Literal thinking

I was listening to the radio the other day and they were talking about things that you’ve only just learnt or realised that everyone else seems to just know, the typical - “I was today years old when I realised…”. Made me think of some things that I didn’t register about straight away, and now wonder whether this is part of my autistic way of thinking about things, that I just thought about things literally. Some examples… 

On for sale sites when people put something about collections, I always thought they meant that the person that bought the item had to be a collector to purchase it, as in a stamp collector or a coin collector, like it was their hobby. Not that they had to physically be able to go and collect it from the person selling. 

In the song ‘one man went to mow, went to mow-a-meadow’ I always assumed there was a place called mow-a-meadow. I didn’t realise he was going to a meadow to mow/cut the grass.

when people put ‘Tia’ at the bottom of a post I thought it was that their name was Tia and it always amused me how many people shared the same name. It was only recently that I realised it was ‘thanks in advance’ 

Has anyone else got any examples of things like this? Do other people do it? Is it an autistic literal thinking thing or am I just stupid? :) 

Parents
  • I used to think teacher training day meant that teachers were allowed to wear trainers.

  • Lol I used to think it was a day when we could train and teach the teachers. I was so disappointed when my Mum explained it to me Sweat smile

  • ah love both your beliefs about teaching training days - both seem obvious and literal assumptions to me too! 


    We used to call teacher training days Baker days when I was at school,  and as a child used to think the teachers spent the day baking whilst the children got to stay home (I still to this day do not know why they were called that! I wonder if it was just a local thing?!) 

Reply
  • ah love both your beliefs about teaching training days - both seem obvious and literal assumptions to me too! 


    We used to call teacher training days Baker days when I was at school,  and as a child used to think the teachers spent the day baking whilst the children got to stay home (I still to this day do not know why they were called that! I wonder if it was just a local thing?!) 

Children