Expert: Valerie Herskowitz - 1/5/2011

Question
Need your thoughts please !

Noah age 10 PDD_NOS seems to being getting facts in situations mixed up or wrong.  He is taking words way to literally and totaling incorrect.

Example -

Was looking at a picture of the Eifel Tower with Grandpa, told the class he has a picture of the him and Grandpa at the Tower.

Saw a paper written in German, told the class he new German.  What he meant was he knew that was German written.

Told the class we got a new dog , we did not.  But we are on a waiting list for a certain type of puppy.

Said we are moving to Michigan no we are traveling to Michigan for a Hockey tournament.

The teacher is calling him a liar and I do not believe he is
Anyway these issues are causes huge problems.  What are your thoughts.

Answer
HI Chris

Yes-people with autism often use and process language incorrectly because they miss the underlying meaning of the language. So they take things very literally. You son needs to work on this with his speech pathologist. He needs to work on learning critical thinking skills.

In addition, Noah seems to be missing some of the parts of the sentences indicating that he is having some processing issues. There are lots of good ways to work on improving processing through tools such as computer-based intervention.

If you would like to do a personal consultation with me, let me know. You can email me at info@valerieherskowitz.com