Concrete Processing

Another cognitive tendency in children with autism is the concrete processing of information. Thus, concepts which are cause and effect or which have a definite answer are more easily understood then concepts that are more abstract. For instance, the concept of using an umbrella to stay dry in the rain is very concrete and easy for a child with autism to understand, whereas an idiomatic figure of speech such as "it's raining cats and dogs", may prove incomprehensible to a child with autism, who may process the statement literally.