What Autism Taught Me, Part 3: The Art Of Options

When things are at an impasse, offer options.

My Dad offering options to our son.

When our son was three years old, communication was elusive. In the age before iPads and other technology, communicating with someone non-verbal required creativity. As our son grew older, finding a path to communicate became my mission.

Each day when I returned home from work, I would unplug my home telephone and connect a massively long cable from the wall jack to my laptop. The unmistakable sound of an analog modem would blare for a short time, and then magic would happen! Over 23 years ago, the internet was still fairly new, so finding information about a specific topic wasn’t easy. I drank from the garden hose of listservs and searched for articles and hints on how to communicate with someone who had no voice.

My son and I were both frustrated with our inability to speak each other's language. His frustration would inevitably boil over into violence; progress eluded us.

Finally, one day I asked him if he wanted waffles or pancakes. He stared at me. I knew he understood the options, but he didn’t have a means of “telling” me which he wanted. I put two fists out in front of him. I shook my left fist and asked if he wanted waffles, then I shook my right fist and asked if he wanted pancakes. He slapped my left hand. I confirmed: You want waffles? He slapped my left hand again, smiling. Alas, our first real communication.

Each day I leveraged my fists to speak to our son. We made our way through selecting clothes, food, and other options simply by me offering up my fists.

I realized I could use this technique to compel him to do things he didn’t want to do. He hated baths, so at bath time I’d offer him two fists: Take a bath or cut your toenails. He would slap my fist to take a bath, because the thought of cutting toenails was worse. Awesome. When he whined on his way to the bathroom, I reminded him that he picked this. If he wanted, we could do toenails instead. Nope. The whining would stop and he would willingly participate in bathtime.

This experience made me think about all the challenges with office communication. I started to pay close attention to everyone's style. I wish I could use the fist technique in the office with some folks, but I’m afraid that wouldn’t pan out very well.

When things are at an impasse, offer options. People think in different ways and literally speak different languages. If you’re trying to get your point across and you’re getting the deer-in-the-headlights look that they don’t understand or they don’t know how to respond to you, it’s up to you to figure out how to reach them. Think outside the box, offer creative options, and allow them to have some control over decisions.

Our son is 26 now, and although we’ve come a very long way in our communication strategies, there’s still an occasional set of fists offered up to get the communication job done. He knows the game; he even knows the tomfoolery around giving him two bad options. Now he just smiles and gives a look — a look that says, I’m too old to fall for your two bad options.

Edits by Elyse Goldberg