I have baby-sat Ally, a little girl who has mild autism, for the past several years. She used to only speak a few words and sit still only five minutes at a time. Now she is a child who can talk up a storm and sit with me for hours while we enjoy a video. She is cute, funny, bright, and very caring.

Like the rest of us, Ally has her ups and downs. There are moments when she is confident and moments when she is feeling a bit confused. She can be serious or delightfully silly.

One thing that distinguishes Ally is the tendency to think in very concrete terms. When she was young, we often played the "What is it?" game. I choose an object; she identified it. The light switch was "light on-off," and the doorknob was "door open-close." At first I thought, "That’s not what it’s called." Then I realized how arbitrary our conventional labels are. Ally identified things for their purpose and function.

Even now when I talk to her on the phone and ask, "What are you doing?", she answers "I’m talking to you." I have realized that if I wanted to know what she was doing before she came to the phone, that’s what I should have asked. Sometimes we think we are communicating clearly, when what we say can actually be confusing for others.