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Article: Taking things Literally; An Issue that Matters

So, you've been looking through the lists of aspie traits and you've found one called "taking things literally". You read about it and it says, 

'The person may not understand jokes, sarcasm or figures of speech, such as, "It's raining cats and dogs."'

They might look outside for falling animals....

Awwww.... How cute.

So, you ignore it and move on to the  next symptom.

My latest post over at Special-ism looks at an example of what taking things literally really means and why it's important to take this issue seriously;

Hop over and read it;

Taking Things Literally; An Issue that Matters
by Gavin Bollard
http://special-ism.com/why-taking-things-literally-is-an-issue-that-matters/
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Comments

Angel the Alien said…
::Gets up and hops across the room to read it:: (LOL!)
December 7, 2013 at 11:02 AM
Anonymous said…
That is a better example of literalism. But I think it is misleading of textbooks to say that Aspies take things literally in that naive way any way. I understand most figures of speech. But I can often have a rather vivid mental picture of the (frankly ridiculous) image depicted in the figure of speech and so be distracted by thinking about the literally ridiculous terminology while other people (I guess) are attending to the figurative meaning. I cannot help noticing the literal meaning, even though I am aware of the ficurative meaning - so I am slower at processing what is being said. I also tend to smile during comments that other people take totally seriously.
December 8, 2013 at 6:21 PM
Anonymous said…
Im not Aspergers, but now that I understand my daughter is, I often wonder why people don't 'say what they mean and mean what they say'more often. its hard work for anyone having to 'read between the lines' of a conversation.
December 11, 2013 at 3:09 PM
Mama Elf said…
I agree with you on this point, Gavin. The books often make this point cutesy and don't actually inform much.

It is not figures of speech as much as this type of communication, where my son falls flat on his face. He loves stories and reading, so figures of speech have become familiar to him and he asks, if he doesn't understand.
On the other hand when the teacher tells that there is a game where no-one is allowed to speak and he uses hand signs to try to communicate (all made up, not sign language), he gets in trouble. For him though, the instruction was not a blanket ban on communication, but on speech. So it is these unpredictable slight inaccuracies in communication, which NTs can "magically" pick up that he stumbles over.
December 17, 2013 at 2:07 AM
Anonymous said…
http://autismgadfly.blogspot.com/2013/10/does-new-research-disprove.html?showComment=1381158528597#c6989160926490034215 is a great comment about taking things too literally.

Cubeangel says

""People who claim Einstein is a reason to not need social skills, and to not care what other people think, need to learn more about how socially savvy Einstein actually was, and more about how much Einstein did care about what other people think and how they were treated: http://www.einsteinonrace.com/reviews.htm"

"Anon, I would like to make a side comment that has nothing to do with autism whatsoever. A lot of people misconstrue the phrase "not caring what anyone thinks."

"A lot of normal children take this out of context. A lot of teachers and parents say this without thinking of how the child would interpret this. The correct context for this phrase is to resist negative influences and peer pressure to do things that would be detrimental like promiscuous sex and illicit drugs.

"At school, a lot of kids say these things are the popular thing to do and makes them seem cool. The idea behind this phrase was to instill the individuality to resist this negative behavior and influences. It did not mean to give up all standards with reckless abandon and to be rude and disrespectful. It took me a long time to realize what was going on.

"Honestly, I believe children are misconstruing other pieces of advice adults give and then the adults wonder why there is so much disrespect, rudeness and behavior problems.

"The thing is there are come cases in which one must care about what certain people think and in other cases you do not have to care. In fact, you could put this on a sliding scale.

"Employers, teachers, parents, etc are ones you should care way more about what they think then the popular kids who use drugs. The popular kids who use drugs should be way low on one's totem pole."

[and this goes for the unpopular kids who use drugs too!]
January 13, 2014 at 4:34 AM
Anonymous said…
My husband has ended many friendships over time because he gets offended over a comment that most people would laugh at. He doesn't forgive or forget .

When we were dating I jokingly said to him I don't know what I would do without you but I would like to try. It is amazing we patched things up and later married.

Normally, he will just adopt the attitude the person in question is dead to him. He seems to have no remorse in cutting the person out of his life for ever more.
February 26, 2014 at 3:59 PM
Kathy Haras said…
Raining cats and dogs is easy -- it only means one thing.

Do you want to have a coffee? means a myriad of things. And only occassionally does it mean do you want to have a coffee.

Taking things literally is neither cute nor a problem just for kids.
December 6, 2014 at 10:51 AM
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