Asperger's Question

lightgetsin

My 4 year old son is on the waiting list for an evaluation.  Something that he does that I noticed today is take things very literally.  For example, a neighbor said "Hey Pal, how's it going?" and he said "I'm not a pal, I'm a boy."  I kind of laughed it off and tried to explain to him what the neighbor meant but it was kind of an "aha" moment for me.  I think he does this a lot.  Is this just a 4 year old getting the hang of language (his speech was delayed because of ear fluid and the fact that he could not hear) or is this a classic Asperger's trait?

newbee36

It could be either at that age, I think. There are some pretty literal kids at DS's daycare, and they are not on the spectrum. 

typeset

My son still insists on being called by his full name instead of anything else: "I'm not a booger. I'm _____." He's 3.5 with an ASD/HFA Dx. I'd say his typical peers get the joke at this point and/or don't get worked up over correcting terms of endearment. Team example of literal thinking.

Princess_Lily

Either one.

DS gets that type of grammer use, he lets people call him alternative names all the time.

Irregardless, we may have an ASD (Aspergers) DX.

MAtoNC

Yeah. Either way. When babysitting a typical 4-year old, I said "Wow, you're smart!". He reply "No, I'm not! I'm Matthew!"