Learning
Social Rules
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Children
and adults on the autism spectrum are concrete, literal thinkers. Ideas that
can't be understood through logic or that involve emotions and social relationships
are difficult for us to grasp, and even more difficult to incorporate into our
daily lives. When I was in high school, figuring out the social rules was a
major challenge. It was not easy to notice similarities in people's social
actions and responses because they were often inconsistent from person to
person and situation to situation. Over time, I observed that some rules could
be broken with minor consequences and other rules, when broken, had serious
consequences. It perplexed me that other kids seemed to know which rules they
could bend and break and which rules must never be broken. They had a
flexibility of thinking that I did not have.
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I
knew I had to learn these rules if I wanted to function in social situations.
If I had to learn them, they somehow had to be meaningful me, to make sense to
me within my own way of thinking and viewing the world. I started observing
others as would a scientist and discovered I could group the rules into an
organizational format to which I could relate: into major and minor categories.
By the time I was a senior in high school, I had a system for categorizing some
of the social rules of life. I still use the same system today.
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I
developed four rule categories: 1) Really Bad Things; 2) Courtesy Rules; 3)
Illegal But Not Bad; and 4) Sins of the System.
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Really
Bad Things
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I
reasoned that in order to maintain a civilized society, there must be
prohibitions against doing really bad things such as murder, arson, rape,
stealing, looting, and injuring other people. If really bad things are not
controlled, a civilized society where we have jobs, food in the stores, and
electricity cannot exist. The prohibition against really bad things is
universal in all civilized societies. Children need to be taught that cheating -
in all forms, not just on tests - is bad. Learning to "play fair"
will help a child grow into an adult who will not commit really bad things. The
child can be taught the concept of playing fair with many specific examples.
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Courtesy
Rules
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All
civilized societies have courtesy rules, such as saying "please" and
"thank you." These rules are important because they help prevent
anger that can escalate into really bad things. Different societies have
different courtesy rules, but they all serve the same function. In most
countries, some common courtesy rules are: standing and waiting your turn in a
line, good table manners, being neat and clean, giving up your seat on a bus to
an elderly person, or raising your hand and waiting for the teacher to point to
you before speaking in class.
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Illegal
But Not Bad
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These
rules can sometimes be broken depending upon the circumstance. Rules in this
category vary greatly from one society to another and how an individual views
these rules will be influenced by his or her own set of moral and personal
beliefs. Be careful though: consequences for breaking some are minor; for
others, there may be a fine. Included in this category is slight speeding in
cars. One rule I often recommend breaking is the age requirement for attending
a community college. I tell parents to sign up the child so he can escape being
teased in high school. However, the parent must impress upon the child that
this is a grown-up privilege and he must obey all the courtesy rules. An
example of a rule that would not fall in this category would be running a red
light. Doing this carries the possibility of injuring or killing someone, which
is a Really Bad Thing.
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Sins of the System
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These
are rules that must never be broken, although they may seem to have little or
no basis in logic. They must simply be accepted within our country and our
culture. For instance, a small sexual transgression that would result in your
name being added to a sex-offender list in the U.S. may have little or no
consequence in another country. In the U.S., the four major sins of the system
are sexual transgressions, drug offenses, making fake IDs, and playing with explosives.
In a post-September 11th world, pranks that used to be considered kids being
naughty are now being prosecuted as serious crimes. Never commit a "sin of
the system" because the penalties are usually very severe.
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This method of categorizing social rules has worked well
for me. However, each person with autism may need different rule categories that
make sense for him or her.
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Temple
Grandin "The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism &
Asperger's" (2011)
