Common sense

From ActuallyAutistic Wiki
Revision as of 16:51, 23 August 2022 by ZoeB (talk | contribs)

When an allistic person implores you to use common sense, usually they're asking you to do what they do: copy whatever everyone else is doing, without learning why (or even if) it works.[1]

This is in contrast to how most autistic people learn things, by systematising them, learning the rules and exceptions, the tasks and subtasks, either from formal documentation or through personal experimentation.

Unfortunately, "using common sense" isn't as easy as simply observing and copying what other people are doing in the moment — it's assumed you will have already spent your entire life doing this unconsciously.

Yet again, unfortunately, I can only offer an explanation, not actionable advice. Probably the best you can hope for is that people will believe you, if you explain that you don't have common sense because you don't have the neurological process used to obtain it.

References

[1]