Published on 12, July, 2020
In another discussion, this has been raised as an area which people on the spectrum find difficult.
I have found references to this problem in every book I have read so far.
As an undiagnosed person, this is one aspect that I find difficult to understand in relation to myself. If I am missing non verbal communications, I cannot be aware that I am. I am able, however, to understand quite a lot of the above, and have assumed so far, that this is just something that I have learned. (I'm another child of the 50s) So why is it such a big issue in books on asd?
People with aspergers are as intelligent, or more so, than nt people. So why would they be unable to learn that a phrase may have more than one meaning. Words with multiple meanings are commonplace, eg wind, cheque/check, love, row, tier/tear
. Do we not learn some of these things with time? I am slow at getting jokes, but get there in the end.
Do other people here, find this to be a major issue? Is Frankie Howard really beyond the comprehansion of those on the spectrum? I don't mean to be rude in asking this, it is just the one thing I have read that really doesn't seam to fit.
I am also undiagnosed but, I mean the more I read the more I understand about what I call my "manufacturing defects" and often joke about this saying I was made with refurbished spare parts.
Some years ago I came across some videos about people with ADHD and spend hours crying because so many started to make sense, thirty something years struggling with my "manufacturing defects" and just now I understand I'm normal just different, still so many things still where without explanation and recently I again started researching and found the missing pieces of the puzzle. I have completed many ASD Asperger tests online, (know this is not a valid diagnosis). So many things started to make sense again, on the other hand I find the questions in many tests a bit...absurd. I mean they seem to be made for small children or was it perhaps that people with ASD where incapable to learn about certain thing... it is also the reason why I had doubts about myself.
It's a relief to read that like me many say is not about the capacity of understanding jokes, of course now I look like a NT but slow person....maybe, I have learned however still tend to Google thins up immediately and takes me a bit more to process jokes and suchlike.
I can't tell you how many times I've been the joke for been "slow", taking thing at face value, laughing at things that weren't a joke or simply not getting it.