The black and white, very literal world of #Autism

It seems that the boys had a decent day at school today, although Elliott said it was terrible because of all his makeup work.

The moment Emmett got into the car though, he just screamed and screamed. He screamed the entire way home, because communication is a challenge.

Yesterday I told Emmett that I would try to swing by my parents house and pick up their candy, because they were unable to go trick or treating.

As it turns out, I took Gavin to get his bloodwork done and I realized that we were very low on gas. I don’t get paid until Wednesday, assuming everything comes in on time.

The bottom line is that I didn’t get their candy bags and he had been counting the minutes until school was over so he could dig into his candy.

In my head, I said I would try to get there today. Perhaps I wasn’t that clear and I said I would go to my parents and pick the candy up. Honestly, I tend to believe Emmett because he’s so incredibly literal and holds me to every single word I say.

Either way, it didn’t matter because the circumstances changed and I was unable to go.

I over spent on groceries last week that left us short until Wednesday.

Like many kids on the Autism Spectrum, Emmett is incredibly literal, as well as black and white in the way he thinks. This can be an asset to him at times but for the rest of it, it’s problematic.

Because Emmett struggles to infer anything from a face to face conversation, he takes me at my word, and his brain doesn’t allow for things to deviate from whatever words were chosen.

I try really hard to always be as specific as possible because that’s the only way to ensure that I get my point across to him in a way that he understands. It’s exhausting and when something comes up, Emmett doesn’t typically adjust well and I see reactions like I experienced on the way home from school.

Can anyone else relate to this? I’d love to hear from you in the comments ts below.

Rob Gorski

Full time, work from home single Dad to my 3 amazing boys. Oh...and creator fo this blog. :-)
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