Is He Aware of His Contradictory Answers?

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We have a long wait until we can get in for full evaluations/referrals. I'm afraid until I get more answers, I am going to bother the more experienced parents here with a couple questions here and there!

Quickly: Pretty sure our 4 1/2 year old son has Asperger's/PDD. No formal diagnosis but completely fits in with the checklist and did score a 96-100 on the PDD Assessment Test which put him on the higher end of Mild PDD. (Did the test as conservatively as I could.)

He has always been verbal beyond his peers. However, there are some odd language things he seems to struggle with. 1) Expressing his reasons for having complete meltdowns. We just know something is wrong, but he throws his body on the ground and we can't get words out of him. 2) Expressing his desires accurately. (Which is where my question lies). Conversation goes like this:

DS says he wants something to drink.
Me: "Ok, do you want milk or water?" (No response. Absorbed in play/his world.)
Again, "G, I'm asking you a question. Do you want milk or water?"
No eye contact. No response. Say name a couple times, get on his level. He looks up. "Honey, what do you want? Milk? Water?"
He answers, "Milk."
I bring him milk, at which he throws himself on the ground, cries and wails, "I wanted WATER!!" Calm him down and tell him he told me he wanted milk, at which he starts to look confused and says no he asked for water. Used to happen more, but it still happens often enough to be quite frustrating.

So, is this a common NT 4-year-old occurrence or is it typical for highly verbal kids on the spectrum to actually really not connect their speech with their desires? We used to think he was just manipulating us or trying to be annoying/ornery. Now that we know he is most likely on the spectrum, we are wondering if it is an issue with sensory/auditory processing. Anyone else experience behavior/responses like this with your NT kids/spectrum kids? OF course a specialist could help, but we have to wait awhile for appointments.

Sounds like he's not identifying what you're asking properly. It would help a great deal in the particular example you gave, for you to repeat the question.

"Honey, what do you want? Milk? Water?" isn't really phrased precisely.

"Milk?" is not a question. "Water?" is not a question either.

"Honey, what do you want?" is a question, but the two words following are confusing him. It sound's like he's only saying "Milk" because he's just mirroring the first word you said, or because it sounds almost like a test, for which YOU are looking for a particular answer to, not really asking what he wants.

Also, if he really is on the spectrum, he may be so deeply lacking Theory of Mind (look it up if you don't know what that is), he probably thinks you already KNOW what he wants, just because he does. It may not make sense to him to have to explain it to you.

"I know what I want, so you should too," is not an unusual way for a child with ASD to think. His answer, "Milk" likely has nothing to do with telling you what he wants, but telling you what he thinks you expect to hear, and he may simply be confused as to why you are asking the way you are asking, but not concerned with the reason behind it.

"Do you want water or milk?" is a more precise question, to which you might get a more accurate answer. It would also help a great deal for you to repeat his answer as a question.

"Are you saying you want milk?"

He may be agitated that you misinterpreted him, but at least you're more likely to get a straight answer.

Yes, this is something NT kids might do from time to time, but if this kind of thing happens ALL the time, that is not NT.

My son is on the spectrum and has a language disability. One thing that I have learned over the years is that just because a child learns language when they are supposed to doesn't mean they don't have problems using and processing it. I would suspect that most people on the spectrum have this difficulty in one way or another, unless language is your gift.

This reminds me of the issue that I had with my son regarding dinner. This is a kid that eats hot dogs and pizza only. He'll eat a hot dog every day for dinner for 6 months, then switch to pizza and will only eat that for 6 months, so how hard is the question "What do you want for dinner?" IF I get a response, and I don't always....it's usually what do you have. "I have pizza and hot dogs, which one would you like?" No answer...I ask again...no answer...15 minutes later I'm getting yelled at because he doesn't have his dinner. Then it dawned on me that he's a visual kid, language is not his strong point. Yes, he totally understands the question, he's 8 years old and is doing well enough linguistically, so what is the issue? I decided to do a picture chart. I put on there everything that he will eat and told him choose what he wants for dinner and I showed him the chart. He points to the hot dog, he gets his hot dog, it worked beautifully, problem solved...that simple. Do I get it? Not really, but it works for him. He is now able to tell me what he wants, but for a time that's what I did.

Next time you ask a question like what do you want to drink...use pictures, or show him a glass of water and a jug of milk and have him choose one and see if that end up being what he wants. If he does it consistently with no problem that may speak to language issues you may not understand yet, and it may give you direction on how to communicate with him. It's not going to be to his benefit to give you a hard time. For Autistic children it's a difficulty they can't help, for NT kids it's them being a pain in the posterior for whatever reason, and I agree with the previous poster, if he does it all the time he's probably AS/PDD or he has some kind of language issue, if it's sporadic it's probably NT behavior.

I think the previous posters have pretty much hit the nail on the head. I get yelled at quite often for repeating questions to my 5 yo son. He will yell at me that he already answered, which he may have in his head but I didn't hear or see anything come out of his mouth. At which point I just take the blame for not hearing him and ask him to tell me again. This usually gets the response needed. Sometimes when trying to get his attention so that I can ask him a question I sing to him. Ya know that Who song, Tommy Can You Hear Me? I just put his name in there instead of "Tommy". The sing-song sound seems to get his attention in a gentle way, I guess because it differs so much from the normal tone and cadence of my voice (which I sometimes think only dogs can hear judging by how little response I get from ANY of the people in my household ).

Wow. Wow. Hadn't read about Theory of Mind yet, MrX. That really, really opens up a lot of explanation. Although I do try to rephrase and don't always ask in that same way, sometimes clearer phrasing works and sometimes it doesn't. But I appreciate your point about really thinking about how I am asking. He doesn't do this every time I ask him a question, but he does do it quite often. I think we have adapted our asking methods and that has helped. I never imagined though that with the question "Milk?" he might not be able to read my tone of voice and know it was part of the question. I guess I realize now what they mean by kids on the spectrum having trouble picking up on voice tones, etc. And yes, he is annoyed quite often, because he has to 'explain' things to us.

The odd thing is his language abilities--vocabulary, sentence structure, etc. are very, very good. He could speak longer sentences by 20 months. (Which is why, despite quirks, I kept ruling out any possible developmental issues.) He can explain to me about gears, and pistons that make a machine work or how he rotated his blocks to make his building stronger. But when it comes to his emotions--why he is frustrated, what he wants, he often fails completely. Dissolves into incoherent sentence starts and we have to be very patient and slow and work really hard to help him get out of his mind what he is thinking/feeling. And he has a hard time understanding some of the things we are trying to relate to him--why he can't impose his 'rules' on everyone. That is a daily thing. And, I have a hunch it isn't NT behavior b/c of the frequency, and b/c of his genuine confusion that we didn't 'get' him.

And, Bobmaloo, I have quite often had my son do exactly the same thing. "I just told you!" When nothing came out of his mouth. And I have also had him--after he got upset b/c I got the 'wrong' drink or food--tell me, "Mommy, you KNOW I want orange juice!!" As if he assumed I can just read his mind. I really like the idea of pictures, MommyJ--because in the past if we showed him choices, he might go back and forth a few times trying to decide, but he sticks with his choice. I think singing might work for getting his attention too! Don't know why I didn't think of that.

Thanks, all . . . making so many connections right now, so many 'aha' moments, my head hurts.

Another, more humorous connection I have just made since I just went and read about Theory of Mind and Autism online: (Thanks, MrX) . . .

1) The 'inability' to lie or to do it well. My son has rarely lied--typically, if we asked who broke the vase he'd say, 'I did' or if he hit his sister, 'I did.' (Typical in that way for age I think). But now he has started lying. Only, he just can't do it! He will do something literally right in front of us--i.e. throw his vegetables on the ground just as our backs our turned--his sister will be in another room, and he will try to tell us she did it! He won't understand then why we think he did it, although we explain to him why logically we know it is impossible and a lie. We have tried to gently guide him into the truth in these situations, but he is quite stubborn about it. Don't know where he gets his stubborn gene.

2) The inability to play games like 'hide & seek' well. At 4 1/2 our son still doesn't get the concept of hide & seek, though his 2 1/2 year old sister is great at it! As soon as he hides and we say, 'Now, where is G?", he jumps out and says, "Here I am!" We have tried to explain the hiding part but he just can't do it well.

Anyway, for anyone else in a similar situation, I just found those interesting concepts from reading about Theory of Mind.

ToM can be a tricky thing to wrap your mind around though. It's not necessarily that we can't imagine that others have their own thoughts, but it can be in more of an "intellectual" awareness of it. Kind of like, if asked we might be able to explain it, but in practice it appears as though we forget they do. What you just inferred here from what I told you is a pretty good example. I think.

I was actually thinking about tone of voice and his not picking up on your tone's meaning when I wrote my last post, but I didn't actually say it. You had no trouble picking up on that connection, but I didn't think you would, because I probably wouldn't have. See how tricky the concept can be?

Be aware though, that he may very well learn to pick up on it eventually. He just may not do it as early as most of his peers will. He might, as I did, have to learn about vocal inflections and what they mean, and process them sort of like files in a computer when he hears them. It takes longer to learn that kind of processing, and it also takes longer to perform the processing once you have learned it. I'm fifty-one now, and it can still take me so long to process communication I often have to avoid processing many things just to have enough time to devote to the stuff that really matters. I think that is a huge reason so many of us don't care for small talk.



My second son used to do this kind of thing all the time, usually with dropping things. He'd drop something on the floor as he walked through the room, and we'd call his attention to it immediately. He'd turn around, look at what he'd dropped and ask, "What thing?"

"That piece of paper you just dropped."

"That's not mine."

"You just had it in your hand and dropped it just now."

"No I didn't."

"Well, it wasn't there a second ago, and nobody else is anywhere near it. No one else could have dropped it."

"But it's not mine, and I didn't drop it."

And on, and on...

I used to accuse him of lying when he did this. Now, I know he wasn't. He honestly was not aware he was dropping things all over the house. He used to make "sculptures" out of twisted pieces of paper and drop paper everywhere. Both floors and every room in the house would be covered in paper, even all over the stairs! It took me years to realize he really wasn't aware of what he'd been doing. He was so focused on the sculpturing, he never felt or saw anything he dropped.

Though that is quite a bit different from obviously deliberate acts like throwing things or hitting another person, I know, but the issue of lying can be very tricky to deal with. When it's obvious, I don't have a problem with calling it what it is. When it's not obvious though, accusing them of lying can cause a great deal of mistrust. My eldest, who is also ASD, did tell outright lies on occasion. Sometimes it was clearly obvious, but other times it wasn't so clear.

I've learned over time to err on the side of trust, because Aspies already have serious trust issues. The world isn't exactly made for us, which can cause a lot of distrust in us. When basic communication "rules" are already so confusing for us, it causes a huge amount of miscommunication, and, consequently, distrust due to constantly being misunderstood when we think we are being crystal clear. When our own parents accuse us of lying, when we know in our hearts we haven't, we begin to loose trust in those closest to us. Those whom we need to trust most. If enough of that trust is lost, that can actually lead to deliberate lying. Why bother being truthful if we think even those closest to us don't believe us even when we are being truthful?

"Stubbornness" is also one of the things that Aspies are often seen to have, when what appears to be stubbornness is actually something very different. Stubbornness is actually deliberate action or inaction. In many cases what we do that seems like being stubborn to others, is actually nothing more than us trying to maintain our identities. Often, what we are asked, or demanded, to do, runs contrary to our "nature" or who we are. We may have a kind of funny view of how we think life and the world "ought to be" and that is part of who we are. When we are told to do anything in a way that seems wrong to us, we are likely to refuse, put off, or reject that "way" as "wrong" in our minds. It isn't about not doing it because we don't want to, or doing whatever it is when asked to stop because we want to. It's more about what we want to do being "who we are" and what we don't want to do being "not who we are." Doing or not doing is about maintaining that identity, because who we are is the right way to be, and who we are not, is the wrong way to be. It runs much deeper than simply wanting or not wanting to do something, and deliberately avoiding or doing whatever we do just because we don't want to at that moment. The former is just "being Aspie." The latter is being stubborn.

On the surface, they may look the same, but deep under, the motivation is very different.

I do not know about NT kids but I had very similar issues. I still do, to some degree. It happened even with very clear phrasing.

"Are you hungry or thirsty?"

"Hungry."

"Ok, What would you like? (pause to see if he will tell me on his own--This would often be followed up with "You tell me."

"Would you like an apple or a banana or a piece of bread"

"Water!! !!"

"Ary you thirsty or hungry?"

"Thirsty! I want water!"

Sometimes I think it takes them a while to settle on what they want even if they think they know.

I appreciated your discussion on this.

AS individuals can see lying very differently than NT's do, and I agree it pays to be super careful with it from a very young age. Additional complications are the literal thinking AS kids have, and the propensity of society to require what amount to lies in certain social situations. Definitely tread lightly.

MrX, thanks . . . we are really beginning to see more to his motivation than we did before. In a good way. Considering that he may on the spectrum has made us much more patient with his quirks (not excusing bad behavior, but patient with the things that are different in his thinking). Much of what we thought before was just irrational and stubborn we now see to be tied to his way of processing and thinking. He threw a little fit the other day b/c his little sister refused to go 'under' his legs to get into the car. With a lot of reading fresh in my mind, I explained to him that she could choose not to and that was ok--that she was her own person and that it wasn't one of our family rules that she go under his legs to get to the car. He wailed, "But it's MY rule!!" LOL. I was able to have a sense of humor about it b/c I had a new perspective. Though I still expected him to calm down and to give his sister some space.

ASDMommy, sounds so similar to some of my conversations!

DW, yes, I've appreciated all the feedback too and hopefully some others benefit from it. Appreciate your point about being careful with the lying. I think I get what you mean about the literal thinking, society, and AS. We are definitely being forced to think a lot more creatively and carefully about our responses.