Cecily Paterson

View Original

Now this is really autistic

Bright Eyes loves colours.

He often names things by their colours rather than use the correct label. For example, I gave him a drink today. He took it and then called out "Yellow, yellow, yellow".

I was scratching my head. "What do you want? What is yellow?"

Then I noticed the yellow curly straw lying on the counter.

"Do you want the straw?" I asked.

"Yes! Yellow!" he said.

I said, "Can I have the straw please mum?"

He echoed, "Straw please mum?"

I didn't realise that he was so fixated on his colours until today, though. At preschool they were singing the song about who is wearing which colour. I think it goes like this: "Blue, blue, blue, who is wearing blue today? Alex is wearing blue today," etc.

Apparently he could name the colour every child in the class was wearing including those children who were out of sight and doing something else at the time!

On one level Bright Eyes is smart to be able to do that, but really it just shows how autistic he is! Sure, he can tell me what colour every one in the room is wearing, but he can't answer a question beginning with the word 'why'.