Talking about himself

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Hi,

I have a 12 year old verbal son with autism. He is in a mainstream school and does pretty well although he's come a long way from when he was age 6, still in nappies and barely speaking.

One thing I'd like to be able to help him with is talking about himself and reflecting. He can speak at length about his special interests and can engage on topics of conversation about events but as soon as any conversation turns to himself, he clams up and just gives one word answers. He insists everything is 'fine' and will never admit to any weakness or that anything bad has happened even when it clearly has. He doesn't like getting upset and will do everything he can to withhold tears when he's upset, up to the point of jamming his fingers in the corners of his eyes to stop the tears coming out.

I'm sure there's more we could help him with at school and in life but getting him to talk about it seems impossible. Any ideas anyone?

When you say you want him to talk about himself, is there something specific you have in mind: What he does during the day, feelings, aspirations? Do you have a particular worry, or are you just hoping to increase his range of conversation?

If your concern is a more general one, I would suggest asking him questions that link him to his more preferred topics of conversation. One word answers are often how it starts. An accurate, honest one-word answer is better than "I don't know." As he gets more comfortable with being asked questions and answering, elaboration will probably come.

I have found in my own personal experience that questions that are too open can be too overwhelming to attempt to answer.

An NT child of 12 might not want to talk to his parents about things. If your son's emotional age is close to his chronological age, that might be a factor as well.

At age 12, it may still be too early for an autistic kid (who seems like not mild autism but high-functioning now) to talk about himself.
Most autistic people just don't share about themselves in NT style, but instead may connect to others through special interests.
You may want to hold off until he is older for this talking about himself, since there is no critical period of development after which he won't be able to learn to talk about himself.

Thanks to both of you - that's really helpful.

I think it's both general and specific things we want to talk to him about. When we know something has gone wrong at school we try and engage him about it but in a very factual way, not about his feelings but just had the events themselves. He will just become very evasive and seem to be in denial over anything bad having happened. The other day he had scratches on his face and he clearly didn't want to tell us where they came from so just kept saying he didn't know how he got them. Our worry is someone did it to him but we can't do anything about it unless he says so. It might be that he really didn't know where they had come from but this is just an example of something that he does quite regularly. Our overall worry is that if he was being bullied or was in trouble he would never tell us about it, even though we give him a lot of advice and lessons about what people are and are not allowed to do to him.

In terms of general things, I know it's pretty autism unfriendly to want to 'chat' so we do avoid that. I guess we just have to let him know we are always available if he does want to say things and, like you say, perhaps at 12 he's just not ready. I do sometimes text him and he will reply and be a bit more 'chatty' so maybe we need to try that more.

Thanks for your advice.

This was always my worry, too. I can also see why he would not want to talk about it, and sometimes asking about these things makes kids more self-conscious. I don't have an answer on how to fix that. As he ages it may get worse or better b/c although his communication skills will improve, so will self-consciousness, and he may internalize the not ratting people out code. It would be nice if you had a spy you could trust in the school to ascertain if things were OK. I know some parents on here have managed that. At 12, you could still get away with asking the teacher how he got scratches on his face, and see if the teacher knows. If nothing else, she'll maybe keep an eye on him.

Another thing is that autistic people may not want or need to talk about negative things the way that NTs talk about them to people, then people comfort them, then they feel bester.
I don't talk about negative things either, as I don't feel the need.
If something bad happens, and I am still alive and didn't lose any body parts after it, then it is not really necessary to go over it later.
It's like I move past it emotionally verry merry berry quickly, and ackshuly it doesn't have lasting negative effects on me.
Your son may be different, but perhaps he might relate to this based on his behaviors.