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INSIDE PERSPECTIVES of AS & Neurodiversity |
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COMMUNICATION
COMMUNICATION DIFFICULTIES
Many sensitive and introvert people feel very uncomfortable and confused in social situations they’re not 100% used to and at ease in. Some only talk with their closest family or friends. Others get so nervous with other people that they blabber on too much instead and fail to grasp hints that the conversation may not be interesting the other party. The larger the group of people, the less one knows and feels accepted by them, or the more uncomfortable the situation, the bigger the risk of talking too little, too much, saying something ‘inappropriate’ out of sheer stress, or not getting said what one wanted to convey.
· Some have problems with reciprocity & timing and either talk on and on without letting anyone else get a word in edgewise, constantly interrupt others without realising that it’s disrespectful to do so, or say nothing at all unless asked a direct question. Often it is like one’s ‘talking software’ is either on or off. If it’s ‘on’ one can talk but not listen, if it’s ‘off’ one can listen & watch but not talk.
· Some are so hyper-receptive that their nervous systems and brains take a longer time to process and decode all the incoming stimuli and thinking up an appropriate response.
“I have had trouble explaining myself and try not appear a retard by saying, look I cant think, hear, see, and talk at the same time, I have to concentrate on one or the other, not that that even means I have processed what’s been said, shown. etc..” - Christine from UK
· Right-brained visual thinkers may also need more time to convert words into pictures and back again. Others take extra time analysing what’s been said and/or thinking out an appropriate and linguistically correct reply. This creates problems with timing in live conversations.
“I have been mistaken for slow at times. Once when I went to talk to a school counselor about interview tips, she pointed out how when I am asked a question it sometimes takes me a few seconds before I start giving the answer. She said that some people may mistake that for being not too intelligent. Interestingly, I just read a couple days ago that that is fairly common for aspies/HFA to do.” - Ilah, adult probable Aspie from USA
“I try to express myself as unequivocal as possible. Thus, my sentences may become rather wordy or take a long time to formulate, as I wish to express myself with as few words as possible. Clarity and brevity are often hard to combine in one single sentence. I also strongly prefer not to use the same word or expression too closely upon previous usage.” - ‘Underjord’, male Aspie from Sweden
SEMANTIC-PRAGMATIC DIFFICULTIES
· Some Aspies and autistics tend to interpret things literally, reply to rhetorical questions and may have difficulties understanding figures of speech, idioms, allegories, irony etc.
“I interpret meaning literally. If I ask a group of people, ‘Hey, are you all interested in talking about dimorphism in cats?’ and someone answers, ‘Uh, maybe later Tom,’ I take it to mean, ‘Yes we do, in a half hour or so,’ not ‘What are you? Some kind of geek? No way!’”
“I have more difficulty understanding time perspectives. If mom asks: ’Can you help me unload the dishwaser later?’ I never understand what she means by ‘later’. It can mean in 5 minutes, half an hour, 2 hours, tomorrow... So I say ‘yes’ and keep doing what I’m doing while waiting for her to tell me WHEN I am to help her. I’ve tried explaining to her that she has to say exactly when she wants me to do something as the word ‘later’ has no real meaning to me.” - ‘DarknessDescends’, female Aspie from Sweden
“- Can open the window? - Of course! People around me have to be more specific than that if they wish me to execute this ability in the moment...” - ‘Missbutterfly’, adult Aspie from Sweden
· Some reply to ‘stupid’ questions with a stupid answer just to tease, others really don’t get it. However, although some of us may have had this tendency as small children and may still reply to the odd rhetorical question, I’d say that most of us eventually learn idioms & figures of speech just like everyone else.
“I think I understood quite early that this type of questions expressed a wish rather than just was was in the words themselves.” - ‘Salkin’, male adult Aspie from Sweden
· Also, many Aspies have a very keen appreciation of irony – at least when it’s not directed at ourselves...
I guess the level of semantic-pragmatic difficulties varies from person to person. Not everyone one on the autistic spectrum has semantic-pragmatic difficulties, and not everyone with semantic-pragmatic difficulties is on the autistic spectrum.
PRONOUN REVERSAL
· Interchanging ‘you’ and ‘I’ or ‘I’ and ‘we’ may in some cases be a simple linguistic confusion and cognitive failure to comprehend the meaning of the words.
“I didn’t understand the words ‘I’ and ‘me’. My parents called me ‘you’ and my name, so when I was to say something about myself I used ‘you’ or my name instead of ‘I/me’. E.g. if I meant to say, ‘Now I am ready’, it came out ‘Now you are ready’!” - ‘DarknessDescends’, female Aspie from Sweden
· It may also come from thinking of oneself as more than just an ‘I.’
“I used to often think out loud as a child, and liked to use the ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ when arguing with myself ;-)
“As I see it, it was a conscious choice of words, and the person who does this is very well aware that ‘I’ is oneself and ‘we’ oneself + one more. When I used the word ‘we’ I meant ‘I’ as in myself and the group I identified with (at that time consisting only of myself). I think I mechanically leaned that there are personal pronouns, an their meanings. But since I don’t have a natural distinction between these, I sometimes used unusual personal pronouns, as in monologues with myself.” - Leif, adult probable Aspie from Sweden
“I often thought of myself as a ’we’. ‘Now we will do this and we think this and want this’ etc. This ‘we’ did not include anyone else but just myself. Rather weird. Nowadays I often use the term ‘they’ about myself and my husband. Instead of ‘when will we eat’ or ‘when shall we go’ which is the linguistically correct expression, I might say ‘when will they eat’ etc… it sort of feels better to say it that way, I don’t know why.” - Dina, adult Aspie from Sweden
ASPIE COMMUNICATION
Many Aspies and autistics don’t have much problem communicating with others on the spectrum; this to me indicates that our communication difficulties are mainly due to an innate difference rather than to something wrong with our brains. Our difficulties seem to be more of a cultural kind; like coming to a foreign country and not knowing the language or social codes there.
”I’ve often needed to prepare all sorts of possibly developments a conversation could take, in order to be able to give a good reply. For me this is connected to the NT communication style. It’s not accepted to make a comment five minutes after a discussion, when you’ve realised something new about the subject. You have to constantly think in real-time, which doesn’t work since I continually translate from non-verbal to verbal. When I instead communicate with Aspies, it works differently. It is not seen as inappropriate to bring back a 5 minutes old thread and the conversation does not have go continue in an even flow.” - Leif, adult probable Aspie from Sweden |
