Telephone (Photo credit: plenty.r.)
We are introverted head people. We have a copy of our outer world (where you strangers are) in our mind. On this level, we communicate in thoughts. We have thus imaginary friendships with people with whom we actually seldom talk. We hardly notice our own silence and forget to balance it. We can in fact become frustrated because the other person does not react to our imaginary relationship, and then we cancel it.
Now if we get asked a question, the transfer between the outworld (question) and the inner world (answer) does not work. Our knowledge gets either faded out like a shadow which gets struck by a light beam or communication does not feel adequate because the person outside does not correspond enough to our copy on the inside, making trust insufficient.
The essential point is the difference between our inner world and the outer world. We cannot hardly hold them up together. Have you seen the movie RainMan? Everytime the autistic Raymond gets asked an “ordinary” question, he replies : “I don’t know.” I recognize that from myself. I don’t know the answer because the transfer does not work.
How can I communicate with an Asperger then?
I don’t have a patent recipe, yet you could invite this person to have a (private) blog to write things down, like this blog here, and then ask for permission to read the blog.
Golden Rule: Don’t ever criticize the writing! Be thankful for the trust and opportunity to learn.
As we look for reasons for the problem, let’s take this article from http://www.autism-help.org/:
In short, this article discusses communication and education issues.
In low-functioning autism, we have the case of people of remain silent during their entire life. Others learn to communicate with cards and similar support. Still, they don’t learn how to talk or type.
In high-functioning autism, that is Asperger, we have no problems with speaking. Rather, it’s the other way round, we are often academic-like talkers, very abstract, very cold way of talking. No chit-chat possible.
I was totally in this case. I only recently learning how to write the way I’m writing right now. And it’s still academic. I expressed myself in an enormously complex way during my teen years, and found it natural. I actually doubted on my intelligence and believed I still had to be more abstract.
Now what causes language problems in autists?
The causes of speech and language problems in Autism Spectrum Disorders are still unknown, though experts believe that the difficulties are caused by a variety of conditions that occur either before, during, or after birth affecting brain development. The individual’s ability to interpret and interact with the world is affected, and some scientists tie the communication problems to a theory of mind or impaired ability to think about thoughts or imagine another individual’s state of mind. Associated with this inability to see another’s point of view is an impaired ability to symbolize, both when trying to communicate and in play.
So our communication problem is said to be linked to our overall problem to interpret and interact with the world. We cannot understand other people’s positions and thus fail to interact.
Don’t you expect the cashier to ask you for money in the shop? Of course you do. Well, autist may not, which can lead them to refuse paying. Maybe they just want to make sure their money goes to the correct person and they don’t trust the cashier to be that person.
A really interesting idea is this one:
In some cases, sensory problems can mean children are so sensitive to touch that they may find the feeling of their own tongue, teeth, lips touching each other to be unpleasant so they may not move their mouths much, or avoid talking completely.
Wow, I hadn’t thought of that possibility! It’s a great one.
Next comes our problem with body-language:
Sometimes, the body language of people with autism can be difficult for other people to understand. Facial expressions, movements, and gestures may be easily understood by some other people with autism, but do not match those used by other people. Also, their tone of voice has a much more subtle inflection in reflecting their feelings, and the auditory system of a person without autism often cannot sense the fluctuations. What seems to non-autistic people like odd prosody; things like a high-pitched, sing-song, or flat, robot-like voice may be common in autistic children and some will have combinations of these prosody issues. Some autistic children with relatively good language skills speak like little adults, rather than communicating at their current age level, which is one of the things that can lead to problems.
I know the robot voice from myself. I hate my voice, therefore I’m now doing voice training against it. I actually started singing to get rid of my voice.
You will find plenty of information in this article. I will stop here.
Nomi Sunrider 