Question for my #actuallyautistic peeps -- my son is also autistic, 7 yrs old, and seems to almost have object permanence issues? Like if he doesn't hear or see something he insists it didn't happen. Even if I'm saying "yes, I heard this" he'll say "no, you're wrong, it didn't happen."
Has anyone experienced something similar? How can I support his experience of the world while helping him understand that things outside his direct experience can still be real?
@jessmahler I understand the experience, but I wish I had useful advice. I don’t know if there are kinds of activities or stories you could do to explain how persons A&B can be doing one thing and at the same time persons C and D&H are doing another thing and then they all meet and talk about it later. For me, I just sometimes realized that I couldn’t trust anything I hadn’t seen or heard. And so I would just reject it.
@jessmahler I don’t know if for him it’s an issue of object permanence or trust though. For me it was definitely about trust, because I had realized that people might tell you things that aren’t true. And it was very important that things be true. And I was the only way I could be sure things were true.
@jessmahler but if for him it’s more about object permanence, that I don’t have as much perspective
@bravelittletoaster I don't THINK it's a trust issue--I'm the one he alwasy comes to to verify if something is true. If his teacher says something he doesn't believe or his father or a friend, he comes to me and asks "Is it true that...?" I don't think he' do that if he didn't trust me to tell him the truth. But I'll keep in mind as a possibility.
