This is a short article I have written on communication and the problems that can be encountered when you have Asperger's Syndrome. I hope you like it and if you have any questions please ask.
Communicating with other persons or groups of persons is
something the majority of people take for granted. Some people are
unfortunately born blind and or deaf and have an obvious problem communicating
with others, which quite often with help can be overcome. However the problem
for the person with AS is that for the majority they can see and hear the same
as other persons. A lot of them can talk as well and hold a conversation that
may be classed as both intellectual and academic by many of their friends and
peers.
From my own perspective this can cause many issues, some
major others minor that the neurotypical (NT) person will not be aware of. This
unawareness is not something the NT person is doing on purpose; rather it is in
my experience a natural reaction to communicating with a person who at first
glance has no obvious problems in communicating with others. For example if a NT
person was to engage in a talk with a person who was blind or deaf the
potential barriers to talking to them are obvious. The NT person has to make
extra and necessary provisions in order to effectively talk to the person with
an impairment.
But it is a very different story when it comes to
communicating with a person who has AS. At first glance this person looks no
different to any other NT person and although the NT person may be aware that
the other person has a diagnosis of AS, this can quickly be forgotten as the
two persons begin to converse because there are no obvious physical signs of
any impairment that impacts on the AS person’s ability to communicate. However
whilst there are no obvious and visible impairments there are many non-visible
impairments that have an effect on the AS person to communicate effectively.
I shall now go through these in more detail. I will
reiterate however that these are my own thoughts on how these impairments
effect the ability of an AS person to communicate effectively and are drawn
from my own personal experience.
The first issue to deal with is speed of cognitive
processing. As a species the human race has largely evolved to be able to deal
with large amounts of information, whether that is verbally or orally in this
instance. Information is produced by another person, analysed, and processed
and a reply formulated in a split second. However for the person with AS this
is quite often not the case. Information processing can be a long and arduous
process in comparison to the neurotypical person. Information is received much
the same but at this stage it is just a load of separate and disparate noises
that overload the mind to breaking point.
All of this information then needs to be categorised and
reassembled into something not only more meaningful but also logical and
structured. In effect what the AS person is doing is putting this information
into filing cabinets in their mind and then linking up the filing cabinets to
establish what information goes where and why.
Once this process is done an answer can be formulated
from the information gathered and given back to the NT recipient. And for the
person with AS this is not a quick and easy process. it can be seconds or
minutes for the information to be processed and manipulated in a way that the AS
person feels comfortable with and during this time the AS person is feeling
under increasing stress and pressure because of the need to give a reply
quickly in order to avoid the embarrassment of being perceived as thick, stupid
or dumb.
All these thoughts and many more are going through the AS
mind all at once and this very often results in overload and meltdown. This can
also lead to inappropriate behaviour because their mind is overloaded, they
cannot cope with so much information at once and they feel pressurised into
coming up with an action or response in an instant. Because they cannot cope
with the pressure, stress and expectation of the situation they may say or do
something inappropriate because they feel they must do something to move on
from the situation. This is especially true in new or unprepared for situations
and environments
Just hearing the words correctly can be a problem for a person
with AS. So many words coming at that from seemingly everywhere and none of
them making any sense can put the AS person under intense pressure to perform
so to speak. This can very often result in the mishearing of words and
sentences with the response being an unexpected or inappropriate one to the NT
recipient. Sometimes this can be laughed off as a bit of a joke, but even then
for the AS person it can be a deeply embarrassing situation and again result in
the perception that others think them stupid, thick or dumb. In these
situations the AS person may remain silent from embarrassment or join in the
joke and dumb down their intellectual behaviour to avoid embarrassment.
The third and sometimes the most damaging problem with
issues of communication are assuming the level of natural ability an AS person
has and that they can adopt this behaviour for different situations. When it is
assumed that because a person appears to be NT and can function just like
everybody else does, this leads to the assumption that they are like everybody
else and can communicate much the same as a NT person. Whilst there are many
instances when this does occur, this is because in the main the AS person has
either prepared for this situation well in advance or has been through this
situation many times before and has a prepared knowledge and expectation of
what will happen. It is when this changes unexpectedly and the changes are not
noted in advance to the AS person or if the situation is new in content and
environment, that this can cause problems for them as detailed above about new
or unprepared for situations.
What is most important here is to remember that the AS person
has hidden disabilities and just because they are hidden does not make them any
less debilitating to that person than someone with a seen disability. Remember
that this person is trying their hardest to do their best in order to fit in to
society and all the expectations that, that brings with it. In doing this they
are attempting to analyse and process information in a way that overloads their
brains very quickly and results in them feeling embarrassed and stupid. It is
vital that the AS person is given the necessary time to analyse and process the
information and that they are reassured that this extra time will not impact
negatively on the outcome of the encounter.
Quite often this can result in instructions being
repeated more times to an AS person than would be to a NT person, but this can
also have the benefit of a deeper understanding of the instructions and far
better work resulting from it. The opposite side of this is that the NT person
may interpret this as a sign of not understanding when it is far from the case.
It is in fact a case of ensuring instructions are understood beyond any doubt
so that the AS person can then perform them to the utmost of their abilities
time and time again without further need for instruction or supervision.
So please remember all the AS person wants is more time
to process and analyse information and support and reassurance that this extra
time will not impact on any outcomes from the encounter.
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