Verbal Communications Differences and Difficulties Sticky

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This paper is interesting. I didn't know that language is located in the left hemisphere. Of late, I've come to believe that my artistic capabilities stems from damage in the left hemisphere resulting in right hemisphere compensation, which in theory accounts for my significant artistic abilities. It looks like this explains the speech problem as well. It's more than a speech problem but may be hard for me to define precisely, which probably speaks of the problem itself.

Wow! aspiartist - you are artistic. I am a scientist, but also artistic, which I incorporate into my science. I love my science and excel. Lucky that my professors are great and count what I think/write/draw. I am sorry you had it so rough.....unfair.

About language just being in L hemisphere: There's a lot of controversy about this and we do know this isn't quite true. There's many factors and the autistic mind is very neurally inter-connected. But look at the areas of speech (like Broca's) - at the interface of the Sylvian Fissure, which I lack.

About sleep, w/ respect to language: My sleep cycle is skewed and those with autism have REM latency. Article correlates this to speech. I don't think in words either, mostly images/patterns/numbers. I don't dream in 'people' or interactions either. But I do dream!

Oh LOOK!

We're *sticky* now! Thank you sinsboldy, moderators (and Wrong Planet)

I seem to have trouble sometimes with comprehension but other times not. I guess it pertains to the subject matter more as to what things I comprehend easily and what things I have to struggle more with to fully understand. Like reading instructions is excruciating, for example. This article is the sort I struggle more with. I'm not at all of a scientific mind and was always poor at math also. I did well in English and anything calling for memorization skills like spelling, etc., and I liked most subjects 'except' math and science.

On these things I have no knowledge or understanding but in dreams I also don't experience any sort of people interaction and at best am among them but always remotely. My dreams seem very abstract and symbolic and I find them extremely interesting when I can remember them. I'll have to read the article more carefully to understand what REM latency is.

The sensory issues are a big challenge generally and I seem to experience it everywhere, including when confronted with a lot of text. When I do take in information, it's recorded permanently and in a way I think I'm kind of hesitant because what's in there already is more taken as a load. I doubt that makes sense but anyway it does to me.

I hope that wasn't too far off topic.

Upon waking this morning was dreaming of interacting with two people so I guess this sort of thing probably is normal for me, though I don't think I do very often interact with people in dreams. I usually remember my dreams when waking, but quickly dimnishes soon after. I seem to dream about those things that are troubling me or am thinking about at the moment. I doubt there's anything abnormal for me around REM or dreaming but can't know for sure. I wake up very frequently throughout the night processing dreams every time I do. It would be interesting if I could harness and remember its content for longer than a few minutes after waking.

Some journal their dreams by keeping a journal (you could keep a drawing pad, with your artistic gifts!) to immediately record upon waking. I understand this does foster recall, especially if it's a habit.

I understand what you've written! The autistic mind truly is different in many facets.

Please forgive this post if it is deemed to be an intrusion, but I have a question I would really like to ask. If this post is not welcome in the forum I will not be offended if it is removed.

I am a Speech Language Therapist, also married to a man with AS and I have a child on the spectrum. In my work , the majority of my caseload are children with ASD under five years of age, with severity ranging from Classic Autism to mild AS. Some of the children have other medical or developmental issues that complicate things for them.

My question is this, Was being non verbal a choice for you? Did you always know you either would not or could not speak ? What were the things that you remember as a child that were helpful and supportive and what were the negative experiences?
I would like to do the best for my currently NV children, some of whom will go on to develop speech, and some of whom will use alternative means of communication. So any and all thoughts are welcome

Hi Saffy (yes, questions are just fine)! I'll try to answer briefly: Being (partly) mute is not a choice. Rather I think in pictures, sequences, patterns, math, concepts. I can speak but this is not my forte and I find verbal/socio cumbersome. I did not speak until I was 3.5 years old. However, I do not consider myself not-articulate in that I certainly have thoughts and expression.

Consider that speech, which is the dominant (Neurotypical) way of communicating, is a construct. There are other ways and means of communicating, and eloquently. I do understand verbal is expedient but I find much speech superflurious.

Mostly I write (or draw). I use a DANA (by AlphaSmart) to type but I am dependent upon recipient to READ, else I'm at an impasse. I listen to everyone and try to respond in kind, appreciating that my way is the exception, but I can be ignored at staggering levels! I often will point, gesture, or show. Those with whom I work kind-of 'know' my version of communication and are kind, even 'forgetting' my difference.

About speech: I do listen but I can get 'echo' back in my head. This might sound to you like a feedback loop or when a radio announcer is trying to listen to a caller with a delay in transmission. Signal to noise ratio is off.

This is just one aspect of autism though, but significant.

Saffy, please watch my video! The URL link is below in signature line. Be sure your volume is on. Then you can watch me in my laboratory. I am a PhD student, firstly a chemist, now in Neuroscience (concurrent field). I am also artistic so I use my drawing/schematics a lot in my science. Math is fluidic for me.

I don't know if I answered properly and I wrote very quickly. But speech feels contrived. My voice is just fine. I do have prosody of speech which means my cadence may sound 'off' and I may speak like a child somewhat; like pointing and saying "Water."

I have a very high genetic propensity to autism, more than an order of magnitude higher. I am a high-functioning autistic and cognitively enhanced. Also, many in my family are mute autistics. There is a genetic component. Also, I have no Sylvian Fissure, as I've noted.

No intrusion - in fact I am glad you asked. I know autism can be mysterious to others - I understand.
I think my video clip might help you know.

Thanks for a thoughtful post!
I had a look at your video ( as well as some others that I stumbled across there ), you gave me some food for thought..

You mentioned that you did not speak until you were three and a half, I have some children that are still non verbal at 5 and 6, I often feel like I have not done the job that the parents of the children wanted me to, when I send their children away to school without speech. Normally these children have PEC's or some other system of communication, but finding a way to express to parents that speech does "just not feel right " for some children on the spectrum is a difficult one. I understand that for some children speech is just not going to happen and that they will have alternative means of getting their messages across. I find myself telling these parents quite often that they have very smart children, and I can see often they do not believe me, because the child has no verbal language - the primary means of demonstrating " intelligence " when you are little .. at least how most people would perceive it.

With your permission I would really like to show parents your video, particularly those parents that have very smart non verbal kids. Those parents are the ones that need a boost and to know that even though their child may not be what they expected, they still have great potential to achieve wonderful things with their lives.

I always wish I could talk to these children when they are older, I love my work and I hope I make a positive difference ( I have been working with children for more than 20 years and more specifically with kids with ASD for the last 8 or so.) But I send them off at five normally and never hear from /see them again. I gues in some ways this is my way of trying to find out what works for my more challenged children.

I can't remember to check the SSF, because I just don't usually visit the Haven.

Got 2 questions for you...

1.
I am wondering if any of you feels this situation is familiar no matter how much you actually speak:

I'm currently helping in a mixed regular ed/special ed class of 6-7 year old kids and as always, I find myself naturally adopting much of how the kids talk.

I have always adopted the style of speaking of my environment. Another example; I had adopted slang in 7th-10th grade and student and in several weeks of 11th grade, I had adopted the perfect standard German they all spoke at the new higher school form.

Now, again, therapist, family and friends have noticed that I have a potion of 'kid speak' in my everyday language already.

I also adopt from friends or family.

Not manner of speech, dialect, pronunciation, but just the words.

On the other hand, my writing is not affected by my verbal speech. No connection. It's all just about verbal speech.

Unless I write TO someone. That's yet again complicated. I can't find words and I write like this which is vastly different from how I write when I write a short-story, a poem or something else. People always wonder if it's from the same person that wrote a mail or a post or in an IM which feels so insulting.

And with writing, I can't just repeat what I hear/read before. I always feel that how I write TO people sounds as if I was a 10-year-old or something.

I talk a lot, I like talking a lot and through not naturally always complete sentences when I give it a little effort.

Now I can't help but wonder how much of my speech is actually just adopted from someone else. I'm intimidated by my growing observation of how many copied answer I use to answer! I don't want to adopt anything, I love how I write for myself. I want to stop coping speech from others. I also want to express myself as much though.

Dear world;

Maybe we could all just stop talking in sentences. It would help, I think.

And stop grammar for me. Let me say the words in the order they come out, all right? Without declination too.

And of course, stop expecting me to be able to say anything when you ask me a question I don't have an answer formulated to. Or start understanding drawings. I think mine are always very comprehensible.

And remember: I always have an answer, but I can't always say it.

Always wanted to say that.

2.
And one 2nd question that is the result of a situation that has happened just now in the kitchen. Does anybody repeat short 1 or 2 word parts of questions to answer questions. "Do you want toast?" "Want Toast."

Or repeating whole questions as answers to mean yes? I never mean no when I repeat something. But repeating = mindless activity, don't need to think how to say it myself that I agree. Saying yes is somehow more complicated for me than repeating what I have heard.

What you just described here is called echolalia and it can serve a number of purposes. there is a really good article on it here http://groups.msn.com/theautismhomepage ... facts.msnw if you want to know more about it and the reasons behind it's use for some people. There was a parent just asking the same question in the parenting forum about echolalia.

Saffy - thank you for reading. Not speaking does NOT equate to failure. It is hard, I promise, but many aspects of being autistic are hard. I have some/minimal echolalia too but mostly it's because I'm verbally stalling. Or I am unsure if the other actually is listening.

I would be flattered if you show parents/others my video! Show them speaking is a convention but not the only modicum of communication. Many who are successful &/or intelligent can be non-verbal, to whatever degree. This statistic doesn't matter much too me but I have a measured IQ of 160+ and I am educated and pursuing a PhD. Do tell this to parents. HFAs exist; we are your scientists and artists. And writers, philosophers, mathematicians, professors, etc.

As someone who is high-functioning, I still understand the non-verbal symptom. There are moments when it's all in my head, and I can write it out, but I can't speak. It's like being locked inside. If ONLY we could communicate telepathically.

Many a time I've had my partner talking to me and then have her say, "you haven't said a word!" But I HAVE, just in my own head. It's very difficult, even for her (and she is very understanding and accepting) that there are moments when I can't communicate.

With my own son, sometimes he can't express himself, and I will just sit with him until he can, or I accept that he can't, and it's enough just for me to be near him.

I think this is a great idea.

I forget others cannot know what I am thinking.

Very often too.

I am hyper verbal, (I can talk your ear off and recount conversations verbatim and mimic each voice pretty spot on) but sometimes words don't transmit the pictures I have in my head and I take the other person by the hand and drag them to what I want them to see and grunt and whine like a doggie to get them to see what I see. I remember doing this as a child and am still amazed that people don't see the obvious need for action and say, just like back then a a child "talk. . .just tell me what you want, just talk!

or if someone demands I speak, I just can't. But I have been told it is just my stubborness and wilful delight in making the other person feel bad so often, I have mixed feelings about why.

Merle

Saffy: This post is a reply to an earlier post of yours that posed questions to those of us who are mute. I am sorry for the delay in giving an answer; I wanted to make sure I had understood the questions properly before committing to a reply.

Was being non verbal a choice for you?
I would offer the interpretation that being mute is a response to the mute's situation more than a freely chosen option. Like many of the contributors to the Special Silent Forum I do not talk at all, and communicate by either writing words down for others to read, or by sharing drawings and diagrams.

My parents believe that people 'think' with a constant narrator speaking words in their mind. I find this incredulous, but believe it could be true because when people are talking to one another, it seems so spontaneous that they could have a voice rehearsing the words first. However, I do not seem to experience this to the same degree, as a narrator only appears when I write words down. This is how I check what I will say. When I write, I am talking. That so many people refuse to read the words I have written, or, read the words aloud so at least they hear them, is slightly offensive. Very few people mimic the sentences of other speakers in the way they do mine, when the words are read out for all to hear.

To answer this question: No, it is not a choice, it is a response to the situation based on the way my brain operates most easily. I make pictures and patterns, not words. When someone directly asks something of me I simply do not have a response in words.

Did you always know you either would not or could not speak ?
No. So much was made of the 'Not Talking' aspect of my personality that autism as a contributing factor was completely overlooked. I simply believed I would be able to talk because others informed me that I should (and said I was insolent or naughty for not talking, which implies a choice that did not exist). I have never had a boyfriend, despite being reasonably clean, moderately intelligent, and nicely presentable. I had one friend until the age of sixteen, because our mothers knew each other and made us interact, but she emigrated after GCSEs and I have not had a good friend since (seven years). I have always tried so hard to meet people but just do not understand how to 'get to know' someone. I have always required help in this very basic way, but this got completely ignored in favour of getting me to talk. I have become extremely isolated, unnecessarily. When the question was begged Why Didn't I Learn Sign Language? the reply has always been something akin to Because We Did Not Want You To Get 'Lazy' With It. If You Had Alternate Means Of Communication Maybe You Would Not Have Learned To Talk.

But I never did learn how to talk to any useful extent.
I can memorise a few sentences to say in certain situations, but when I can no longer recognise the format of the conversation it does not occur to me to further the verbal communications. Spontaneous speech simply does not happen for me. If you take away any alternative method of communication, that simply leaves me with no communication tools at all. This is something I would put to you Saffy; I think your profession does wonderful things for children responsive to it, and I almost certainly would benefit from speech therapy since my voice does not vary in tone and is just generally difficult to understand. But PLEASE do not allow the parents to focus on speech alone. Taking away all other forms of communication, whether it is drawing, writing, sign language or mime does not increase someone's ability to talk if their brain is not geared towards speech. Let them be happy, confident, and intelligent children whether they talk or not. Speech is not the only form of communication, despite what the vast majority of people would have you believe. I just think it is a waste that only now do I accept I am a mute, aged 23. I could have spent the past 20 years in the education system talking with British Sign Language, but every teacher and doctor that I encountered refused it. I am now teaching myself out of several workbooks; when my confidence improves I hope to join a Deaf class to consolidate my knowledge into a useable everyday language. Which leads me to why I can not answer your third question about positive and negative experiences. Without exaggeration I can state that until the age of 22 I did not receive any compassion or assistance for autism, and it troubles me deeply; I have not overcome it in any objective way that would enable me to share my experiences at this time.

Thankyou for posing your questions, though my answers were rooted in my own experience perhaps they might be useful in some small way. I hope you will continue to contribute with your wealth of experience with dealing with non-verbal children, and that any learning might work both ways.