Lindy, I have Asperger and what you wrote “From that forum and others, I’ve come to understand that one way an Aspie mind works is to consider that gifts or actions done for the Aspie are of course appreciated, and that appreciation is shown by the simple act of using the gift or accepting the action” is exactly what happens in my mind. Now other responders described it as lack of theory of mind, but I am not sure it is correct description. I mean, the classical example of theory of mind is Anne and Sally pictures where the “wrong” answer is a result of an assumption that Sally knew what Anne did when she was out of the room or vise versa. In other words, Sally and Anne examples imply that theory of mind is quite logical and lack of theory of mind is attributted to faulty logic. But, from “logical” perspective, if I am using the gift then yes I appreciate it. I mean why else would I be using it if I didn’t enjoy it? Well, you might say I don’t truly enjoy it but I am trying to put up a show to make the other person think I enjoy it, so I use it to please them. But if I went to all those lengths of pretending to like it, then maybe the other person next to me who says simple thank you is also pretending? So its like people have this weird Freudian theory that says that a person that pretends can pretend to wear the sweater all day long but their “true feelings” will still be betrayed by the fact that they will forget to say thank you? Well, this particular theory is clearly flawed, given the fact that a lot of people view thank you as part of routine. Or do they have a slightly different theory, that if a person hasn’t learned the “routine” of thank you, then that person is incapable of feelings – including appreciation of gifts? Well that theory is even more flawed.
I guess one way to answer my own question is that there is a difference between liking the fact that you have a candy and liking the fact that the other person cares about you – where candy is merely an evidence of the fact that they care. And this would go back to his question whether or not he would lie if he says thank you for the kind of gift he doesn’t enjoy: in my case, I don’t like red apples; but if the girl gives me red apples it would make my day because it would imply that she likes me. No, I won’t actually eat the red apples that she gave me, but I would still be excited all day long over the fact that they were given to me by the girl I like. On the other hand, I like chocolate a lot, but if a homeless man were to give me a chocolate, I would resent the fact that I got it “from” the homeless person, although I might still eat it because I like the taste of chocolate. So, from “thank you” point of view, in the first case I say thank you, in the latter case I don’t, despite the fact that its chocolate that I like rather than red apples. In other words, the meaning of “thank you” has to do with liking the giver as opposed to liking the thing I am given. But then the question is: what about all those people that say “thank you” to the homeless: of course, their facial expression says “thank you, now get away from me” but still they say the words. So I guess facial expression is the key. But if facial expression is the only thing that changes, while the words “thank you” are always the same, then whats the purpose of the words? Well I guess the purpose of words is to inform the other person that the facial expression “at the time” of saying those words refers to the appreciation of the other person’s actions, as opposed to something else. If you just eat candy and smile without saying anything, then smile implies that you like the taste of candy. But if you say thank you and smile, then smile implies that you appreciate the person behind candy as opposed to candy itself.
But then this still doesn’t answer some of my questions. What about the situations where I like a girl, irrespective of anything she gives me, yet she decides I don’t like her because I haven’t told her that I do in timely manner and then when I go back and tell her that yes I like her she doesn’t believe me, and I am like “if I am lying that I like you, what would be the reason for the lie? The only thing I gain by that lie is you, but if presumably I don’t like you why would I try to gain something, through lie, which I don’t like anyway? And by the way I don’t believe in sex before marriage, so I won’t be gaining sex, so what else am I supposedly gaining by this lie?” Most girls never bothered to answer this question, but if I try really hard, I can remember one girl that asked me “are you sure you are liking me, as opposed to liking the fact that I like you?” Well thats a tough one, especially since most people say that I am the one that tends to overanalyze too much, and here it is them that split hairs. In any case, I guess I can make few guesses on what she might have meant. In particular, due to my social rejection, I would enjoy just about any girl who would be willing to date me. In other words, it “is” true that I would enjoy the time spent with this particular girl; but the problem is that if some other girl was in her place I would enjoy her just as much. Now, thats not what any girl told me, this is my own guess: but the best guess I could make is maybe they could somehow read my mind in this particular instance and they didn’t like the fact that they are replaceable? Now, of course your son never had a girlfriend and in his case the issue is his family. But maybe the concept is the same: yes he enjoys the taste of candy, and yes he even enjoys that someone cares about him (as evident by giving him a candy), BUT if a stranger were to give him a candy he would have enjoyed the fact that the stranger cares about him just as much as he enjoys the fact that his mother cares about him, and THATS is what bothers you? And then the purpose of “thank you” is to say that he enjoys that his mom gave him candy better than he would have enjoyed if the stranger gave him candy because, even though he would have said thank you to both, when he says thank you to his mother his smile is bigger than when he says thank you to a stranger (and in order for the size of smile to be relevant to this particular question as opposed to a dozen of other things, the word “thank you” has to be said simultaneously with that smile).
But then one can go a bit further and say that maybe people with Asperger lack the concept of social hierarchy and THATS WHY they don’t say “thank you” since, as you have just seen, the purpose of “thank you” is to represent such hierarchy. And, the other side of the coin, is that due to lack of social hierarchy people with Asperger are very innocent and very forgiving. Incidentally, if you think of little kids without Asperger, they also have to be reminded to say thank you; and also innocence and lack of judgmental behavior is attributed to little kids as well. So maybe the concept of social hierarchy is what is being learned with age, and thats why as people get older they learn to say “thank you” AND become more judgmental, at the same time. But people with Asperger, due to being independent thinkers, fail to learn social hierarchy from others, and thats why they retain childlike qualities in both respects.
Anyway, going back to your original question, maybe instead of teaching him a routine of saying thank you, you can get into those deeper issues behind thank you, sit down and analyze how his world view differs from other people’s world view and then show him how “thank you” logically follows from the world view of other people, and why it would be of benefit of him to adhere to general population’s world view.
its not fun to deal with, especially when you want to read but you know it will make you sick…</p>