Table of Contents
One thing that has stood out about my way of thinking is that I have often picked up on details but struggle with the whole picture. This was especially true in my younger years.
According to Building Capacity Resource, this is true for a lot of people on the autism spectrum. A person with autism may understand the details of a situation but not understand the whole meaning. BCR also says that some of this may be because people with autism may fixate on details that are not important, while the general population would normally pick up information and put it together to paint the whole picture.
For example, in my younger years, I remember fixating how the wheels on cars looked but didn't understand how good wheels would make a car function well.
School Learning, Writing, and Reading Comprehension
It was the small detail-focused type of thinking and struggling to process important information that lead me to struggle in school and need educational assistant support.
When reading novels, for example, I would remember the character names (including the protagonist and the antagonist) and settings rather well, as well as even some significant parts of the story, but I would need help understanding the main idea and how the settings, supporting details and characters contributed to the main idea to build the novel's puzzle.
Also, when writing stories, as much as I enjoyed doing this in elementary school, I still wouldn't progress particularly well in this area. I would often come up with ideas that have nothing to do with the story's original idea, which would make your average reader confused.
However, I would often come up with interesting settings, characters, and even jokes, which I guess you could say made up for that.
My Thinking Today
Today, when I read new stories, watch movies or watch TV episodes, it still takes a while for me to process what is happening, but I'm better at this now compared to when I was younger.
When I write, I also go the normal "Main idea, supporting detail" route, instead of coming up with details out of nowhere.
As a journalism graduate, I take a lot of pride in understanding the most important details of not only stories but general real-life situations.
A Real-Life Example: School of Rock
Let's visit a good example from my childhood. I watched "School of Rock" for the first time when I was 10.
I watched the scene where Mr. S AKA Dewey Finn (Jack Black) took Principal Mullins (Joan Cusack) out for "coffee". Ten-year-old me thought they were developing a friendship or relationship and not much else.
I didn't process how it related to the movie's main idea of Dewey wanting to turn the class he substituted for into a rock band to get money and revenge on his old band.
After I watched the movie again over a decade later, I picked up on how Dewey took Principal Mullins to the restaurant so he can easily convince her to let him take the class to "The Battle of The Bands" by getting her drunk and putting on Stevie Nicks' "Edge of Seventeen", as another teacher told him that Mullins is a Stevie Nicks fan.
Strategies to Improve "Main Idea" Thinking
Note-taking to me is definitely a good strategy to help overcome the "building the puzzle". For example, a middle-schooler may bullet point:
J goes to the park,
He sees a dog with no leash,
He confronts the owner,
The owner argues with J,
The dog bites J,
J reports the owner to the humane society,
The owner has his dog taken away.
Without this strategy, the thinking may be more like "This story has a part where J fights with an owner who didn't put a dog on a leash" as not all of the information is put together, instead of "The owner can't keep his dog anymore because he refused to comply with a leash law and got reported".
Even putting together the clues in "Blue's Clues" around Kindergarten, helped me develop this skill somewhat, despite struggling for much of elementary school.
When I was tested for my abilities at six, it was determined that repetition and reviewing old concepts regularly would help me learn appropriate information more effectively compared to only getting exposed to details once.
Many peers had no trouble learning new stuff without repetition, but this was a major struggle for me, hence why I had support in elementary school. I highly recommend revisiting stuff and to review them to ensure maximum potential.
I also remember taking speech therapy and frequently reviewing the five W's and one H. I found this strategy helped a lot. However, as soon as I got to "why", I still needed lots of support.
Conclusion
Overall, if you have a child with autism, it will be important to determine if he or she has difficulty with comprehension of stories.
You may also like: 10 Tips to Teach Autistic Pupils in Elementary School