Learnings from autistic people
Autistic people can interpret what is said very literally, which can be a problem when they deal with the often vague or obtuse language most use.
- a.Interpret it literally.
- b.Anything that involves integrating several criteria would require too much time to answer properly.
- c.Miss nuances, like what facial expressions mean.
- d.Tend to operate in either interacting or accessing modes, with time to swap between them.
- e.Need to ask questions if there is something they don't understand. Must be answered for them to continue.
Most people use what could be called origami-speak, from origami instructions which often only show every third step, leaving us to work out what folds are in-between. With such speech, much explicit contextual information is left out, which for those who take things literally puts their brains into overload. While most of us may be able to gauge what the missing information might be relatively quickly, they will see it as disconnected and thus almost unanswerable, at least not without disconnecting from real-tine to try to put the pieces together. Often they will just mask instead.
The problem really occurs because most of our talking is vague and not precise enough, because we cannot be bothered organising our thoughts properly so that what we say is a properly connected narrative. This leads to a lot of miscommunication with most people, but is a show-stopper for autistic people because it puts them into a sort of brain paralysis. A lot of our normal banter, and typical greetings that are questions that are not expected to be answered, are pointless to the literality of autistic brains, but still put them into overload because they feel under pressure to answer them.
Autistic people tend to exhaustively search for links in what they are listening to, or talking or thinking about. The more vagueness, the exponentially more possibilities to reconcile for them, causing them to have to take more time out of being in interactive mode to access and examine them. This is why autistic people tend to be overwhelmed by multi-person interactions like meetings or get-togethers, where everyone is interjecting or talking over each other. They cannot keep up with the amount of accessing required to reconcile all the points made in real-time.
This will often result in them being left behind as the conversation moves on. They will often not know when is the right time to speak, due to not knowing the subtle cues, so will prefer to sit out the conversation in silence. If wanting autistic people to be involved in discussions, which is worthwhile because of their different perspective, they need to be given explicit opportunities to speak where they will not be interrupted.
Similarly, actions identified need to be grounded and explicit. Throwaway sentiments like Lets meet over a coffee sometime.
is just too open-ended for them. Autistic people can have a compulsion to complete, so such off-hand statements automatically trigger a requirement that they reconcile it to something more concrete, of which determining whether the utterer actually meant it is only one of many possible resolutions. This in turn, requires an internal examination of their learned patterns to see if one applies. This is why they have difficulty winging their way through situations.
Autistic people do not really get facial expressions. They will observe people, and practice to generate typical expressions, both visual and oral, for several common situations to try to fit in. Of course, novel situations mean they will probably misread the cues, and so they will probably misinterpret them, and what they say may be misunderstood or misconstrued as meaning something other than what they intend, perhaps escalating to confrontation, and at worst case their meltdown.
Autistic people do not have hidden agendas, as that involves far too many loose ends for them to get their heads around. But their need to ask questions can be misinterpreted as having such agendas, just because they can be so direct that it can make us feel like we are being interrogated. In a way we are, but it is not malicious in any way or to get at us. It is just about them trying to keep up on top of what they need to do. They are trying to complete that context so that they can feel safe in their understanding.
They have a lot of empathy, but may not express it in they way we expect it. Their honesty may come across as blunt and uncaring, but it is not malicious nor intentionally hurtful. Truth guides them because it is the least complicated way to live, so trying to navigate the subtleties of finding what half-truth to say is beyond them.
They have a lot of empathy, but have difficulty expressing it. Their honesty may come across as blunt and uncaring, but it is not malicious nor intentionally hurtful. Truth is the least complicated way to live, whereas trying to navigate the subtleties of finding what half-truth to say is beyond them. This is why platitudes do their head in, purely because they are not concrete enough to make sense, such as in thoughts and prayers, or Sorry for your loss
, which does not really makes sense to them because the person saying it is not responsible for the loss, so why should they apologise?
What autistic people highlight is that a lot of what we say is either vague or meaningless, so it is really just noise that we probably can do without saying, and which they wish we would not. If our speech is no better than silence, perhaps we should choose silence! And such silence would probably reduce a lot of our everyday communication problems. Most conversations are battles of the loudest, but the worthwhile input from autistic, or even introverted, people can be significant, and so they need to be given space to voice them. Such respect for all opinions is the other thing we can learn.
A problem is that autistic people are often medically and conventionally treated as if they are defective, and so any problems in communication are ascribed as being due to their condition only. What is known as Milton's
Communication△
Communication with autistic people encompasses many of the situations where we have difficulty.
- a.Introverted people are not driven to impose their points of view by hogging conversations or talking over us to get themselves heard.
- b.Those who have taken the time to learn our language usually do not understand the various contractions and other verbal omissions and idiosyncrasies that we took years to learn.
- c.Those who are not familiar with our area of study do not understand the many special-meaning terms we use with our peers.
- d.Not all cultures are alright with being asked personal questions as a salutation.
We expect too much from people who are not like us.
- a.Understand where they are coming from.
- b.Understand what their communication needs are.
- c.Use language terms and constructs that they can understand.
- d.Allow them space to internalise what we have said.
- e.Allow them space to communicate what they have understood, or ask about what they have not.
- f.Be aware of what assumptions we are making.
This means that when we write or lecture, we may need to let the audience know beforehand, or at the start, what we expect their level of understanding to be. We need to use language that is likely to be understood by them. We can use appropriate pauses, or grammar and typography, to make sure that what we say is given time to be assimilated by them. At lectures we can allow them questions, or in articles, provide footnotes, or links to glossary terms or other articles, for those who may not understand some terms or concepts.
For these we need the patience to allow preparation by ourselves and others for the process of communication. We are trying to convey our understanding of a topic, which is a combination of our knowledge and experiences, including in the present moment. This requires a simple and linear narrative to bind these into a thought process that can be presented and understood logically. We cannot expect others to understand us if we are not clear about we are trying to say. We cannot expect them to cooperate with us if we do not cooperate with them.
Autonomy△
We do not all have to do tasks in the same way to achieve the same results.
People think in different ways, which means that how they approach a problem may be different to ours, and thus how they would solve it is likely to be different to ours as well. Even their outcomes may be different. When governments or businesses put out tenders for something new they want done, they specify requirements, but usually do not detail exactly what it should look like, not how it is achieved. This is to allow for novel solutions that they may not have come up with due to their ingrained ways of thinking.
How people go about their tasks can be different because some modes of operation may be more efficient for them, either conceptually in their thinking and approach, or in the logistics or mechanics of how they do it. Trying to impose a rigid way of operating on them will likely lower their productivity. Some machines or programs may impose restrictions on our interactions with them, but that does not mean that what is done before or after has to be as restrictive.
Micromanaging people is highly intrusive, but it is also likely because of a lack of trust within the manager rather than any shortcoming in their charges, which means they need to work on themselves instead of projecting that mistrust upon others. A worthwhile manager makes sure that tasks are clear, and documented if possible, that people are adequately trained to perform them, and have the possibility of varying the process to suit their abilities so they can perform it more efficiently.
The final aspect of autonomy for people is being able to complete a task that they have started. Being interrupted is disruptive, and being diverted is destabilising, and especially for autistic people, who tend to like repetitive tasks. The exception is those who also have ADHD, which requires them to find something new to focus upon, conflicting with their autistic nature. All people work better with tasks that they feel in charge of enough to have a sense of ownership over. People left in charge will tend to find the way they can complete their tasks.