“Unfortunately, for some children, “gray” thinking doesn’t develop readily. These are the kids who sometimes end up with diagnoses on the autism spectrum, but regardless of diagnosis they’re best thought of as black-and-white thinkers living in a gray world. They often have significant difficulty approaching the world in a flexible, adaptable way and become extremely frustrated when events don’t proceed in the manner they had originally conceived. More specifically, these children often have a strong preference for predictability and routines, and struggle when events are unpredictable, uncertain, and ambiguous. These are the kids who run into trouble when they need to adjust or reconfigure their expectations, the ones who tend to overfocus on facts and details and who often have trouble recognizing the obvious or “seeing the big picture.” For example, a child may insist on”