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This is driving me oddly nuts: > "I think there's an understanding that 'My twin isn't quite as capable of communicating in the way that they need to, so I'll
by scottlamb 3y ago
This is driving me oddly nuts:
> "I think there's an understanding that 'My twin isn't quite as capable of communicating in the way that they need to, so I'll help them with that,'" she says.
> That description fits Sam and John.
> When asked to name his favorite episode of Sesame Street, John blurts out a series of words: "Abby makes the seasons change." Sam understands immediately and quickly steps in to explain.
> "There's an episode with Abby Cadabby, Rosita and Zoe, where they dance around with the seasons changing," Sam says. "I think that's the one he's referring to."
I know that episode. It's actually called "Abby Makes Seasons Change", [1] so that "series of words" is the direct answer to the question. The point is probably true in general, but the example sucks.
[1] https://www.sesamestreetguide.com/2020/02/sesame-street-episode-4191-video.html https://www.sesamestreetguide.com/2020/02/sesame-street-epis...
- 1231232131231 3y agoWow, great find. That's pretty unfair.
- teaearlgraycold 3y agoNice. Even without that being the episode name, it's one word away from being a more understandable answer - "When Abby makes the seasons change". Not exactly word salad.
- alpaca128 3y agoHow so? It's a perfectly valid and complete English sentence either way.
- ejstronge 3y ago> I know that episode. It's actually called "Abby Makes Season Change", [1] so that "series of words" is the direct answer to the question. The point is probably true in general, but the example sucks. Are the episode names of Sesame Street displayed in the episode?
- scottlamb 3y agoNot sure, but they're displayed in the episode gallery/chooser/menu in the PBS Kids app that a lot of people use to watch them.
- gregates 3y agoMy daughter and I happen to have just watched this episode, and after reading the article I came back to make this exact same comment. You beat me to it! It's unintentionally a really great example of failure to communicate caused by assumptions one makes about the person one's talking to.
- OJFord 3y agoDevil's advocate: it is characteristically autistic to have episode names memorised like that, and it sort of is 'blurting out a series of words' if you don't know that's what it is; a more 'normal' answer might be more like a description of the episode or 'the one called [...]'. I think perhaps you can see that in Sam's assistance, he doesn't know the episode names, possibly he knows or expects that is an episode name, and is describing one he remembers that it probably names. I don't think there were necessarily saying that John just said a load of nonsense that didn't answer the question, just that it needed a bit of deciphering; that Sam helped explain what he meant to a non-fan.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoIs that autistic, or is that just normal for someone who cares, and who actually has a favorite episode? I can't imagine not picking up the title after watching an episode a few times.
- Barrin92 3y agoIt's definitely autistic to name drop the title to an audience of adults who likely don't remember anything about Sesame Street and being too literal. It shows the difference in cognitive ability between the brothers pretty well. The brother who seems to be doing better in daily life has a pretty good idea of what kind of answer a random person would expect.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- andoryuu 3y ago> When asked to name his favorite episode > It's definitely autistic to name drop the title to an audience of adults who likely don't remember If someone asks me to name an episode I'll assume they know the show, and that the name is sufficient. Because they asked for only that. Why can questions have an implicit "and tell me about it", but the answers cannot have an implicit "I assume you know which one it is"?
- scotty79 3y agoThe thing is that for effective communication you need to adjust to the recipient. So even though the answer was correct and concise the communication failed because sufficient context was not provided to the recipient. The other person also failed in communication by not informing that the title of the episode mentioned was exactly that, while providing the necessary context.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- OscarCunningham 3y agoThis is the genius of the episode naming for 'Friends'. They're each called the thing you would actually say to describe them, like 'The One with All the Cheesecakes'.
- impendia 3y agoApparently John wasn't even off by a "the": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8d-SQF-F90 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8d-SQF-F90
- donalhunt 3y agoSome autistic people are gestalt language processors so they think and use words / sentences in a different manner to the general population.