Things you didn't comprehend as a child because of autism?

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when i was in primary school (year 1 to year 6) i failed to learn many things that i still have not learned.

i did not learn "team spirit". i did not know why any one was interested to watch a competition that they were not involved in.
how can they cheer so happily about the fact their team scored a goal when they had nothing to do with it?

how can they be "proud" of efforts that are not their own?

to this day, i see soccer hooligans (on TV) all reveling about the fact that their team won, and they congratulate each other as if they had some input into the outcome. it seems absurd to me.

when i was at school, i did not care who won anything.
when i was chosen by a teacher to be in a team, i abandoned the team at the first possibility.
i did not understand that "team spirit" thing, and i felt that only my own efforts were of interest to me, and not the efforts of others...even if i was consigned forcibly on their "team"

in primary school, i also could not "play" with others because i thought they were stupid.

they did things i did not understand and i thought they were incorrect.

for example we all had "matchbox" cars.
my collection was of the powerful luxury cars like bentleys and lincolns and jaguars.

they mainly had "hot rod" style cars that looked ridiculous to me.
some were like 1940's car frames, but with fat wheels and a stupid chrome V8 engine in it.
they did not impress me.

then when it came time to play with the cars, they held their cars in their hands and swung their arms as fast as they could.
i played to scale. the acceleration of their cars was like 20 g's given the scaling of their arm swinging.
i payed close attention to making my cars accelerate slowly and with accuracy in a scaled way.

they did not even bother to stay on the ground with their cars.
they ran all around the playground with their cars in their hands that were flailing through the air.

i could not join in such a ridiculous frenzy of mindless butterflies as i saw them.

nothing they did was realistic or to scale. it was all just emotional or something because they got rather excited and laughed.
i did not see their mindsets.

i liked to recreate things like they would really be.

i used to wrap my matchbox cars in aluminium foil and squeeze a mold of the car into the foil.
then i would crash the aluminium foil replicas (mounted on dismantled matchbox car chassis) at intersections and inspect the damage.
aluminium foil i thought was roughly as strong in a scaled way as car panel metal at that size. i knew that if i was a giant and wanted to pick up a car with my fingers, i would damage it badly even if i was gentle. i wanted to preserve reality in my scaled play.

other kids just pranced and danced and romanced. they seemed entranced by their desire to connect with other people no matter how silly they are.

when kids at my school saw my alfoil shells in my bag that they stole one day, they just stomped on them without even considering that they could be interesting in crash tests to play with.

the grunts just destroyed my playthings with total ignorance of the potential play value of them.

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i had a toy boeing 737 that was a realistic looking replica.
i played with it. i taxied it along my taxiways at the realistic speed, and i took off at a realistic speed which looked retardedly slow to NT onlooker kids.

as i climbed in altitude, i put the plane against my head so my eye looked along the wing, and i walked slower and slower which mimicked the perception of speed decreasing as you gain altitude.

i imagined blades of grass to be huge trees, and i walked at scaled speed with my eye looking down the wing.

other kids stood around me and laughed as it looked like i was sort of ret*d.
teachers used to come out and break up the scene. i was oblivious to kids who laughed at me because i cared more about the subject of my play.

I believe they had the phrase backwards when they said, "Have your cake and eat it too." It is actually, "Eat your cake and have it too," which seems to me to refer to squandering your resources and expecting to still have them when needed.

"Raining cats and dogs," referred to rains so heavy that animals actually slipped from the rain gutters.

adages are perplexing.

"make hay while the sun shines".

how do you "make hay".
hay is just dried lucerne or the like.
it is grown.
it is grown over months so you can not avoid having it grow at night.
i do not understand that one.

"do not cross your bridges before you come to them".
that is just like advising someone to obey the laws of physics.

what else can they do but obey the laws of physics?
it is a silly and redundant group of words in my mind.

if "many hands make light work", and "too many cooks spoil the broth" then that seems to be contradictory to me.

i could take it literally and think that "many hands are needed from an irish family to screw in a lightbulb (and make light work) "

and i could also say that a broth made from cooks may get too salty and thick if you add too many cooks to it.

but i am not at that level of misperception. i know there must be some meaning to adages but i am blind to it.

What I don't get is how people can so strongly prefer one team to another. Especially when the players change constantly! Loyalty to a name and a logo? On what basis are you picking a favorite?

When I bother to watch sports at all, I don't care which team wins. I like to see skillful play. I'll cheer for any player who pulls off an excellent move.

Really, it's scary how people will divide themselves for such arbitrary reasons, and become downright hostile to anyone who's not in their group...

I always got into trouble for "talking back" to my parents. I figured they couldn't literally want me not to respond to them, because how else could I explain myself? It didn't hit me until I was anywhere from eleven to even thirteen to figure it out.

It means that you cut and bale your hay while it is sunny, or, rather, when its not wet from rain. Otherwise the bales rot in storage. It does not refer to growing it.


It means do no count a bridge as crossed before you cross it. ie: Do not think you are done a task before you really are. Do not presume a task will be as easy as you assume.


The adage about light work means that everyone should cooperate. Six men can move a automobile easily, while three men may struggle.

The second adage means that not everyone gets to make the decisions. Hand implies labour, while cook implies executive powers, leadership. The cook is the head of the kitchen. There is only one head. Perhaps it should be "too many chefs spoil the broth."

Last edited by Fuzzy on 03 Jan 2009, 4:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

When I was little, I would watch Home Alone and I couldn't understand why Kevin said he "hung around." He never hung around. He caught those bad guys, he went to the store, he put up the Christmas tree, he watched that movie, etc.
At the beginning of the movie I couldn't understand why Kate was telling her son to say "Goodnight Kevin."

In the second movie, Kevin gets his underwear and he says "Gees, don't flash these babies around here, there could be girls on this floor." I couldn't understand why he was making a big deal about girls lying on the floor.


When people say they cross their hearts and hope to die, I thought they were going to get knife and cut it. One time it freaked me out when my mom said it and I was happy she never did it.

I remember being seven years old and I see my friend Sara heading somewhere and I ask her where is she going and she says "None of your business." I try to figure out what business I had so I keep asking her and she keeps saying it. I just keep following her because what was my business? I had no business.

When I was little, I copied everyone, even little kids because I didn't understand age difference and understand it's okay for little kids to do something but it's not okay for older children to do it. If I got in trouble for something but the little child didn't. I thought the grown up was being unfair and mean. When they tell me how old the child is, I still didn't understand. Why were they telling me his age? Why am I the only one in trouble, not him? Another hint that showed why I was different.
I once copied a toddler and started doing what she did to me but didn't know it was not okay what she did because she was only two or three so she didn't know any better. But because she didn't get in trouble, I thought it was okay to do it when someone doesn't share with you. She pulled my hair because I wouldn't let her play with a toy I was playing with so I thought when someone doesn't share, you hurt them. My mother had to correct me later on.

Then at age ten, I got so sick and tired of getting into trouble because I don;t know when is something age related what the kid did, so I started to look at my own age group and up and copy them. But I still got in trouble so I thought I was being discriminated. I did not know there was a line drawn and kids knew when to break the rules and when to stop. I just thought the rules had changed. It was always confusing when kids break them. Did the teachers help out? No. Instead, they thought they could keep on punishing me. All that did was make me try harder and keep fighting for my rights to be normal. I am sure they were just trying to get me to not break them but that didn't do me any good. They never listened to my words. I kept telling them "if other kids can do it, so can I?" "Others did it, why can't I?" "I want to be treated like everyone else, not be treated different." I also told them why don't they punish them too if it's wrong, not only me.

[quote="Spokane_Girl"]I remember when I was nine, I went to Discovery zone with my friend and her little brother and sister and their mother. She bought us some cotton candy before we left and one of the kids asked her "Where does cotton candy come from?" and she said "Clouds."
I believed her and I asked how do they get them and my friend said they fly up there in a plane and pull the clouds and and take them down and they put color in them.

I don't know if she bought it too or she was just playing along with her mother. She was eight or nine then and her little sister was seven and their brother was three.

So I believed it for a while until I saw cotton candy being made when I was 10. My brother saw it and showed me. I told both my brothers cotton candy was made from clouds and my mother told them they were not and I didn't believe her but my brothers did. Then I thought the mother was wrong when I did find out how it was made. My mother told me in 6th grade she was kidding. All those years I thought she was serious and thought how foolish she was. Didn't she know you can't touch clouds, you just go through them so how the heck would they use them to make cotton candy? It never occurred to me she was just kidding.[/quote/




I was afraid to eat cotton candy at first, because I thought it was really made of cotton and I didn´t think I´d like it...

This cotton candy story reminded me of a story of my own.

When I was about 6, I was riding with my family in a subway. On that day, the subway stopped, for a long time, between stations- so we were just sitting there, not moving. I had ridden the subway before, and it had never stopped before; so I asked my grandmother why the train wasn´t moving. She said, "I guess we´re waiting for a cow to get off the tracks"! I actually saw a visual image in my mind, of a poor cow who had inadvertently wandered onto the tracks. I imagined the men who normally drive the train, trying to coax the cow to get off. I didn´t feel so bad sitting there, as I felt sorry for the unlucky cow, and I hoped she would get off safely.

Then a few weeks later, I was in another subway with my Mom and brother. Once again, the train stopped and we were just sitting there. Finally, I said: "Boy, it sure is taking a long time to get this cow off the tracks!" My Mom asked me what the heck I was talking about? I explained to her what my grandmother had said the last time. My mother told me my grandmother made a joke. Of course, I did the inevitable and asked my Mom why had we stopped then? She said probably due to technical difficulties. Well, I didn´t like this at all, and suddenly wasn´t nearly as patient as when I believed we were stopping for cows....

Boy, the world was confusing when I was younger! No sooner did I think I finally knew what was happening, when I found out it was really wrong!

Hello all,

This is my first time posting, although I have been lurking for while now. I'm NT, but I have a younger cousin who is a somewhat low functioning Aspie, and he has always been very special to me.

In the course of a conversation about my cousin, my friend, Fuzzy, directed me to this website and I've been learning a lot. Every once in a while, if it's relevant to a conversation we are having, Fuzzy directs me to specific threads in this forum which he thinks I may find interesting, and I have to say, I love this thread.

It's brought me a lot of smiles because so many of the things you've talked about have been things I've been through. For what it's worth, I think that many of the things that have been discussed aren't specific to Aspies. A few of the examples brought back some memories for me too. I, too, was disillusioned and extremely disappointed with Seamonkeys! *LOL*

After reading all the posts, I think that many of the misunderstandings we had as children stem from the fact that we were children -- not that we were NT or Aspie. Kids just don't have the resources to come to the "correct" conclusion. We learn that as we go along. Kids rationalize based on what they know, and since neither their sphere of knowledge nor their vocabulary is very large, there's lots of room for misunderstanding.

One of the contributors mentioned getting the word 'celery' mixed up with 'salary' and not understanding how you could stretch celery to cover expenses. When I was about 7, I didn't understand when someone said, "He's unstable", what it actually meant. I thought that since he was unSTABLE, he lived in some sort of barn/animal enclosure.. It never quite made sense to me!

Someone else wrote about reading something and translating it to pictures. I used to do that all the time and just not "get" it. I think that comes from lack of comprehension. I didn't really start understanding what I was reading until I was about ten years old. When I was quite younge, I used to wonder if people ate babies. At the grocery store, I saw all fruit in jars with pictures of strawberries, peaches, etc.. and then saw the babyfood with a picture of a baby on it and was horrified! *LOL* I wouldn't go to the grocery store anymore!

Other people wrote about not understanding time, and taking it very literally.. "be back in a minute" means be "back in 60 seconds".. I still get anxious when time isn't specified and I don't know how long I'm supposed to wait!

All these, I think are typical to young children, regardless of whether they are Aspie, or NT.

After reading all the posts, it jumped out at me that the mutually common misconceptions belonged to the younger kids, up to about age 8, I would guess.

The memories of the children who were older.. 9 years and up, were more Aspie (I believe). At least it seems that way to me. Many of the thought patterns are sort of alien to me, personally, but I've noted them in my cousin.

I just loved this thread though because it made me smile as I remembered many of my childhood misunderstandings!

I used to wonder "Won't the cats and dogs get hurt if they fall from that high up when it's raining?".

I used to wonder why the teacher on Romper Room never called MY name, but called the names of all the other kids watching. (My name is uncommom, and she only called five or six names so I assumed only five or six kids were watching.)

I used to wonder why there were so many people named "Herald Journal" living on my aunt's street. My aunt had her street number and last name printed on her mailbox, and all the other mail boxes had their street number and "Herald Journal" printed on them!

I got my first clock radio when I was about 8 years old and I had never seen a record. I used to think that the bands travelled from one radio station to another, playing their songs.. then moving on to the next radio station. In my mind, each radio station had a set of instruments waiting to be played.

So many things we don't understand as kids because no one ever thought to explain it to us!

Makes me resolve to be a little more patient with kids. Thanks!

LL

Hello lawlesslady: Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Yes, I agree with you; probably many, or even most of these stories are common among all children. It´s hard to know what´s a misunderstanding due to autism, or due to being a child. There is a movie about Asperger´s Syndrome, called "Mozart and the Whale", and the main female character talks about how she was "different" because when she was a little girl, her parents were watching the Olympics, and were excited when someone "broke a record". So, she decided to break all the records they had in the house, because she thought "I can do that too". When I saw this, I thought this was a mistake that any child could make if they had never heard the term "breaking a record before"; you automatically associate it with something you know. My guess, anyway, is that this sort of misunderstanding just occurs MORE often with Aspies. (When I was a child I had the feeling, very often, that I didn´t know what was going on, whereas other children did; however, I have no way to really prove this).

I´m glad that so many others experienced the sea monkey problem- now I know it wasn´t due to some stupidity of mine!

Some things I did were over the age of nine such as the cotton candy story but I was nine years old then. Me having troubles knowing what was right and wrong and getting confused about the rules because kids wouldn't follow them. It took me till I was eleven to know what Kevin was saying when he said "Don't flash these babies around here, there could be girls on this floor." and it took me till my teens to figure out what Kate was saying when she told her son, "Say 'goodnight' Kevin."

I heard kids younger than nine know what is wrong and what isn't. They wouldn't copy what a three year old does or what a two year old does. Even kids young as four get into trouble when they copy their little siblings because the parents are trying to teach them to show a good example for their siblings. But it might not work for an autistic child because the child will just be confused and think you are mean or think you are discriminating them and it gives them the hint they are different because to the POV they are being treated different. A normal child would understand their actions and not think those things.

My mother told me I have always been literal but she says I was starting to get literal when I got older but i think she means I have always been literal but it wasn't a big deal then for anyone because all kids are literal when they are young but when I reached my pre teens, it started to show because I was still literal.

When I was eleven I was coming home from the funeral with my mother and she kept telling me to "stop that teasing" so I stopped and did another tease. So for the rest of the way home, i was teasing my mother all day and I kept stopping that teasing and doing another one. I never figured out every tease I did she didn't like so I should stop. My mother never told me she didn't want me to do anymore teasing on the rest of the way home, zero.
For three years I couldn't understand why my mother was telling me to stop that tease if she didn't want me teasing her at all. Who tells someone to "stop that teasing" if they don't want to be teased? So I thought my mother was weird. I never knew I was taking it literal until she told me when I was 15 that stop that teasing means stop teasing. But she had to tell me it five times for me to understand. I think my brothers had troubles understanding it too because I can remember her telling them the same. They were in elementary school then.
I have taken plenty of phrases literal in my teen years.

I remember my ten year old brother taking "Bite your tongue" literal because he said "That would hurt" when mom told him to because he was whining.

The Watergate scandal happened when I was a child. I spent forever wondering how they were able to make a gate out of water.

Your post seems pointless. The original was an example of what was taken literally. An explanation was not asked for that I read.

I remember watching some Superman films with Christopher Reeve. I read in the TV guide at the time about Superman being the 'Man of Steel' I turned to my mother and said, "I never knew he was made of steel" then my mother tells me that isn't what it means.

I do hate people saying they will be 5 minutes, what is so hard for being honest? If I don't know, I try to give "I'll be back, but may be a while"

At work, I like to give times that are at least slightly longer to compensate any probable problems or delays. The problem with this is when someone else gives a wrong time. (Delivery estimates)

I dont think so. He said "I do not get that one" indicating that as an adult, it still perplexed him.

On the next two he said "that seems contradictory to me.", which suggested a little clarification would ease the irksome nature of the contradiction.

Sorry, but who are Kate and Kevin and what is the cotton candy story, what does it mean 'don't flash these babies round here' and why did it matter that there could be girls on the floor (what floor?). Also, what *did* Kate mean when she said, 'say "goodnight" Kevin'?

I do not understand at all


Hay is dried grass. You can't grow dried grass so you can't grow hay that's why it is said that one makes it.

My soft toys where more alive than people, people where like mist to me.
I gave up my bed one night for my soft toys.
My foster mother told me she had had enough of me and maybe someone else would have me so i went out knocking on doors asking if people would have me because my mother didn,t want me anymore. I had nearly gone around the whole block untill my foster mother arrived in a car because she had been out looking for me.
My foster mother told me on halloween that she was a witch and i believed her and told everyone i could, someone even said 'she just called her mother a witch thats horrible'. I could never work out why that was horrible.
I drempt i could fly and that it was all just about a force i could push against with my hands like magnets. I kept jumping off the steps at school and flapping my arms i even thought i was getting a little further each time then i turned to see everyone in the school mobiles looking out of the window laughing including the teacher .Break time was over and i hadn,t noticed everyone had gone in and i was trying to fly.
I used to wonder if the moment i was in was real or a dream and that i might just wake up at any moment.