July 3, 2013 – Real Social Skills

It can be hard to remember that food exists, or notice it while it’s there.

I know a few things that work for some people to mitigate this problem:

For some people, cooking for other people regularly makes it easier to notice that food exists:

Sometimes remembering to cook for other people works as a reminder that you need to cook and eat
Sometimes the motor/sensory/tactile experience can make it easier to remember that you have food
Because for some people, motor memory works better than visual memory

For some people, asking other people for direct help is useful:

If you feel like you need to eat, asking a friend to tell you to eat might help
Or asking them what you should eat
Or how to find the food
Some people who can’t figure out food for themselves, *can* tell other people how to find food
So if you and a friend both have this problem, you might still be able to help one another

Stashing food in places where you’ll see it can also help:

Keeping a box of cheerios or granola bars or something else that lasts a while by your computer might work as a reminder that food exists

These are strategies I know about. Do any of y’all know about others?

A reader asked:

Having aspergers and and ADD has made communicating with people very difficult, especially in relationships. I’ve found that writing helps but reading is hard because I get lost in blocks of words and unable to focus. Are there things that can be done to help with communication and reading replies etc?

Sometimes it helps to paste the text into a document and then use either white space or color coding to help you keep track.

Here’s how I do color coding:

I paste the text I want to read into Word
I turn all the text blue
As I read the text, I turn it black again
That enables me to keep track of which parts I have and haven’t read

Formatting the text can also help. This is how I do it with emails:

I hit the reply button so that I can edit the text
Then I put in paragraph breaks where I think there are conceptual breaks
This means I can move around on the page more easily when I want to re-read a particular part