Having to be shown tasks multiple times?

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Do you guys find that having to be shown how to perform a task multiple times is a "spectrum thing"? I know that it's not really part of the principal impairments of autism in terms of communication and comprehension of unwritten social rules... but seems to be more part of executive functions and motor skill impairments...what's your opinion?

I can recall being rebuked on several occasions for not doing a manual task "the right way" and having to be shown more then once - the weird thing was that sometimes I didn't recall being shown before or I thought this was normal for other folks to go thru - back when I was a teenager, in the early 90s pre-diagnosis and working at McDonalds, the training supervisor told me that I wasn't focused or "zoned out" because he had to show me three times how to make Big Macs - and I had no recollection that was the case... in hindsight, I realize a lot of that was to do with my comorbid anxiety, ADHD, and sensitivity to too many stimuli going on around me.

I also recall seeing the job hire package that someone in my circle once showed me, and on one page there was a list of all these things that could result in your not passing probation. One of them, I kid you not, was "Having to be shown the same task multiple times". While they couldn't overtly discriminate against folk with ASD, I'm sure this was put in there because of such folk. I have no doubt!! (Fortunately, YouTube videos can help overcome some of that, depending on the task, and one could discretely watch them at home on one's own time to build "muscle memory".)

Yes, my father tried several times to teach me stuff.

I'm a great teacher. I can show people how to do stuff or talk to them about what I've found works for me.
They can then translate that and immediately do better!

It may also be that I'm old, slow, and small. If she can do that, why can't I do better?

I am so bad at learning manual tasks that mostly I don't even try.

A couple of weeks ago, somebody showed me how to remove ear wax from a hearing aid. Sorry, that's no happening.

Short answer: YES!

Longer answer: I have been told many times that I take too long to learn tasks. This has been a bit of a barrier when it comes to employment, because I cannot guarantee that I will learn or master a certain set of tasks by the time the 3 month probation / training period is over.

I prefer teaching myself skills on my own time, because I seem to be the only person that has the patience to deal with me haha.

yes ,yes indeed Adhd/ aspie thing. but . If you do not try to learn too much at once . And found if I just ,as ignorant as it seems .. Just do the same series of actions for the task ,over and over.. Right away, several times, even though the motions are required only once for the task, I do the pattern over and over ignoring other people. when I am learning .
Then I do this several times. Probably best when noone is watching . So it goes like muscle memory instead of mental memory . But this was not a gusrrantee if too much time . Was inbetween pravtice sessions . It seemed to help me. I hope you do not have too much trouble getting your patterns down.. but then again there are some meds for ADHD too.
That my friend says works for him.

could you write it down on a notepad or something?

Mostly stuff "everybody knows that!". I often suck at things everybody seems to know. Or do them in a different way, often 'why do you always make it so difficult for yourself'. It is often not difficult, just different and the easy version doesn't work for me.
I can tie knots... I'm an inkle weaver, every color change in an inkle band is a knot... But parents, friends, people at work and complete strangers will often point out my shoes are not tied (quite often well intended... falling on railway tracks is not healthy). As an adult at least I get to wear shoes without laces (but some with are too cute so... Hardly ever trip really so guess I did learn to walk with them untied.), as a child velcro shoes were hell to my mom. As a girl quite a lot more options.
Can make own shoe laces on inkle... should do that "yes, i did these myself..."

Quite often these are things you just know and they can't even tell you how to do them properly. I can talk (sometimes too much) but recently (unrelated) voice therapist pointed out I do this different/wrong too. Yes, it hurts sometimes, apparently it shouldn't. Seems common in autism but many 'others' have similar problems.

Quite often I describe autism as 'missing the instruction manual people seem to be born with'. The 'not knowing things everybody knows' (part of theory of mind I think?) was one of the things that started me to accept diagnosis.

People really needed a manual on how to be,or the care and feeding of a healthy human (as class in school.)

yes, all my life. Diagnosis at age 68 finally showed that I have visual and auditory processing struggles.

I process so slowly that I lost most things I see in action and hear.. so I missed a lot in "real time" interactions. I have always known I do my best understanding when reading and writing, and using still images, graphs, charts, line drawing illustrations.

Finally I discovered it was my neurology, so YES, it is definitely autism in sensory processing for me and it has created struggles all my life.

I ask for instructions in writing and ask for illustrations if necessary these days.
I tell people I have a" processing disorder" , I don't even "go there" with telling them about ASD and trying to explain and educate. They seem to understand and are more patient.

I retired long before I understood what was happening and struggled with so many 'whys' when I just didn't "get it" and others seemed to understand completely. At age 68 I finally got some answers to my lifetime of struggles and "why" questions. It didn't change a thing except that I was finally able to forgive myself for a life time of failing to meet others expectations and self blame and shame. It has been a huge relief!

Strangely, it was only recently that I came to recognize that in myself. Although for me the biggest impact has to do with performing a task requiring physical coordination, which has seldom mattered to my career. But I do have trouble absorbing too much detail in a requirements statement at once. Sometimes I defer deeper understanding until later or I need multiple iterations to get something entirely right. As a programmer, once I think I understand well enough to being coding, I go straight to some preliminary code then I'll revisit the requirement to fill in the details. Of course that makes me ill-suited to doing Test-Driven Development however somehow I've managed to avoid job situations that insist that, or even care if, developers practice TDD.

I'm thinking this is probably why "Aspies" or autists wouldn't do so well in most trades...where there's the apprenticeship at first and I imagine that the experienced person trying to teach them would soon get really frustrated. Unless, say, it was someone who was more understanding about "the spectrum" from perhaps members of their own circle, someone more enlightened, who saw our firm work ethic and desire to do a good job, who might make exceptions. But I'm already well ensconced in a full-time career track in more analytical / cerebral work, well past that, but just thinking out loud in contributing to this thread.

I also think that the "being shown a task multiple times" theme has its share of "comparative shaming", what I mean by that is, a boss or manager might say "Look at Joe or Jane here, who's been here just 3 months (compared to your six or whatever) and he/she has already picked up such-and-such..." (subtext: "Why haven't YOU?? What's wrong with you??") I might've gotten that years ago at some blah part-time job someplace, way back in the 90s, I don't recall - but I can definitely recall something like that in a technical job in the aughts when a manager complained about a relative newcomer to our unit had already picked up certain "rules of engagement" (socio-political crap) and I'd been there nearly two years and was still making mistakes in that dept... well, welcome to Aspie-land... I never actually disclosed, but I had a rather pessimistic feeling that EVEN IF I DID, I'd have gotten the same sort of "comparative shaming".

The shame ,should be on them for the intentional or even unintentional...Type of behaviour like that

I'm in the camp of thinking getting the instructions written clearly and simply would probably help.

Complicated instructions would go in one of my ears and out the other.