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swbluto
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28 Oct 2011, 12:40 am

I was wondering, is switching pronouns common in autistic adults? I noticed I occasionally make pronoun reversal errors (Like, I'm mentally thinking of the other person which would be represented with the word "He" but I end up writing the word "I".), and I'm wondering if this would be expected for an autistic adult? I know it's fairly common with children.

Does anyone know if this might be symptomatic of other disorders? It almost seems that reversal of the word "I" with pronouns (Like 'He', 'She') could also possibly be semantic paraphasia, and not just "Confusion with self" as would be the case with autism, which might be symptomatic of Schizophrenia. I've also read in a research document that schizophrenics tend to overly use the word "I" in their writings even where it doesn't make sense, as apparently they reference themselves a lot.



cathylynn
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28 Oct 2011, 12:56 am

if you were schizophrenic, you'd be having much bigger problems than pronouns.



swbluto
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28 Oct 2011, 1:12 am

cathylynn wrote:
if you were schizophrenic, you'd be having much bigger problems than pronouns.


Bigger problems will come in due time. They always do.



btbnnyr
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28 Oct 2011, 1:34 am

I reverse pronouns often. In speech and in writing. I usually switch "you" and "I", referring to myself in the second person as "you" or "yourself". Sometimes, I do this consistently for the whole sentence or paragraph with many uses of the second person. Other times, I use the first person for one clause of a sentence, then suddenly switch to the second person for the rest of the sentence. The whole time that I am using the second person, I am using it to refer to myself.

I thought that I might be doing this because I often visualize myself doing things in the third person when describing myself doing things. Bizarrely, the third person me in the mental video becomes "you" instead of "she" in language. 1st + 3rd => 2nd? If I want to tell someone that I set the oven to 450 degrees, then I will visualize myself setting the oven to 450 degrees and say to the person, "You set the oven to 450 degrees", which will confuse the begeezus out of the person. Other times, "you" or "yourself" just comes out when I mean "I", "me", or "myself".

As far as I know, pronoun reversal is mostly associated with autism. I don't know how common it is in adults or children, but I'm sure it's more common in children than adults. A lot of adults who did it as children probably grow out of it at some point. I do it almost everyday though.



btbnnyr
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28 Oct 2011, 1:39 am

I think it's been speculated that pronoun reversal is related to echolalia. Like if your mother gives some instruction to you in the second person, you repeat that echolalia-style and refer to yourself the same way. In the previous sentence, I meant "my" and "me" in the first clause, noticed that I was doing it again, then switched perspective to mean you when I said "you" and "yourself" in the second clause.



MountainLaurel
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28 Oct 2011, 1:40 am

Bluto, you're asking an important and interesting question which I have no knowledge or insight into.

But I just gotta say, gosh you look so ferocious today. You used to be so cute.



cathylynn
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28 Oct 2011, 4:55 am

i don't think you have schizophrenia. you may have an ASD. you really do seem to have some kind of obsessive-compulsive thing going on. see a doc and STOP WORRYING.



Sora
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28 Oct 2011, 7:30 am

I don't think it's all too common judging from those surprised and disbelieving reactions from ASD specialists I got about my reports of pronouns reversals. I got the same reactions about complex expressions of echolalia.

I end up reversing pronouns such as "I" and "we", "he" and "she" or "he/she" and "you" as well as "I" and "you". Even in my thoughts, I'm usually "you". The reversals seem to follow a set of rules too, meaning they're not inconsistent or random.

Most often, I reverse pronouns when I definitely mean to talk about my person but somehow automatically end up saying "we" or "you". I imagine that saying "we" is my back-in-childhood improvement from simply saying "you" because "we" at least includes "I" at some level and people tend to react with surprise rather than immediate disagreement. That backs up that my pronoun reversals are related to "functional" echolalia.


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swbluto
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28 Oct 2011, 11:14 am

MountainLaurel wrote:
But I just gotta say, gosh you look so ferocious today. You used to be so cute.


Oh, someone thought this new appearance was a more accurate form for me to take on. But it can be calm and cute, too. It's nothing a few tranquilizer darts can't cure.



ecathers
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11 Apr 2019, 10:37 am

Perhaps either they are repeating what someone said or they are saying what they think the other person will hear or they mistakenly think "I" and "me" are other name for themselves.



Fnord
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11 Apr 2019, 10:51 am

ecathers wrote:
Perhaps either they are repeating what someone said or they are saying what they think the other person will hear or they mistakenly think "I" and "me" are other name for themselves.
Do you realize that the previous post to yours was submitted about 8 years ago?


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