It is autism awareness day/ month again and I decided to share some of my thoughts about my little aliens with regards to Theory of Mind. This is the ability of knowing, what others think or feel. Well, first of all, the ability of actually realizing that other people might have different feelings, thoughts and knowledge in different situations. For a lot of people it is obvious, for autists some points of it (or the whole concept) is not.
I have two children of the spectrum. The last couple of weeks I was observing the following situation:
What to expect when you enter my home?
There is a very big chance, that my 4 year old will run close to you and say nothing. Or show you our guitar collection on the wall. My 6 years old will probably go on with whaterever he was doing. None of them will welcome you without me or their father asking them to say hello (thank you or goodbye). This is still easy to sell for this age really, but as they get older, they will be stamped as ill-mannerd… They have no idea about these kinds of social protocols-we are busy teaching them those though.
Back to the original topic of Theory of Mind. I am raising two little aliens.
One of which (6yr) already understands the concept of other people, other thoughts / feeling. Although he mostly have no idea WHAT those other thought or feeling are… Other interests he does not understand really. He always assumes that whatever is interesting for him will also be interesting to you. Therefore he will not ask about your interests and will not realize that you are bored or can’t follow (well, this he realizes, the moment you give the “wrong” answer to some strange question). He will know that you are asking his name to actually get the information and will tell it to you. He will talk hours about what is interesting for him, but will most probably not take the trouble to give you extended answers to questions that fall out of his area of interest. He is a trilingual kid, who learned English relatively recently with a little help from our side (we went in the game and started communicating in English with him, when he asked for it) and without any language lessons. He assumes English is his first language by now, and started sorting people based on the fact whether or not they speak English. There are a few people around, for whom he will take the trouble to speak Dutch or Hungarian, but he will state, it is tiring for him and he only takes this trouble, because the likes those people so much. So if you are a non-English speaking person entering my home, you might only get some short, ‘to the point’ answers from him. If you are English speaking, you are probably up for the extended version. Especially with regards to monsters and dragons and wizardspells.. .so brace yourself.
On the other side is my little alien of 4years, who does not understand the concept of other people other thoughts and other knowledge. He still struggles with his own emotions, which is more or less typical for this age , even for neurotypical kids, so the idea of other person having other feelings is completely out of sight at the moment. He can and most likely will talk if you try to make contact with him, but he will not understand that you ask him for his name, because you actually want to have this information. In his world, he knows his name, so everyone knows it as well… with this said, your asking for information will most likely be relized as an attempt of making contact. He likes making contact (most of the time). His own way…and he will stick to his own way, and will “answer” your question of ‘what is your name’ by saying something like ‘ muuu is cow.. and now you animal’ or ‘ D of for drum, drum is trommel…’ (if he feels like he will tell you the name of the drum in 4 languages), he will show you all the different parts of the drumset and will be happy to do so. But he will not answer any of your questions with regards to things he knows but not interested in at that moment- like his name. He likes to lead the social game and does not like to follow…and this can feel awkward and uncomfortable for sure, because most of the adults think they can lead the social game when interacting with kids.. .yet in my home you will find yourself in a world, where you are the passenger. You can feel powerless and helpless because you can’t lead and it can be extremely difficult to follow, even with the best intention. You do your best and sometimes it still goes wrong. Very often, you don’t even really know why, because it all happens in the kids head - he expects you to act in one way, he assumes you know that, because he knows it… and if you don’t, he gets upset, and can’t explain why or what you should do-. In this sense being neurotypical in autist’s world is just as difficult as the other way around. You are driving without a map or compass, but might end up at a cool place.
