asd and generalising , is it for real !???

[mysonben]

A lot of books i have read say that children and also adults with asd cannot generalise or have great difficulties with the concept.
In other words, they lack the ability to transfer/use kwonledge learned in a particular situation onto another situation.
a bit confusing!!! Do you see what i mean?
Have anyone noticed that with your asd dc?

In one of the books the example given was very basicand not a very good one but it explained it ok.
Here it goes: a 10y old asd child is on a camping trip with a club, he is having a shower and doesn't know what he is supposed to do with the shampoo bottle. Even though he has been shampoing his hair at his home for a couple of years now.
So he cannot make the connection between the shampoo bottle and washing his hair because the environment is different.

Has anyone got their own example?
I know my DS has much trouble remembering things and needs to be told and shown what to do, but he is only 4 so... and not remembering isn't the same as not generalising.

There are lots of differnt theories adn models to describe ASD. Some do talk about a lack of ability to generalise but this deosn't really often seem to fit what is happening. An alternative explanation is that actually many people with ASD can generalise as well as NTs but because they notice details so much more, and rememeber them, they are more aware of the fact that things are different and so that generalisations are often "wrong". So to take your shower example - it is not that the child with ASD can't think "well I usually use shampoo so I will now" it is that the child with ASD thinks "well I usually use shampoo to wash my hair but then I usually sleep in a bed, sit on a chair, get water from a tap etc and all of those things have changed so maybe hair washing is different when you are camping too". This certainly would fit more with what my dd is like than a lack of generalisation skill would. (DD would then probably forget that she was having a shower adn write a poem about shampoo )

Yes i see Catkinq, i think i much prefer your way with that theory you explain, more than the book one.

Thanks,