Principles Of Autistic Interaction

I once said, years ago, that I live from mistake to mistake. I’d do something in confidence that I was right, and then my people would get furious because, in fact, I was doing something terribly wrong. Yet I didn’t know it was wrong. I would always try to do the right thing, but my decision would be based on what was right the last time in a slightly different context.

When I made those mistakes, I constantly heard about how I was much too old to make them. People would say things like: “You’re so so years old, and you don’t know it’s wrong to…” Or: “How could you not know how to…” Or sometimes: “How could you be so stupid?”

An autistic person is not going to meet the expectations imposed on him no matter how many stickers and rewards you give him, no matter how many therapies you put him in. Figure out the developmental path he is taking, and then do everything in your power to keep him on that path. He will show you the right way with his interests and his obsessions, the way I showed people with my obsession with PC's and Cars.

If she had insisted that I play with kids rather than computers and cars in order to learn, I wouldn’t have met the goal anyway but they would have deprived me of the ability to meet it in another way.

An autistic person generally feels uncomfortable in the presence of others. They are too noisy or smelly or intrusive or out of step with his needs. The first thing an autistic person usually looks for is a small place in which to isolate himself from other people—under the table, in the corner, or shoulf he find someone he trusts, he will want that the person to be trustfull.

Autistic people are described as being "locked in their own world".

Another important point is that much of this applies only to high-functioning autistic individuals. Many lower-functioning or nonverbal autistic individuals may not have the ability to understand certain social principles, and thus cannot think in terms of how someone else feels (e.g., “a theory of mind.”) Other autistic individuals are very selfish and self-centered with regard to other people, even other autistic individuals. Those individuals aren’t necessarily trying to annoy or reject everyone they meet. They just lack a basic awareness of other people.

It is more important to tell the truth than to be polite, unless the person you are talking to specifically states that their feelings are easily hurt.

If one autistic person is bothering the other person, what is the normal response response? It is not politeness its, silence. The response is to somehow communicate (verbally or nonverbally), “Look, you’re bothering me, don’t do that anymore.”

Autistic people are often hurt a great deal because someone was too “polite” to tell them they were making a mistake. I have often engaged in what I thought was a successful social interaction with people.

When I complain that no one told me I was being rude and inappropriate, I am invariably told that the other people were “being polite” by not telling me. How is this supposed to help me in the long run? The truth would have been much more helpful.

In addition, many autistic people often feel confused when they learn two contradictory lessons in life. After being told earlier that they must always tell the truth, then they are told that they must withhold the truth if it means hurting one’s feelings. This is very hard to grasp for an autistic person. To him, you have just lied by telling him two lessons that contradict each other. If one lesson is true, the other must be false. Why did you say that you must always tell the truth if, in certain scenarios, you’re not allowed to tell the truth? And which is correct? Is telling the truth the right thing to do, or is being polite?

Therefore, only one rule applies: truth wins over politeness. If you don’t like someone, you tell him. You say, “I don’t like you.” An autistic person frequently asks whether he is bothering his friend, even if it is pretty clear he is not. And if this person like him, the autistic person will reply honestly, because he understands his friend’s concern. However, autistic people are not bothered by certain things that bother normal people (and vice-versa)

In an friendship, a shared interest is often the glue that keeps the friendship together. Two fanatics of Star Wars, or Heros will be friends because they like Star Wars, or Heros. During autistic conversations, interruption is never impolite. This is for several reasons.

Autistic people often lack the ability to know when another person is done talking. This becomes problematic when autistic people speak with normal individuals. I myself doesn’t know when the normal person is actually done talking or just taking a breath before starting a new sentence. When the normal person is, in fact, done talking, the autistic person doesn’t immediately pick it up and by the time he tries to talk, someone else has already started talking. Thus, in an autistic conversation, there is no such thing as being done. Some autistic individuals even talk until you do interrupt. And when you interrupt, they listen to you, but then just pick up where they left off when you are done.

I have the habit of talking too much. I will not stop unless you interrupt me. Thus, many people interrupt each other to communicate that they want the other person to stop, as this is the only way they can get a word in. In fact, sometimes autistic people are incapable of stopping—their thoughts just tumble out in a series of run-on sentences, and by stopping them, you are doing them a favor. Sometimes I can’t control what comes out of my mouth, and once something gets started, it just keeps going.

If you want the autistic person to play a board game, but the other autistic person doesn’t want to, the autistic person will say no. Not all autistic people attain the ability to accept “no” for an answer, but they will likely say no to you when they don’t like something you want them to do.

Autistic people, having been forced to do many things themselves, understand what it feels like when another autistic individual doesn’t want to do something. When they communicate their wishes not to do something, they are not putting their friend down but telling their friend something they know their friend will understand.

To an autistic person, it’s not what you say that hurts, it’s whether you mean it. The truth never hurts, but lies and deception do.

When an autistic child is bullied, their feelings are hurt because the bully is deliberately trying to hurt them and figures out clever ways to trick and hurt the autistic person. But when one autistic person says negative things to another autistic person, he is not trying to bully the person but only to convey truthful information.

And once there is mutual understanding, we all-—the normal and the autistic individuals of the world—will attain a much better theory of mind toward one another.