Public Speaking Course Requirement ?

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Could a 'Public Speaking' course requirement for an engineering degree be waived due to an AS diagnosis?

Why? There are many excellent public speakers who have AS or HFA.

I am in the same position you are in but am going to take the speech class anyway. I hope that I can just memorize a page of something and repeat it in front of a class while darting my eyes around the room to give the appearance of eye contact. The rest would be just taking notes and passing tests based on them--the bookwork side of things. The only hard part I would think would be writing or, especially, giving impromptu speeches that are supposed to be enthusiastic or persuasive and are about something that does not interest me very much.

Six weeks ago I had to do a speck in front of my class of my GCSE English course work. I stayed up all night practicing because I was to nervous to sleep. Be for it was my turn my hands shook uncontrollably. All the way through my speck I stammered and because my hands where shaking I contently dropped my queue cards. Most of the class lathed at me and I was bulled of I for the rest of the term. I get concessions in my other subjects because of my AS such as extra time in exams and I get to do my exams in a room with just a thou people. I think it is unfair that people with AS get treated the same as everyone when it came to public specking. We should be given the option of doing it in a room with just our teacher or only a small amount of people. Six weeks ago I had to do a speck in front of my class of my GCSE English course work. I stayed up all night practicing because I was to nervous to sleep. Be for it was my turn my hands shook uncontrollably. All the way through my speck I stammered and because my hands where shaking I contently dropped my queue cards. Most of the class lathed at me and I was bulled of I for the rest of the term. I get concessions in my other subjects because of my AS such as extra time in exams and I get to do my exams in a room with just a thou people. I think it is unfair that people with AS get treated the same as everyone when it came to public specking. We should be given the option of doing it in a room with just our teacher or only a small amount of people.

I completed 3 years of college but I dropped speech class after a few weeks. If I had to do it over again I would have medicated perhaps with a combination of a benzodiazepine and a beta-blocker. I did in fact give one short speech and did ok so I think a person could do it if they could get past the anxiety. The benzodiazepine will block most the anxiety and a beta-blocker will almost completely block the physical manifestation of fear/panic. I gave a long speech in microbiology that had me shaking with fear and everybody noticed. It was strange as I felt fairly comfortable talking to each person in the class but as a group I was terrified.

I think that having to interact with small groups or one-on-one is much worse than public speaking. This is because you can simply memorize and prepare to say something in front of a class. You can't really memorize in advance what you're going to say to someone one-on-one or in small groups for a class.

in the post i just Wrote were i typed bulled I was supposed to bullied. I just notes the typo sorry.

IMO it would be a good thing to do.

I was sent on a number of training courses the the Public (Civil) Service and Army Reserve where you had to talk infront of groups. While the anxiety doesn't go away, the more you do the easier it gets. And I often felt really good afterwards.

Later I even joined a debating club of an under 30's branch of a political party. That too was good to have done. You could probably make an analogy to bungee jumping (not that I have ever gone bungee jumping) - terrified beforehand, but feel good after - lol

I am now more comfortable speaking in front of 50 - 100 people than 5 - 10.

If you can manage it, I think its a good thing to have a go at.

I doubt it. In fact, if you told them about AS, it'd probably make them want you to take it more.

While I am not diagnosed for AS, I am seeing a psychologist for Social Anxiety, but found that my speech class I took a couple of years ago wasn't that bad.
It was more like standing up, performing an organized data dump to a group of people, and then sitting down. I just did my research and outlined my speech and just let my natural way of dumping out the detail I had outline go to work while guiding it to stay on the topic points in the outline. There isn't really any interaction that was required so I did alright.

I found it much easier to give a speech to the class than it is to talk to a person or couple of people. I used a trick my pastor told me once that he doesn't look at people while preaching, except for a few glances, but right above them at the back wall.

Not sure about your college, but you could always take "Interpersonal Communications". You still have to do a speech, but I didn't find the class too hard. Plus the instructor I had was generous as long as you tried and got to class on time. We had to do two speeches. The first had to be 100% scripted and just read to the class, which was easy for me, since all I had to do was read and make it look like I was giving eye contact. The second was was persuasive and it could be about anything. I did mine to encourage people to play DDR, and I brought a soft mat to class and demostrated a song. That made it easy for me since I got to look away from the class for two minutes of my five minute presentation, and I knew the game inside and out.

Now where was I going with this? Well, if your class is anything like mine, choose a topic you are obsessed about and just talk about it to everyone. If the topic is open to anything, speaking to others should be really easy for people like us. As people with AS, we can talk hours about our most favorite subject to indivuduals, so just get something prepared for class, and just make it look like your looking at everyone if you have a problem with eyes (I do sometimes).

In university I completely bombed on one speech. I remember still being there in shock when everybody had gone and the guy wanted to lock up.

Having said that I'm a lot better now, I might be able to do it. Not something I would do voluntarily. I would suggest practicing in front of someone you know. Also try to address the whole audience not just he person marking. In other words just stare in the middle distance.

I actually enjoyed speech class. I have never had any problem giving a speech or performing music in front of any audience. I was always prepared and knew the material inside and out. Any question and answer parts were a little more difficult but I did just fine. Having to interact one-on-one within a crowd of people is what overwhelms me. The stage or podium was always a protective barrier for me.