E106 · Communication & interaction
Challenges understanding other people's perspectives
Does the young person sometimes find it hard to work out what another person might know, think, expect, mean or experience?
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Overview
Understanding another person's perspective requires us to work with information we cannot directly observe. People differ considerably in how easily they infer what somebody else knows, intends or understands.
A young person may therefore care deeply about other people while still finding aspects of perspective-taking difficult. Conversely, being skilled at reading other people does not itself tell us how compassionate someone is.
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What this might look like
- assuming another person already knows information that has not been shared
- being surprised that two people interpret the same event differently
- finding another person's reaction difficult to understand
- misunderstanding intentions or expectations
- needing another person's point of view to be explained more explicitly
- not anticipating how words or actions might be interpreted
- struggling to explain an event differently depending on what the listener already knows.
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Developmental expression
These are possible situations to explore together, not age thresholds or a test of development. A person may understand another perspective in one setting and need more shared information in another.
At this stage
Early childhood
During play, make clear who has seen an event or knows where an object is. Use pictures, objects or the child’s preferred communication to explore what each person knows. Avoid turning this into a demand to guess an adult’s answer.
Early childhood
During play, make clear who has seen an event or knows where an object is. Use pictures, objects or the child’s preferred communication to explore what each person knows. Avoid turning this into a demand to guess an adult’s answer.
Middle childhood
When explaining playground events or group work, first establish who was present and what was said. A listener may need missing background information. Invite both children and adults to explain their accounts.
Early adolescence
Humour, group messages and changing friendships can leave important context unstated. Look together at what was actually communicated, which interpretations remain possible and what could be checked directly.
Later adolescence
In study, work experience or relationships, people may bring different expectations about roles and shared knowledge. Agree how to ask for clarification, express disagreement and correct misunderstandings without requiring agreement or disclosure of private thoughts.
Choose each stage to see how the presentation and surrounding expectations may change over time.
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Strengths and differences
This presentation should not be described as a lack of empathy.
Perspective-taking, recognising emotions, sharing another person's feelings, caring about their wellbeing and choosing how to respond are related but distinct processes. Difficulty in one cannot safely be used to infer absence of the others.
The goal is usable shared understanding. Do not measure success by eye contact, agreement, obedience or an adult’s preferred communication style. Ask the young person what made an exchange clear or confusing.
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Top tips for support
- Ask what each person knew at the time before deciding what an action meant.
- State relevant background information and expectations directly.
- Use the young person’s preferred way of communicating, with time to respond.
- Offer possible interpretations as questions, not as facts about somebody’s mind.
- Check your understanding of the young person’s perspective as carefully as theirs of yours.
- Agree a way to check or repair a misunderstanding; do not require a forced apology as proof of understanding.
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Things needing careful planning
Before concluding that somebody “doesn't understand other people”, examine communication, language, context, familiarity, emotional state, power and whether the expectations themselves were sufficiently explicit.
This entry concerns shared knowledge and viewpoints. E065 addresses organising an account; E067 addresses implied or nonliteral meaning; E099 addresses disagreement and repair. These can overlap without being interchangeable. Disagreement, refusing an unfair demand or having a different cultural expectation does not by itself show a perspective-taking difficulty.
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Practical support principles
Make hidden information more visible. Explain perspectives rather than demanding that they should have been obvious. During conflict, separate what each person knew, thought and experienced. Avoid requiring a young person to agree with another person's perspective merely to demonstrate that they understand it.
Understanding another perspective does not require surrendering your own.
If communication barriers continue to restrict participation, discuss the pattern with the young person and relevant education or speech and language professionals. Use examples from more than one context and include what partners and settings can change.
From understanding to support
Phoenix Atlas connections
These are contextual reading routes, not evidence that an approach is suitable or effective for a particular young person.
| Approach | Reason to explore | Boundary |
|---|---|---|
| A017 — Communication partner strategiesAtlas record available | Making relevant information and expectations explicit; checking shared understanding. | Partners share responsibility for communication. |
| A027 — Speech and languageAtlas record available | Exploring a language or social-communication question with appropriate professional input. | The purpose guide does not identify a diagnosis or prescribe treatment. |
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Evidence and cautions
ASHA’s social-communication guidance distinguishes social understanding, language processing and the demands of interaction, and recommends attention to cultural context and the person’s goals. It is a clinical reference about a diagnostic category; this entry is a presentation, not a diagnosis. ASHA practice guidance.
ASHA describes perspective-taking within a wider set of communication processes. A difficulty estimating someone’s knowledge does not establish a lack of caring. Components of social communication.
An adult information-transfer study reported poorer detail retention in mixed-neurotype chains; a larger 2025 replication found no information-transfer difference between chain types. Neither study establishes a child’s perspective-taking ability, empathy or the effectiveness of a school intervention. These findings caution against a universal deficit account and against presenting neurotype mismatch as an established explanation for every interaction. Crompton et al., 2020; Crompton et al., 2025.
The developmental examples and practical prompts above are editorial illustrations, not validated age norms or tested treatment claims. This Beta entry retains the agreed scope; it is not a systematic evidence review or completed specialist validation.
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Public evidence sources
- American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Social communication disorder — Practice Portal. Current web guidance, inspected 16 September 2026.
- American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Components of social communication. Current web guidance, inspected 16 September 2026.
- Crompton CJ et al. (2020). Autistic peer-to-peer information transfer is highly effective. Autism 24(7), 1704–1712. University publication record and abstract inspected.
- Crompton CJ et al. (2025). Information transfer within and between autistic and non-autistic people. Nature Human Behaviour 9, 1488–1500. Registered report; publisher abstract and research record inspected.
About this entry’s source
Open Beta · read the evidence notes and limitations
Source status describes the underlying material. The current site edition is Open Beta; the evidence notes and limitations remain part of the entry.