Social skills: Considering communication an obligation

Sometimes, when people learn methods of communication that sometimes work for people with disabilities, they use them only to get compliance. Or to make things more peaceful and calm. And they expect that things will become easier. And some things will, but…

If you’re doing it right -- if what you’re doing is real communication – you should be hearing NO a lot more than you used to. And some things should become more complicated than they were before.

And you should be understanding and respecting NO more than you used to. The communication should sometimes, probably even often, interfere with your plans and challenge your assumptions. If your interactions almost always make things more convenient for you, what you’re doing is probably not really communication.

Even if the person you’re talking to is a little child – even two-year-old kids who don’t have disabilities are allowed to say no and make it stick sometimes. Little kids who need help communicating, need help communicating things adults *don’t* want them to say, as well as things adults *do* want them to say. It’s important for them to learn how to *decide* what to say.

And, especially – if you’re treating an adult in a way that makes it impossible for them to communicate boundaries even a two-year-old child is allowed to have, somethings is going seriously wrong. And you should be fixing it, and you should expect that fixing it will be inconvenient and lead to you having to change what you do because the person you are communicating said no, or said something unexpected.

Learning to communicate is not just a matter of learning to talk to someone; it’s also a matter of learning how to listen.

And, in pretty much every culture there is, listening to people with communication disabilities is considered optional, and learning how is considered to be a special skill gained by special people who have extra special patience for Working With People Like That. (And, it’s not even routinely expected of people whose primary job is teaching or supporting people with disabilities. It’s considered something *exceptionally good* people in such roles might take on.) 

But listening to and communicating with people with disabilities isn’t optional. It’s a basic social skill that everyone needs to acquire (unless they have a disability that prevents it).

And – considering communication optional makes it harder. Acknowledging that others have the right to communicate, and that listening effectively is basic decency and not a special favor you’re doing someone, makes it a lot easier to learn how to communicate properly.

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    Communication disabilities,

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