What if you are a child with Asperger's and your communication partner is your parent or other adult in authority? If the adult doesn't “get” the way you think, you will be set up for failure when given multipart, verbal instruction. As a society, people have been conditioned to communicate with lightning-fast speed and to expect the same in return. But the child with Asperger's will need process time to catalog the sequence of steps being communicated and make a facsimile image or movie of each that most closely approximates what he thinks the adult is trying to say.

If you're communicating something new and different to the child, then assimilating the information and translating it into images and movies will take time. Your challenge as a parent is to slow down and carefully measure the amount of information dispensed to avoid confusion. If your child is unable to visualize what you verbally communicate, he is less likely to retain it.

You've experienced something similar when you've been lost and stopped to ask for directions. You may have quickly learned that you asked for more than you bargained for if the person who gave you directions slowly built, layered, and embellished the information until you could not keep track of the list of verbal information. Apply this scenario to the child with Asperger's Syndrome and you can understand how easy it would be to blame his inability to correctly follow through on noncompliance, or “bad,” behavior.

Because your child may be a pleaser or have a flat affect, you may be unable to tell through body language or facial expressions if he understands — even if he says he does. If you wish to be certain you've communicated in ways that are effective, reliable, and universally understandable, take a few moments and go through these steps:

• Rethink what you intend to communicate. Can it be simplified?

• Before giving your child instruction, ask him to prepare to make pictures or movies of what you're conveying. Check back on this during your communication by saying something like, “Can you see it?” or “Do you see what that's supposed to look like?”

• Slow the pace of your instruction — especially if it's about something new and different.

• Allow for process time in between steps of instruction. Given how you've been conditioned to interact with others, this will be tough to do, but necessary.

• Ask your child if he's ready for more.

• After you've finished talking, give your child a chance to ask clarifying questions.

• Ensure your child's understanding of what you've communicated by asking him to describe what you've just said.

Like the driving-directions scenario, be cautious about over-loading your child with too much information all in one shot. As your child's parent, you will be able to best gauge how much or how little your child can absorb at once.