The Autism Spectrum: Black-and-White Thinking

Alt text: A black and white image shows a brain overlaying a chessboard with contrasting words (like yes and no, right and wrong) scattered across the an old newspaper.

The community of people living with autism spectrum disorder faces challenges daily, ranging from social communication barriers to unexpected behaviors and executive functioning issues. Executive functioning issues mean difficulties with completing basic daily tasks, such as household chores and or managing a budget. Since autism presents cognitive challenges, these executive functioning skills can be taught and worked on, or the person with autism needs to be supported with supervision to ensure those tasks are done. 

Those various challenges are treatable, depending on the resources and the autistic person’s willingness to persevere through those challenges. 

Coming from someone who has lived through those difficulties, it is possible to manage it if the person is self-motivated.

There is another aspect of living on the autism spectrum that is receiving increased attention and awareness, which is often misunderstood and misjudged while creating complications for the autistic community overall. 

The aspect in question is the autistic interpretation of the world as black-and-white, which can be treated with therapy and training. Still, that black-and-white logic presents disadvantages for autistic people in a plethora of ways. 

Black-and-white thinking entails a perception of the world in which life is either one way or the opposite way, there are no in-betweens or shades of gray. Realistically, there are shades of gray in life in various ways. Still, for those on the autism spectrum, the black-and-white mentality is particularly pronounced and pervasive as far as maturity is concerned. 

Black-and-white logic manifests in situations where the autistic community thinks in extreme and absolute logic, also called rigid thinking patterns. For instance, an autistic person in college may receive feedback on an assignment and think, “This feedback means the professor thinks I’m not smart, and how will I succeed in this course that way?” 

That is the absolute logic in black-and-white, whereas the realistic answer by neurotypicals is that feedback is designed to improve work and challenge students to learn more. The black-and-white logic there for the autistic person is irrational when compared to the realistic norm, but since autistic people’s perceptions are unusual, the black-and-white logic comes into the equation. 


The main trigger for people with autism’s black-and-white thoughts is when a situation occurs that a person with autism is unaccustomed to, causing the typical overstimulation that people living with autism experience, and the autistic person subsequently has to react to. Many people in the autism community think in the black-and-white thought process, and an example of overstimulation would be if a person with autism went out in public and heard the sound of a large vehicle, such as a truck, driving by. 

When a person with autism hears a loud truck driving by, it could cause overstimulation in the form of the hand movements people with autism exhibit when they overstimulate, and or the person with autism could start shouting loudly to express their discomfort 

For the autistic person to rationalize the unfamiliar situation and make sense of it for their comfort, the black-and-white logic is that source of mental comfort, even if others interpret it as irrational and extreme. 

For instance, if a person with autism has a bad day that also comes with something good occurring, their black-and-white rationale will interpret the day as terrible and mentally disregard the good parts altogether. If a person with autism deals with multiple changes in their routine on a given day, such as a television show they were going to watch being interrupted, followed by a power outage at home, the person with autism will get upset about those changes and perceive the whole day as bad altogether.

Even if a good event occurred, such as a nice meal at home, the black-and-white logic means that a good meal and all, the television show interruption and power outage made the whole day terrible in the person with autism’s mind.

Another example of a person with autism’s black-and-white thinking would be if, in a conversation, a person with autism was given constructive criticism on how to address a misunderstanding by rephrasing their sentence. 

The person with autism might interpret constructive criticism as an insult because the person with autism would think, “This criticism means I’m not smart at all.” The person giving criticism to the person with autism does not mean that the person with autism is not smart at all, but the black-and-white thinking causes an extreme, one-way, or opposite-way reaction for the person with autism. 

Therefore, the way to address the person with autism after the criticism is to clarify that the criticism does not mean that the person with autism is not smart at all, it is a way to make the person with autism aware of how their words came off in that sentence. That clarification will be reassuring to the person with autism and allow that person to recognize the gray area more easily. 

Black-and-white thinking entails the concept of generalizations in most situations, which I’ve had to improve upon recognizing and modifying accordingly. I’m still working on that, and modifying it is not an easy habit. 

Black-and-white logic can cause miscommunications and issues in social situations, especially for people with autism since the entailed rigid logic can be interpreted as obstinate and unreasonable by family and friends.  

Since those gray areas exist in numerous situations, people with autism may have trouble understanding the gray areas and therefore struggle with relationships with neurotypicals as a result. That is an unfortunate truth and repercussion of autism spectrum disorder when it comes to maintaining relationships, especially since a lot of people with autism can be good and fun company on their better days.  

Fortunately, people with autism can develop the mentality of recognizing gray areas with support, life experiences, and understanding from others. People with autism can develop more flexibility and less rigidity, and through hard work, can see the details of gray in many situations to improve their decision-making and social relationships. 

It is not an overnight process for people with autism to develop the gray area mentality since it is unnatural for their minds to see life that way. Still, it is a possibility and an area the autism community can grow from to ensure their opportunities are as plentiful as desired. 

Some potential ideas to implement the development of gray-area logic for people with autism could include, explaining to a person with autism that life does not always go as planned, and even so, there are other options and solutions to improve those situations. The person with autism may take time to learn to recognize that detail but with enough understanding, trial, and error, a compromise can be agreed upon so that the person with autism is satisfied with a change in their day. 

Eventually, with enough life experience, the person with autism can develop the mentality of going out of their comfort zone in the black-and-white to interpret the gray areas that permeate the world. 

Those gray areas are not innate to the autism community, there is a lot of rigidity in the thought process, so patience is necessary to maintain the person with autism’s composure, especially if the person with autism is prone to sensory stimulation and behavioral outbursts. 



Reference:  https://carolinemaguireauthor.com/understanding-black-and-white-thinking-adhd/ 

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