When working with individuals with Asperger Syndrome, I have found that in order to have a successful understanding of the individual, one must learn a whole different language--one that is specific to the individual in front of you. The verbal short-cuts that one may use in daily discourse, may make very little "intuitive" sense to the individual with an ASD.
In fact, what I have found that neurotypical communication is riddled with grossly untrue, or at least, untested, emotional statements. How often have you exclaimed statements such as "this is the best dessert I have ever had!" or "this is the best day ever"? Now this may be your subjective experience in the moment, but is that statement in fact, true? Is that tiramisu literally the best dessert that you ever had? How do you know? Have you conducted an extensive empirical study on all tiramisu's you have ever tried and rated them on a Likert scale, on every dimension of it's characteristics,( ie., taste, texture, presentation, etc) and then ran a statistical analysis on which one was truly "the best" on all relevant dimensions? If you have not, then perhaps that tiramisu is not the best one you ever had, but you simply feel in this specific moment that it is, or maybe you just want to be nice and make the person who made the dessert feel good?
Now most people know on some level that when one hears such exultations, that the individual just really liked their dessert, or has a reason other than the characteristics of the dessert itself for singing its praises. However to some individuals such emotional generalizations may be quite confusing, if not foreign.
The Autism Society has a great feature on improving communication between the neurotypicals and individuals with ASD's.
http://www.autism-society.org/living-with-autism/treatment-options/learningeachotherslanguage.pdf
So the next time you ask an individual with an ASD how they like their dessert, please keep in mind that perhaps you are asking the wrong type of question, and translating exactly what it is that you want to know into words that make sense to the individual may be necessary for you to get the type of answer that you are looking for.
In fact, what I have found that neurotypical communication is riddled with grossly untrue, or at least, untested, emotional statements. How often have you exclaimed statements such as "this is the best dessert I have ever had!" or "this is the best day ever"? Now this may be your subjective experience in the moment, but is that statement in fact, true? Is that tiramisu literally the best dessert that you ever had? How do you know? Have you conducted an extensive empirical study on all tiramisu's you have ever tried and rated them on a Likert scale, on every dimension of it's characteristics,( ie., taste, texture, presentation, etc) and then ran a statistical analysis on which one was truly "the best" on all relevant dimensions? If you have not, then perhaps that tiramisu is not the best one you ever had, but you simply feel in this specific moment that it is, or maybe you just want to be nice and make the person who made the dessert feel good?
Now most people know on some level that when one hears such exultations, that the individual just really liked their dessert, or has a reason other than the characteristics of the dessert itself for singing its praises. However to some individuals such emotional generalizations may be quite confusing, if not foreign.
The Autism Society has a great feature on improving communication between the neurotypicals and individuals with ASD's.
http://www.autism-society.org/living-with-autism/treatment-options/learningeachotherslanguage.pdf
So the next time you ask an individual with an ASD how they like their dessert, please keep in mind that perhaps you are asking the wrong type of question, and translating exactly what it is that you want to know into words that make sense to the individual may be necessary for you to get the type of answer that you are looking for.
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