I was in the middle of nowhere in a southern town and wanted pizza. There was an ad in the hotel room, so I called the local place. When they answered, I said, “I’d like one pie for delivery.” He answered, “This is a pizza place. We don’t sell pie.” OK, in that case, I’ll have a pizza.
In New York City, it was common to use the phrase “pizza pie.” We thought it was hysterical that the guy working in the pizza place didn’t understand what I wanted. But why should he? He lives in the middle of nowhere. He probably got off the phone and said to his co-workers, “Can you believe some idiot just called up and tried to have us deliver a pie?” They probably thought it was hysterical.
When working with children with autism, miscommunication is common. One of the most important things we can do is provide crystal-clear communication to the child about what we are trying to teach. If you can do that, half the job of teaching is done.
Unfortunately, it is hard to be extremely clear in our communication. There are almost always multiple ways to interpret a lesson. This was our team’s major insight when we learned how to teach pronouns to children with autism. The standard procedures left a very important part of learning unclear. Specifically, the pronoun that should be used changes based on who is speaking. For example, if the child says, “I want a cookie,” he is referring to himself. When mom says, “Sure, you can have a cookie,” she is also referring to the child, but she uses a different pronoun. That’s awfully confusing. Our small contribution was simply a way to provide crystal-clear communication in that scenario.
If you look carefully, you will usually find that errors made by learners are completely logical from their point of view. Just like it was logical for the kid answering the phone not to understand that we call a “pizza” a “pie” in NY.