Autistic readers and pre-modern literature: do they really "want abilities"?

In my various autism classes, I routinely discussed the challenges that autistic readers have with non-literal language. 

These challenges are familiar to many who've spent time talking to autistic individuals. People routinely cite examples like “raining cats and dogs,” “Can you pass the salt?” and “I’m stuck”. But these actually aren't the best examples of the problem.

That's because these phrases are so commonly used non-literally, and so rarely used literally, that one can simply acquire and memorize their non-literal meanings in the same way one does with words that have more than one meaning.

Rather, what’s problematic for autistic readers and listeners are expressions whose intended meanings aren’t currently conventional: for example, less common, hackneyed ones like “your essay needs some signposts” or “the cadenza was mischievous.” In the absence of common, conventional, non-literal meanings, the literal meanings of these expressions are the most salient. To override them as unlikely in context, the listener/reader must consider that context in full: the big picture; the larger discourse/text; what the speaker/writer is or isn’t plausibly trying to communicate. Does your English teacher really want you to attach actual signposts to your essay? How likely is a cadenza to be literally mischievous, or for the music reviewer to think it is? What is the most likely alternative meaning? Perhaps some metaphorical extension of the literal one?

More recently, as I immerse myself for homeschooling purposes in the prose of Austen, Bronte, Hawthorne, and Bulfinch, I’m noticing another way in which the literal-minded autistic reader could be led astray. Hundred-plus-year-old texts house scores of obsolete idiomatic expressions and words whose meanings have drifted significantly since they were originally put to paper.  Consider "intercourse" for social interaction; "check" for limit; "suffer" for allow; "late" for recent; "discover" for reveal; “host” for army; “closet” for private room; "in a body" for as a group; "gay" for happy; “fix” for sabotage and “want” for need or lack. Consider how someone who can’t get beyond what today’s literal meaning of “fix” and “want” will misinterpret “Pelops bribed the charioteer to fix the chariot” or "Mr. Darcy can please as he chooses. He does not want abilities".

Of course, neurotypical readers, particularly those who don’t have much experience with older texts and semantic drift, may also struggle with these shifted meanings. Only the most discerning and semantically flexible young readers, I’m guessing, will deduce from context alone what it means for the bribed charioteer to “fix a chariot” or for Mr. Darcy to “not want abilities.” But, to the extent that neurotypical students are more sensitive to what’s plausible given the bigger picture, they are at least more likely than their autistic counterparts to dismiss the literal meaning, and thus--even if they don't come up with a meaningful alternative—not be led totally astray.

The best teachers, of course, will go over the obsolete and archaic meanings, sharpening everyone’s appreciation for older literature and, in the process--to use a still quite commonplace and conventionalized, even hackneyed metaphor--leveling the playing field for everyone.