What. How. Why. Ask Braden, my 8-year-old son with autism, a question that begins with any of those words and you won’t get an intelligible answer. He might respond with, “Good” or “Noooo!” He doesn’t have the capacity to answer open-ended questions like that. He will usually answer a who question or a where question as long as the answer is easy. “Where’s Mom?”, I’d ask. “In the house,” Braden would reply. He doesn’t tell me which room of the house she’s in. No specifics.

Many children with autism are non-verbal. My son can talk, but verbally he’s the opposite of an auctioneer. Where an auctioneer rambles a million words a minute, my son generally won’t talk unless spoken to. Sometimes he’ll talk more than other times, but generally he’s quiet… like he’s in a Clint Eastwood western. If a typical child his age says 10,000 words a day, my son speaks about 1,000.

And then he said something I didn’t expect.

Follow up:

We were at Grandma & Grandpa’s house. Braden said, “I wanna go home.” He starts saying that after about an hour or so like clockwork. “Why?” I responded. I didn’t think I’d get a reply, but I figured I’d provoke him anyhow with a question he couldn’t answer. “Wanna see Mama,” he voiced. Wha… Wow.

Braden never answered a why question before. I was surprised. He understood what “Why?” meant. To get something he wanted, which is his motivation for talking more often than not, he answered my question.

Answering a why question is a big milestone in the development of a child with autism. So I’ll take it and celebrate it. But I can’t help but wonder if he was really answering my question. Take out my one word question and Braden could have easily said his two statements one after the other. It may be that he wasn’t answering my question, but instead, following up his first request with another plead to leave. But still, I was surprised.

We did go home, though not immediately. And Braden saw Mama… but went right past her after saying hi, which beckons a few questions; Did he really want to see her? Or did he lie to me? OR since he did see her, that was good and now he was onto something else?

People with autism can tend to be very literal. Taken literally, he did see Mama. It’s just that most people tend to think of a request to see someone as meaning that you want to spend meaningful time with them, not say hi and walk past them. Most people tend to think more figuratively.

Most kids with autism don’t lie. They don’t get the concept of lying. But Braden lies. He doesn’t lie good either. He’s a terribly transparent liar. Lately, as soon as we tell him it’s time for dinner he starts complaining and says that his tummy hurts. Apparently his tummy only hurts him right when he’s about to eat dinner. It doesn’t hurt before we mention dinner and it never hurts after dinner. I wonder why that is? Because he’s lying!