“My daughter has to analyze and argue over every house rule my husband and I come up with before she decides to finally obey that particular rule. Is this common for children with an autism spectrum, and is there any way to get her to be more agreeable without such lengthy explanations and arguments?” What if I told you that your daughter may be exhibiting noncompliance for a good reason? Some children and teens with Aspergers and High-Functioning Autism (HFA) are simply not comfortable with things that don’t make sense to them. These children, who are “rationale-dependent,” are largely focused on logic. They need to know the reasons for the rules in order to avoid both confusion and anxiety. Blindly accepting the rules is not the way the rationale-dependent child functions. She needs to understand the reasons behind others’ actions, why something is done a particular way, and it has to make sense to her. Since this child is over-analytical, she often behaves inappropriately be
