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Theory of Mind

traineeteacher

Trainee teacher again... I have been researching into the theory of mind within ASD and found regular research about how people with Autism cannot make connections between different meanings of words and how this make it difficult to interpret what people mean when they discuss ideas etc. 

Does anyone have experience as a parent or a person with Autism themselves with this?

 

Parents

  • Indeed I see metaphors very visually. I don't know whether that is exclusive to people on the spectrum though. I can work out the metaphor easy enough but not without the distraction, and private amusement, of the visual sensation.

    Forty years ago while working a groundsman in hospital grounds as a summer job I passed a justified comment about a fellow groundsman to a nurse I was talking to, an Irish lass from whom I might have expected such a saying. She replied "that's ten years of your life for maligning a friend". That has haunted me ever since, like it was really going to happen and I really did worry about it. It seems to me to have very real meaning.

    Being eccentric and different and therefore potentially annoying to NTs I've been told to do a lot of things like, "take a running jump", "take a long walk along a short pier" I actually visualise these vividly and react to them as if a real threat.

    I was also inclined to over interpret advice. When about 11 I was told by my parents I should always respect men of the cloth (ie ministers/clergymen). I put this into practice routinely, but included the Rabbi (I grew up in a strongly Jewish area). It ended up with the rabbi making enquiries about me why I wasn't attending attending Jewish scripture classes. I had to be told to stop doing it.

    But is that just being impressionable? Or is it part of the AS. I'm not clear.

Reply

  • Indeed I see metaphors very visually. I don't know whether that is exclusive to people on the spectrum though. I can work out the metaphor easy enough but not without the distraction, and private amusement, of the visual sensation.

    Forty years ago while working a groundsman in hospital grounds as a summer job I passed a justified comment about a fellow groundsman to a nurse I was talking to, an Irish lass from whom I might have expected such a saying. She replied "that's ten years of your life for maligning a friend". That has haunted me ever since, like it was really going to happen and I really did worry about it. It seems to me to have very real meaning.

    Being eccentric and different and therefore potentially annoying to NTs I've been told to do a lot of things like, "take a running jump", "take a long walk along a short pier" I actually visualise these vividly and react to them as if a real threat.

    I was also inclined to over interpret advice. When about 11 I was told by my parents I should always respect men of the cloth (ie ministers/clergymen). I put this into practice routinely, but included the Rabbi (I grew up in a strongly Jewish area). It ended up with the rabbi making enquiries about me why I wasn't attending attending Jewish scripture classes. I had to be told to stop doing it.

    But is that just being impressionable? Or is it part of the AS. I'm not clear.

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