Autism and Teasing Others

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Hello everyone, this is my first post and I am seeking help. I am the mother of three children in the spectrum. My middle son is 8 years old and the one that displays the most classic symptoms of autism, he also has a severe global development delay. One of the things he does is "tease" a lot. He teases his oldest brother constantly and laughs when his brother gets angry, basically he goes and does something he knows he's not supposed to do just to get a reaction, he enjoys that. He does the same thing with me.

I am kind of lost because I couldn't find anything about it online and the only source I found said that autistic children are unable to tease because "teasing requires the ability to understand intention, nonliteral communication, pretense and social context.".

Can anyone tell me if teasing is common in autism? Thanks in advance for your replies!

My kids have displayed "mean" behaviour but I think it's not that they're trying to hurt you, it's that they find your reaction funny, and they don't consider how you might feel. I think that's classic autistic behaviour. My younger son also likes to break rules, just to hear you state the rule out loud. I think it's predictable aspect that he likes- he knows what you're going to say and he wants you to say it. He'll even prompt me on how to scold him . But again, it's not about purposefully breaking rules, or making me angry- it's about the reaction, he's not thinking about why the rule is there or how I feel.

Thanks for your reply. I searched online and I just couldn't find anything about it!

Kids sometimes do things that make those around them upset, without understanding this and without that being their intent. I would try really hard to not label this teasing as that will make it more upsetting. Teasing does require that the teaser have an understanding that the other person is a person and an ability to think about their reaction. Those things often wouldn't be there for him yet.

To address the issue it may help to think about what happens before he does the behavior that feels like teasing, looking for anything you can interrupt. And think also about what you do next that he may like. I think if you can identify some way to interrupt the specific behavior then since it's probably not his goal to tease, he'll likely not look for other ways to tease if you can find a way to interrupt what he's doing now.

I was a pest when I was younger. I didn't understand that I was hurting the other person's feelings or making the other person mad. I was just joking, didn't mean the mean things I said. I assumed the other person understood that. I see now that it was my lack of empathy. I never could understand the other's reaction, like why their feelings would be hurt. I guess I expected the other person to read my mind.

Thanks guys. My problem is that I have three children in the spectrum and when he does that to them it makes the oldest very angry and they start fighting verbally (he is a teen, very high functioning and doesn't like to be around him) and my youngest is 6 and reacts by screaming and crying.

All those experts who write all those articles and books greatly underestimate what autistic kids are capable of.

Autistic kids do not "tease" the way NT kids do. There isn't a lot of subtlety, and they are not going to be good at skirting lines (say, the line between getting in trouble and not, or getting pounded by your older brother and not, or annoying your little sibling versus making them cry).

But autistic kids are definitely capable of doing something to get a reaction ("It's funny when you turn purple, Mommy!"), or because they like doing it and don't get (or don't give a crap) how it makes the other party feel, or because the impulse is there but the impulse control isn't. Yet. To be quite frank, kids have to be extremely profoundly impaired in order to be incapable of being little jerks at times (lots of times).

How to deal with it?? I really don't know.

I learned young that teasing hurt and not to do it, and that I wasn't good at it and shouldn't do it. I still tried some times-- my best friend had a really annoying little brother and we had a mutual "You irritate me on purpose, and I chase you and thump you" relationship-- but mostly I learned through failure and rejection to shut the hell up. Not a method I would recommend.

The best thing I can think of would be to pack the offending child off to an isolated location, without anything fun to do. "When you do that, it hurts your sibling. Listening to you fight drives me nuts. Go to your room." Ad infinitum. Even stubbornly perseverative people do learn eventually (no matter what my mother-in-law says, lol).

That way they get a lesson in empathy; more importantly, they don't get to enjoy the fruit of their labors (ie watch the funny reaction).

Of course, if they don't go, the ensuing power struggle could be even more entertaining...