If you've ever told a joke that fell flat with an autistic audience, don't take it personally. And don't assume they don't have a sense of humor or that they lack intelligence. People with autism don't always respond to certain jokes in the same way as their neurotypical peers.
According to experts, the autistic among us process humor differently possibly due to their social, language and communication difficulties. Many jokes require the use of figurative language and abstract thinking, and this isn't always easy for individuals with autism. They may need a more explicit explanation, or a joke to be spelled out, in order to understand the laughing matter.
Those on the spectrum may also engage less in ‘social-interaction’ laughter, meaning they're honest. They laugh when it is genuinely funny, and not out of politeness or social pressure.
"In addition, they typically display rigidity in thinking, prefer sameness, and experience difficulty in seeing the big picture," notes the Healis Autism Centre's site. "Consequently, it could be difficult for them to create and understand conventional humor that requires flexible thinking.
"Puns can be difficult to understand because they require you to think about something in more than one way at the same time," adds Steph West, social coach for neurodivergent children, and the founder and director of Starfish Social Club.
"I noticed a lot of my students just don't really understand puns or other other wordplay jokes. Jokes that require prior knowledge that our kids might not have are difficult for them to understand sometimes, jokes that have to do with pop culture, references that our kids might not always get."
There are a lot of factors that go into why humor can be difficult for those with autism, she says.
