Inference and deduction

[zaman]

Hi

 

I feel like I haven't been on here forever. I had a long conversation with my son's SALT today, and she made me realise that one of the main difficulties he has is around inference and deduction. For example in a piece of text he reads that a boy is pulling on mittens and a bobble hat, and picking up a shovel to go outside. Q: what season is it? What is he about to do? To some extent I can see the same problem in social situations where he doesn't understand what someone is getting at, but doesn't have the confidence to ask for an explanation, or to guess and get something 'wrong'.

 

Does anyone have any strategies that they can share, or books that they can recommend please?

 

Thanks

[darkshine]

For example in a piece of text he reads that a boy is pulling on mittens and a bobble hat, and picking up a shovel to go outside. Q: what season is it? What is he about to do?

 

I have just been informed that most people would say it is winter and he is building a snow man.

 

Here's what I thought before they said that to me - it could be spring, autumn, or winter cuz it gets cold, rainy and snowy in all 3. He could be digging the garden, piling up leaves, shovelling snow, moving earth, sand etc, but essentially I just don't know.

 

This should be a relatively simple scenario I guess, and illustrates your point about how social ones may be more problematic.

 

For me I just try to learn them all - there are a lot to learn though and this is probably not the best strategy

 

I'm interested to see what responses you get cuz I still struggle with this...

 

Oh, my other strategy is guess (I get it right as much as I get it wrong)

[RainbowsButterflies]

Do you still do any shared reading at all?

 

It's not quite the same, but when I read my daughter her bedtime story, I try to check her comprehension of the story and the vocabulary by asking questions about what I have read to her and getting her to look at the picture to help. I will ask some simple inferential question such as 'If he is crying, how does he feel' etc, but she is a lot younger than your son.

 

I'm not sure if this is useful, or if he is too old...

[Sally44]

I think I read or heard somewhere that it isn't that those on the spectrum dont infer or deduce things, what the problem is, is that they infer too many different options - in much the same way as "darkshine" has explained. It isn't that the facts don't cause our children or adults to deduce something - but for many NT's we home in much quicker onto "one" or "two" possibilities. Someone with ASD may see 150 possibilities and therefore not know what is the right choice - or may not see the "obvious" deducation that we would make, but would make a different, and just as valid, deducation that might be slightly "outside the box".

 

I don't know about books, but I bought some Scooby Doo CD Roms that were about finding 'clues' to solve the mystery. What I liked about this was that the clues were different in each game, and the culprit at the end depended on the clues. So it wasn't like you played it two times and knew it. It also showed how similar scenarios can have totally different outcomes and helped me teach him the concept of "clues" to help you infer or deduce things. But, although he does seem to get that concept, he still, often, goes off on a tangent because what is obvious to him is not the obvious choice to us.

Edited July 1, 2011 by Sally44

[zaman]

Thanks for the responses, they were very helpful.

[Sally44]

I suppose a good strategy would be to ask more questions. But that would require the person with an ASD to recognise that they needed to ask more questions, and to be able to narrow down the questions they needed to ask. Again that is something that NTs seem to be able to home in on automatically much more quickly.

[Adam Mars]

It seems to me that the 'correct' answer - it's winter and he's building a snowman - isn't reached through inference or deduction, but through jumping to a conclusion. Darkshine's answer shows better inference and deduction, because it considers more information. I suspect the 'problem' is not in inference and deduction, but perhaps in the restricted knowledge base from which information to support inference can be drawn, and in the unwillingness to form a definite conclusion which isn't actually supported by inference or deduction. In fact, the 'problem' is excellent inference and deduction rather than the poor logic skills and willingness to believe one's own assumptions which are common to the neurotypical mind.

Edited July 16, 2011 by Adam Mars