Autism and the literal take on the world

Written on 18th Jun 2013 by Alex Lowery

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One thing to know about a lot of autistic people is that they often take things very literally. If someone says, “It’s raining cats & dogs”, this may confuse a person on the spectrum, and they may literally go and look for Cats and dogs.

The phrase it’s raining cats and dogs refers to heavy rain.

When someone’s being sarcastic or ironic, or simply telling a Joke, a person on the spectrum may take what they say literally. I’m someone with autism who’s learned a lot about metaphors I know most of them by rote, so when someone says an expression, I don’t often take that literally. I’ve also learned a lot about sarcasm and irony. However, I still can’t always tell when someone’s being sarcastic. If it’s REALLY obvious, I can usually tell. For example: if it starts raining and someone says “Oh Great!” Or if I said something negative to someone and he or she said, “Oh Thanks Alex!”, then I’d know that they were being sarcastic. I mainly know in those cases, because it would make no sense for them to literally mean what they say.

There are other times when people are being sarcastic where I’m not able to tell. One example of this is my mum and I were walking in my local town, and we saw a gang of teenagers, and one of them asked my mum ”Where did you get your dress from?” My Mum just ignored them which I didn’t get, but then they asked again, and this time my mum said, “A shop”, to which this teenager replied, “Well, DUUHHH!!! Obviously it’s a shop, but I mean what shop!” My Mum just said, “I dunno! Marks & Spencer”, then just got into the car. I asked her why she didn’t answer them straight away. I thought this teenager probably liked the dress so wanted to know where it was from. But my mum told me that it was sarcasm, and they were really looking down on the dress. I took them completely literally! When it comes to whether I can distinguish sarcasm or not, really depends on how obvious it is to me.

I do find that in other ways I frequently take things literally. One example of this is I do this Course in Horse Care. I was once asked by the head to go down to the tack room and see if Benson’s (This is the name of one of the horse’s. I can’t remember if this is the exact one, but it’ll do) bridle was there, so I went in, and Bensons bridle was there, so I went back up to the head and said, “Yes! It’s there!” She then told me to go and get it, and I soon found out that what she actually meant was for me to get the bridle if it was there, even though she didn’t say that. I took that instruction very literally. There was also a time when I decided to check out Thomas the Tank engine on YouTube, (because I loved that show when I was small) and I told my sister about this, and she said, “How did you find it?” I said, “I just looked it up on YouTube and found it.” But what she actually meant was, “What did you think of it?” I took what she said literally.

Because of my literal take on the world, I also find that I’m very precise with what I say and do. I always like to say things the way they literally are, and I feel dishonest if I say something that is even slightly not right. One example of this is when my asthma was getting bad, I spoke to the doctor on the Phone, and he asked me questions like, “How many times per day have taken your easy-breath inhaler?” To this I said something like, “I’m guessing probably about three times a day.” I also used words like ‘probably’ with other questions he asked. The thing was that it varied how many times I took it, and I also wasn’t exactly sure how many times, so I said probably. My mum says because I was like this, the doctor probably thought I was taking it when I didn’t need it. But to me it felt dishonest to just say, “Four times a day”. My mum ended up speaking to him on the Phone for me, because I was finding the communication aspect to difficult.
I also find that I’m horrendous at approximating things. For example: knowing how many people there are at a meeting I have to be either exact in my knowledge or know where near. I just can’t approximate to save my life.

I think this literal take on the world is one of the reasons why it annoys me when I see things out of order, and I see books, DVD’s, etc. upside down. Basically in the same way that I take language literally when it doesn’t mean what the language may literally be saying, I find that I want things to be the way that they should be. For this reason, I’m not only like that when it comes to things being the wrong way, but with what people say, and by this; I’m not talking about sarcasm or anything, but when people say things that aren’t exactly right; it annoys me. For example – I get annoyed when people call a cushion a pillow, because even though they may be alike, they’re not the same thing.
Because of my literal take on the world, I am generally very honest, and will often admit to things that others would feel embarrassed to admit to. When someone asks me a question. I do find that when people ask me a question, I’ll want to give an honest answer, even when the asker doesn’t want an honest answer. For example – if someone asks me “Do you like my hair”, and I think it looks like a right mess, I’ll want to tell them that, because my feelings are if you’re not willing to accept the truth then what’s the point in asking in the first place?

It just doesn’t make sense to me. In fact: a lot of Social rules that you have don’t seem logical to me. I really don’t understand why there’s a set way of holding a knife and fork. You’re supposed to hold your knife in your right hand and fork in your left hand. I do it this way, but only because I’ve been taught that’s the ‘Socially appropriate’ way to do it. I don’t understand why though. Eating food is eating food either way. Does it really matter how you hold cutlery?
I think the reason why I think like this is because of my take on the world for things to be literally the way I think they should be. It’s hard for my to articulate what I mean, but I’m trying hard, so I hope you can make sense of what I’m saying. Because of all these differences, I often do feel like I’m an alien from another planet having to learn a lot of these customs of normal people.

Now, finally, the question is; is this literal take on the world of those with autism a good thing or a bad thing? I know that I’ve said this so far about every aspect of autism I talk about in my articles, but I think even this aspect isn’t altogether a bad thing. It does mean that people on the spectrum have a hard time understanding other people, and fitting in socially. But because a person on the spectrum (obviously I can’t speak for everybody with autism, because we’re all different, but for me personally to a degree and others that I’ve found) may be very exact with what they do, it means that they can do a lot of tasks very well, and they can focus really well on what they’re doing. As I said in one of my other articles, a lot of famous inventors and people are thought to be on the spectrum, and a lot of them were extremely precise and focused on what they do.
It also means that someone on the spectrum is very honest, and while when it comes to Social rules, this can be a disadvantage; it can also be an advantage, because it means that you can generally trust what an autistic person is saying, and know that they’re telling the truth.

I also know that a lot of autistic people (at least on the higher end) think very logically, and I believe this is also because of the literal take on things, they can think about a certain thing in an interesting way that others haven’t thought of before. They can think a lot deeper in certain ways. This is true of myself in some ways too. There are ways in which I think deeper, but there are also ways where I don’t think as deeply as other people, so it’s a mixed bag like so many things with autism.

If there’ anybody with autism reading this who would like to have more understanding of expressions, I’d recommend the book that’s below. You can order it at amazon.

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