sarcasm than others. Personally I miss a lot of sarcasm unless it's extremely overt, ie it's something so outrageous I know from the context it can't be true. This does not stop ME from being sarcastic, however . When you say something like "petrol costs an arm and a leg" I know what you mean. that the price is outrageous, as I've heard the expression, but in my mind I'm still getting a funny icon image of an arm plus a leg being traded for gasoline as my "knee jerk reaction" (and there's another expression for you!). If it's an expression I have not heard I *usually* know it's not literal (unless it's something that seems feasible) but it will likely trip me up because I get stuck on that literal image and don't really know how else to interpret it. One of my friends was in the habit for awhile of saying "six of one, half dozen of the other" and all I could think of was a carton of eggs, half of them white, half of them brown. I'm still a little murky on the actual meaning.
I have it and it doesn't even work like that. With sarcasm and taking things personally? That might be a little bit of a problem for me. Idioms? of course not.
I have asperger's and take things "too literally" I'm also slightly OCD (not diagnosed) that I think is related, you have to put the 15 rated films together that's just feels right, seeing a 12 with 15's really annoys me.
