He/She

[Brook]

Hi all,

 

My 7yr old ASD son often reverses he and she, I've actually read that this is quite common.

 

He knows that a girl is reffered to as 'she' and a boy 'he', but when he talks to someone he gets them mixed up.

 

If he sees a boy, he will go up to their parent and say something like 'what is 'her' name', or, 'why is 'she' crying'.

And if he sees a girl he will refer to her as 'he' or 'him'.

But if I say to him what is a he, he knows it means a boy, and vice versa.

 

I know it's probably to do with his language difficulties but was just wondering if anyone else can relate to this.

 

Just reading back through it, I doubt I will get any replies as I've made a complete hash of explaining it.

 

Brook

[alibaly]

Brook, I have also had this experience with my son, I honestly think he just didn't know why it was he and she, to him it was just a 'term'. However I'm waiting to see if things change now as its obvious that within the last week or two he is now gender aware and has become rather quite the little man, he didn't want to bunk in with siser when they were both sick because, and I quote, "yuck, this for girls."

[mum22boys]

My son also has this problem. In fact he can not relate to the he/she thing at all. Yesterday at Speech and Language he was tested on it and everytime she asked him a question with he or she in it he asked 'is it a boy or girl'. He constantly gets it wrong when asking questions about people.

You are not alone on this one.

[sam5886]

Brook, you explained it perfectly - my son does exactly the same - and he got turned down for special school for being too bright!!

 

Sam

x

[Tylers-mum]

Brrok, my son did this and only conquered it a few months back with the help of his LSA and picture cards she made up for him. Not exactly sure what she did with him but it worked! He doesn't get it mixed up now, but we are now having to tackle the Mr and Mrs/Miss now though!!! LOL BTW, my son is 6.

[lisa]

My partner is 62 and he reverses he and she all the time. It drives me nuts.

 

Lisa

[smiley]

My son constantly does this too. But, it's usually only in social situations, ie; when we're out, when we talk at home he is very clear. So i've put it down to the stress of the moment.

 

Mind you - still not so good with names!! It's still 'that boy' or 'that girl' - and those are his classmates (who he's been with for three years !).

[jomica]

My son, now eight, did this until he was about five and a half and still occasionally has problems with it.

 

Like you've said, he knew that "he/him" relates to a boy and "she/her" to a girl but he called everyone, regardless of sex, "he" or "him".

 

We worked through the idea of which words belonged to which sex and after a while he knew which word related to which sex.

 

HOWEVER what he didn't know was which sex his friends were and how to generalise between sexes.

 

If we asked "is Jane a girl or a boy" he'd say "boy", and "is Harry a girl or a boy" would meet with the response "boy" too.

 

What we started to do was to say to him "Look, there's Jane. She's a girl. She's wearing a dress and look how pretty her hair is in those ponytails. Which word do we use for girls?"

 

We found that we had to do this for every single person he met because the underlying problem was his inability to generalise. But once he knew that Jane, Elizabeth, Chloe, etc were girls he retained that information about them as individuals and always used the correct reference for "she" and "her" when it related to them. Similarly we did that for friends who were boys.

 

The other thing he didn't know was how to generalise between sexes. So we gave him some information to help that too. We said that girls often had long hair, liked to wear pink and purple, sometimes wore dresses and sometimes trousers. And for boys, we told him that they always wore trousers or shorts, had short hair and liked playing games such as football. We told him that this wasn't always the case for either sex, but it could be used as a pointer. We told him that if he didn't know, he could ask us to save himself embarrassment.

 

By helping him "label" every one of the people he met, we helped him to overcome the problem. It hasn't gone away entirely - a boy with long hair will always puzzle him but now he looks for other (learned) information to help.

 

I hope that this helps your children. It was certainly worth the effort for us, although it took some considerable time to label everyone. His rote memory is excellent though, so once we'd told him, he never forgot again.

[Brook]

Thanks for all your replies

 

I've noticed that it does become more apparent when out and about, but saying that, if he is talking to my husband about me he will refer to me as 'he', Mmm I am feminine really honest

 

I have sat down with him and spoken about kids he knows, I've said are they a girl or boy, are they he or she, he gets it right everytime, but I think although he is very verbal he has probs with the use of language and receptive language, he gets muddled because he is trying to think and get out what he wants to say. He is very fluent when speaking about obsessions, also repeating word for word phrases and jingles off the TV.

 

I think it could just be a case of him trying so hard to piece his language altogether that he gets a little muddled.

 

Thanks, glad to hear some can relate to this.

 

Brook

[Noetic]

I am 27 now and still get them muddled up quite regularly. I blame my partner, because he keeps telling me I need to use more pronouns (because I tend to start talking about things in the middle of a sentence, without specifying who or what I am on about)

 

At least for me, it's just that I muddle up words that mean a similar KIND of thing but the opposite (horizontal and vertical are still a bit tricky for example). I know the difference between the concepts, just keep getting the words mixed up.

[ceecee]

I have mild aspergers and tend to start in the middle of a sentence as well .It drives my husband mad!I don't get he and she muddled up but there are lots of words I do get muddled up.Life can be tricky sometimes!I also apparently talk really fast.Does anyone know if this is common in people with aspergers?I also talk over the top of people accidentally sometimes.Is this common too?

[Noetic]

Life can be tricky sometimes!I also apparently talk really fast.Does anyone know if this is common in people with aspergers?I also talk over the top of people accidentally sometimes.Is this common too?

As far as I am aware it's all part of what many do experience, to do with self-monitoring of one's own speech. Communication difficulties come in so many flavours

[ceecee]

Thanks Noetic.I think communication difficulties come in many different ways and forms..

Edited December 3, 2005 by ceecee

[Noetic]

He also talks at people and he often changes the topic of conversation by interrupting to talk about what he wants to talk about often his obsessions.This abrupt change of conversation used to really throw my husband and I at first!

I used to do that a lot as a kid, although I have to admit that when I do drink alcohol, my way of "losing control" is to start talking incessantly about my obsessions, mostly to my partner but I do occasionally get carried away with our few friends as well (With hindsight I don't think two of his mates appreciated it when I kept insisting that they had to come round and watch Doctor Who with us, and wouldn't take no for an answer).

 

The good thing is that he usually gets far more drunk than myself, so he forgets what I told him and I can talk about it again and again

[Brook]

Thats really interesting, my son also starts talking in the middle of sentences, when you ask him what he is talking about, he looks at you as if to say 'dont you know', I often wonder if he thinks the first half and finishes it off speaking it.

 

Brook

[Noetic]

Thats really interesting, my son also starts talking in the middle of sentences, when you ask him what he is talking about, he looks at you as if to say 'dont you know', I often wonder if he thinks the first half and finishes it off speaking it.

That is certainly how it often happens for me