homo_aspien wrote:
Recently a work colleague who has a 13-year old son with Aspergers complained that when he tells his son to have a shower the boy just turns on the water and stands under it with no attempt to wash, lather, or shampoo.
It took me a while to get him to understand that a shower was a physical object that sprays out water when you turn a tap and performing that action could constitute taking a shower.
I suggested that the next time he told his son to take a shower he should also suggest that he wash himself with a flannel and soap, as well as shampooing his hair while he was under the water. Guess what happened?

Quote:
March Hare: …Then you should say what you mean.
Alice: I do; at least - at least I mean what I say -- that's the same thing, you know.
Hatter: Not the same thing a bit! Why, you might just as well say that, 'I see what I eat' is the same as 'I eat what I see'!
March Hare: You might just as well say, that "I like what I get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!
The Dormouse: You might just as well say, that "I breathe when I sleep" is the same thing as "I sleep when I breathe"!
I swear, sometimes I think neurotypicals never read anything other than what they're forced to read for class. If they do, it doesn't sink in. I read this
Alice scene when I was a second-grader and It was seared into my memory forever after - probably because it was just the sort of situation that, as an Aspie kid, I ran into every day of my life - people never
say what they actually
mean. And yet we're the ones they call 'impaired'. Nonverbal cues, my @ss - that's just an excuse for overgeneralizing, which is
lazy thinking.
But yes, at my age, I've learned this lesson the hard way over many years, so I can generally intuit what the NTs
intend, even when
that's not precisely what they said.