Clothing issues - Help!

Wow.  That's a lot of stuff to get my head around.  Thank you so much for your reply. We need to basically unthink everything we know and see everything anew.  Its pretty amazing really.  

What you and the previous poster have helped us to understand is that we need to do whatever we can to help her feel comfortable and recognise her daddy, and that in time she will grow and possibly change, possibly not.  In the meantime it's about not stressing out our 3 year old, and letting her see that daddy is here, not a random stranger in the house. 

We think the shirt/jumper being viewed as "daddy" is because my husband would (before corona...) come downstairs dressed to go to the office and see the children for an hour or so, then not see them again until nearly bedtime when he'd get home from work.  Over winter on weekends hed be wearing jumpers.  Now hes working from home, its been a warm spring so far and the t shirts are out, she doesnt see him as the same person because she cant remember seeing him that way.   Makes sense! 

Thank you  

Ah ok, thank you! That makes sense and is kind of what we thought was likely to be the case.  It's just all a massive learning curve and we're reading as many books as we can!  

So I'm guessing, given you refer to that situation in the past tense, that as you got older you were able to realise that your nan was the same person with and without glasses.    Are we likely to be in this situation for a good while? How old were you when you came to realise that she was not, in fact, an intruder?!  Was it a gradual thing rather than sudden? Sorry if I'm asking too much.  My husband was feeling very rejected by our daughter and this has really helped him think about it differently and realise that shes not rejecting HIM, shes rejecting hat she sees as the random man in our house who keeps trying to pick her up!! 

Definitely agree! Some children have enormous difficulty seeing their mother/father or significant others dressed in uniforms or clothes outside of what is seen to be the norm in specific settings for that particular child. A parent can in effect be seen as two separate people and the child may have a separate “Self” for each version of the parent/other involved. Only when the child understands the continuity of the world and people/objects in it, will he/she develop a sense of Self that is multi-faceted. Only then will it be understood that a person can have different characteristics in different settings, but still be the same person.

I’ve experienced this myself. It’s quite common to see in younger children, and can also occur in adults. One mother was only recognised by her son, if she was wearing her daytime clothes. In her nightwear, this caused great distress. Same with a policeman Dad. His child would only recognise him as “Dad” if he was in his uniform. 

For many on the spectrum, particularly those who are very young and those with intellectual impairments, the world is discontinuous and fragmented in both dimensions – time and space. The world essentially “happens” to such children/adults and is unpredictable and frightening. In their efforts to prevent change or control situations, some have even been known to “attempt” to make time go in reverse or happen faster. They can only understand the world as discrete and separate settings.

Without having developed a sense of Self(all encompassing), different people become ‘learned’ in different settings and remain in effect, referenced to those settings. In this case, the child/adult has essentially developed a separate sense of self in each setting with each person, but has not been able to join all the settings and people together conceptually so that he can understand that he can be both a son to his mother, a grandson to his grandmother, a student in school to his teacher etc. In essence, this child/adult cannot reconcile him/herself as having more than one social role or face at a time. Many highly competent autistic/AS adults can only function in a few social settings and feel safe, without disintegration. A fragile sense of Self inevitably lends itself to anxiety and panic, even terror. Autistic people are referenced to people/objects, settings and structure. We require that these be safe and predictable with clear rules. Anything less sees a rise in anxiety and our sense of self rapidly disintegrates. This is why structure and consistent rules of behaviour and communication styles across all settings are so critical to us and our sense of Self. We are only stable if the specific settings in which we operate are consistent and stable.

She doesn’t recognise him that’s why. Without her desired top on he is a stranger to her. 

I was the same with my Nan. She was only my Nan when wearing glasses. Without them she was an intruder and I would be scared of her