Tag: communication

“One at a time”

Real Social Skills

Sometimes this happens:

  • Five people are talking to you all at once
  • You can’t understand any of them
  • You say in exasperation “one at a time!”
  • And everyone pauses briefly then starts talking over each other again.

That’s really annoying. One reason it happens is that each person only has control over their own actions; they can’t unilaterally get the conversation back on track. No one wants to stop talking and risk not being listened to, so everyone just keeps talking in order to avoid losing their chance.

One thing that can help is to be explicit about what order you want things to happen in, so that people know they will get a turn and when it is their turn.

For instance:

  • “Guys, one at a time. Steve first. Steve, what are you saying?”

This doesn’t always work, but it works a lot more often than just telling people to stop talking over each other.

Skype

Real Social Skills

Some people prefer to type. Some people prefer to speak.

Skype is a platform that makes it very easy to have a conversation in which both people can use the mode of communication they prefer.

Video and audio being on doesn’t mean that both people have to speak. It just means that speaking is available as an option.

Methods for making words come out

Real Social Skills

Some things that work for some people who sometimes have trouble making words:

Typing

  • Sometimes text-based communication works better
  • Sometimes using email or instant messaging or text messaging will make you able to use words when you couldn’t do so with your voice
  • When that doesn’t work, sometimes typing random nonsense or quotes or something can get you into a mode in which you have more words to use

Speech

  • Sometimes if you can say any word or phrase, it makes other words start working
  • For instance, saying lines from a book or TV
  • Or, frustratingly, sometimes explaining inability to speak makes it easier to speak
  • If it’s a particular word you can’t find, describing the thing can work

Sounds:

  • Sometimes making sounds that aren’t words works as expressive communication
  • Sometimes making sounds can make words come after

Moving

  • Sometimes waving hands can help make words come out
  • Or making gestures of other sorts, like pointing at things

Something about body language

Real Social Skills

It’s very common for atypical people to be told that they have no body language, whether or not this is actually true.

If you:

  • Have an atypical body, or:
  • Move in unusual ways, or:
  • Have an atypical face, or:
  • Speak oddly

Lots of people will tell you that:

  • You have no body language, or:
  • You have no tones of voice, or:
  • You’re impossible to read, or:
  • You have a flat affect, or:
  • You have no facial expressions

This can be for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with whether or not you have these things. For instance:

  • People who find your body uncomfortable, and try to avoid looking, tend not to pick up on body language
  • Likewise with faces – someone who isn’t looking at your face because they don’t want to see its odd shape, may well think you have no facial expressions because they aren’t seeing them
  • If you move unusually, you may have body language that many people aren’t familiar with. This doesn’t mean you don’t have any. It means their social skills are lacking.
  • For instance, they may not realize that rocking and hand flapping are often forms of expressive body language.
  • They may be assuming that people like you don’t have body language etc, and therefore actively ignoring yours because it doesn’t have a place in their worldview.

It may be true that you don’t have body language, tones of voice, facial expressions, or whatever. But it may not be, and it’s very common for people to get this wrong.

Asking what things mean

Real Social Skills

 Sometimes people say abstract things that aren’t very comprehensible.

Sometimes this is because they are assuming background knowledge you don’t have.

Sometimes this is because they’re referencing something complicated, and not being clear.

Sometimes this is because they aren’t actually saying much, and are using convoluted words to sound like they are.

It is possible to ask for clarification, but not directly. You can’t say “Did you actually say anything?” But you can often get clarification with one of these kinds of questions:

  • That sounds really interesting, can you say more about it?
  • I’m not sure I understood, can you give me an example?
  • That concept sounds really great, but I’m not sure I quite got it – how does that work in concrete terms?
This frames things as you listening, wanting to understand, and asking for their help in understanding. (Which is in fact what you are doing, even if you suspect that they aren’t saying much.) This usually doesn’t offend anyone, because people like to be understood.
(That said, people do sometimes take offense, and if they start to take offense, back off right away rather than trying to explain the intent of your question. It won’t help.)

About speech abilities

Real Social Skills

Some people can speak easily.

Some people always have difficulty speaking.

Some people never speak at all.

Some people can speak, but at a cost that’s not worth it.

Some people are better off communicating in other ways.

Some people speak sometimes, and type other times.

Some people have words all the time; some don’t.

Some people can speak fluidly, but only on certain topics. (Just like how one can be fluent in some topics in a foreign language, but be unable to read the news).

Some people lose speech at certain levels of stress.

Some people rely on hand movements and stimming in order to find words.

Some people have a monotone and convey tone through motion.

Some people make a lot of mistakes with words, and rely heavily on tone to make themselves understood.

Some people rely heavily on scripts, and only sound normal when they stay on-script.

Some people use phrases from television.

Some people communicate by repeating themselves, and tend to be perceived as not communicating.

Some people say a lot of words they don’t understand, and are perceived as having meant them.

Some people substitute one word for another a lot, and don’t always realize it.

Some people can answer questions even when they’re having trouble initiating speech.

Some people who find speech easy sound odd.

Some people who find speech difficult sound normal.

You don’t really know how someone communicates until you’ve communicated with them substantially, and even then, you only know in the context you’ve communicated in. Appearances can be deceiving.

And it’s important to be aware that all of these things exist.

Autism awareness for aides

Real Social Skills

flannelfrog asked:

I recently got a job offer to be an in-school aid for a gradeschooler I know with aspergers and I’m genuinely afraid to take it because, while I have teaching experience, I’ve never been an aid before. I’m afraid I’ll do something wrong and mess the kid up for the rest of his life. Do you have any advice for me?

Several piece of advice:

First, shift the way you’re thinking about this.

The problem before you is how to do right by a kid in your care. Thinking in terms of wanting to avoid doing something wrong and messing the kid up for the rest of his life is going to make it harder for you to do right by him.

You’re going to do things wrong (you’ve done things wrong in every teaching job you’ve had, it comes with the territory); and it’s going to be important for you to acknowledge and fix your mistakes. Making possible mistakes, even serious ones, a referendum on whether you are a good person, makes it a lot harder to do right by others. I’ve written about that before, here.

Treat him as a person

  • Almost universally, autistic people are treated as though they aren’t quite real, especially by caregivers
  • Often, they think of this as looking past the autism to see the real person
  • But the autism is part of who he is.
  • Don’t attribute some things to him, and others to the autism. He is real all the time.
  • He is a real person. Already.
  • Your job is not to cure him. Your job is to support him and help him to develop his abilities. Learning to do more things will not make him any less autistic, nor should it.
Do not try to make him indistinguishable from his peers
  • Because, seriously, what kind of a goal is that?
  • He’s worthwhile as a person, and he’s different from most other people, and it’s ok.
  • He has better things to do with his time than fake normal.
  • Being able to do awesome things is way better than being able to look normal while doing pointless things
  • It’s ok to be different.
  • Don’t pretend that he’s really just like everyone else, or that he will be when he grows up.
  • One of the most important things you can teach an autistic child is that it is ok to be autistic

Forget everything you think you know about the difference between autism and Asperger’s syndrome:

  • People whose diagnosis is Aspergers syndrome are autistic
  • Autistic people who can speak are disabled
  • There isn’t actually any fundamental difference
  • Except that people considered autistic are often seen as incapable, and people considered to have Aspergers are often seen as faking their difficulties
  • Assume disability and ability, and that you will have to figure out how that works for the person you’re working with

Learn how he communicates.

  • All autistic people have some sort of atypical communication
  • Some autistic people are really good at hiding it, and looking normal at the expense of understanding what is going on.
  • Autistic children, particularly boys, often pretend to be acting out in order to mask disability. Be mindful of this possibility.
  • A good percentage of the time, when autistic people repeat things over and over, they are trying to communicate something and aren’t being understood. Be aware of this, and learn how to make communication possible in this situation.
  • If he seems not to understand something, do not get angry and assume he’s just being defiant or lazy
  • Some things are really really hard to understand, even though they seem simple to people with typical development
  • For instance, an autistic child who has been isolated might find fiction other kids their age understand completely incomprehensible because they can’t relate to the experiences and relationships it describes

If he makes repetitive motions, assume they are important:

  • A lot of autistic people rely heavily on motion to think well
  • Or to communicate
  • Or to understand things
  • Or to find words
  • Or to regulate themselves.
  • If you prevent an autistic person from making repetitive motions, you’re probably also preventing them from doing things like understanding what’s going on, communicating, and learning self-control and interaction.
  • Do not value a typical affect over learning and communication.
  • Do not say “quiet hands” for any reason ever. (Unless you’re saying something like “people shouldn’t tell you ‘quiet hands’”)

Do not make him follow rules the other kids are allowed to get away with breaking

  • Because that’s unfair, and humiliating
  • And it also prevents peer relations
  • It also prevents him from learning how rules actually work, which is a vitally important skill, especially for people who are likely to spend large parts of their life subject to arbitrary decisions made by people with too much power over them

Do not confuse him about consent, and help him learn what consent is

  • If something is an order, do not phrase it as a request. Doing so teaches people to be incapable of saying no.
  • Ask a lot of questions that actually are requests, and go with what he says, even if it’s not the answer you wanted.
  • If he always says yes when you ask him things, assume this is because he has been taught to be incapable of saying no
  • Ask questions in ways that remind him that saying no is possible
  • Or questions in ways that don’t seem to create a compliant option and a defiant option at all.
  • For instance “do you want to stay inside today, or would you rather play on the swings?”
  • But questions that are real. Not forced choices in which each option is basically compliance.

Support him in navigating the difficult and often hateful world he lives in

  • Do not make him play with kids he dislikes, even if this means he doesn’t play with anyone
  • There are worse things than being alone. Being surrounded by people who everyone insists are nice and your friends, but who actually don’t think you’re real or treat you well is much worse than honest loneliness.
  • It’s possible, and likely, that there are very few kids, or even no kids at all, in his group who it is a good idea for him to spend time with
  • And even if you think he’s wrong about this, it’s a decision he should be making for himself (and his judgement is probably better than yours)
  • When kids or adults do bad things to him (and they will), you usually won’t be able to make them stop. You should tell him that what they’re doing is wrong, and that it’s not his fault.
  • Knowing that it’s wrong, and that others know it’s wrong, helps a lot.

Some things you should read:

  • Ballastexistenz From the beginning. Every post. It has a lot of fundamentally important things about power, and dehumanization, and about seeing people as real. This blog has a lot of the best things that have ever been written on this topic.
  • Rolling Around In My Head is also a really good blog, written by a disabled man whose professional work is supporting people with disabilities. He says a lot of things worth knowing. Also his book Power Tools is important for understanding how this power dynamic works – and your environment and training will put pressure on you not to understand it.
  • Loud Hands: Autistic People Speaking is a really important book about autism and the world written by insightful autistic people. Buy it and read it and understand it, and it will help you to do right by this boy and others

A mind-closing dynamic

Real Social Skills

Criticism is important. Everyone does wrong things, everyone does *seriously* wrong things. Often, other people know when you’re doing that’s bad.

And if you’re able to hear and evaluate criticism, they can tell you. Then you can find out, and know, and fix it before you do more harm.

There’s an attitude that superficially looks like openness to criticism that is actually the exact opposite. Sometimes people freak out about the possibility that they might have done something bad, and then say how bad they are, and need to be comforted. And then the interaction is all about them feeling like they’re not a bad person, and not so much about figuring out why the thing was bad and what to do better.

For instance:

  • Gary and Friend are having a conversation.
  • Friend: You’re standing kind of close. Can you back off a bit?
  • Gary: Oh no, I can’t believe I did that. That was horrible of me. I’m so sorry. I’m such an awful person. 

On the face of it, this looks like Gary is hearing that he violated a boundary, feeling disturbed by his actions, and resolving not to do it again. And maybe that’s part of it. But often, there’s also this subtext:

  • Gary feels humiliated by the implication that he did something bad, and he’s scared that maybe this means he is bad
  • He feels guilty, and feels an intense need for reassurance that he’s a good person. 
  • This is more important to him than fixing the problem
  • So he overreacts with excessive guilt and apology.
  • Then Friend feels obligated to reassure him.
  • And Friend learns that Gary overreacts to criticism. So, from now on, Friend is reluctant to tell Gary when he’s doing something wrong, unless it’s *so* wrong that his kind of reaction would be appropriate.
  • This makes it hard-to-impossible for Friend and Gary to communicate and solve problems in an ongoing way.

It’s really hard to break out of this dynamic once you’re in it, because realizing that you’re doing this can make you feel intense guilt and desire for reassurance. So it can get circular.

But, getting past doing this makes all kinds of things better. Even just reducing how much you do it makes things better. It’s not all or nothing, and it’s worth working on even if you don’t always succeed.