How are your speaking skills?

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My husband complains (and my daughter notices too) that I tend to start talking either in the middle of a thought or get distracted and forget to complete my sentences. Which my husband will get irritated and say "and?". My daughter will just remind me to finish what I was talking about (lol). It is not something that I really notice unless someone else points it out. I really thought that my husband was just not paying attention. I also tend not to say something sometimes because I figure it is too much bother to start the speaking process. I do have conversations with people who are close to me but even then sometimes I think about whether or not I want to interact verbally if I know there is going to any lengthy explaining to do - like if I see an interesting news story. I am curious too because my son has HFA and he has difficulty with perseveration of words and just getting out the words he wants to say which can be very frustrating for him. It is not quite like stuttering, but kind of similar.

If I am concentrating on what I am saying, this is not an issue too much. Writing is very easy for me, because it is not in "real time". I can delete, and re-write my sentences many times before hitting the send button. Because of this, my writing is typically MUCH better than my speech!

One of the things that always irritates me is when someone attempts to talk to me and ask me questions while I am doing some other task. My speech gets very broken very much like you describe yourself here when I must do this. I will frequently repeat myself, and become very erratic, not finishing sentences, and being flat out totally incoherent.

One of my biggest problems with conversations too is that I will get obsessed with a topic, especially if one of interest / obsession comes up. I will end up going on, dominating a conversation with overly technical and detailed information that nobody's interested in anyways. Usually though, I'm pretty quiet, because typical NT talk usually doesn't interest me anyways, like sports, gossip, and celeribities.

I agree with AV-geek.

My speaking skills are decent, though I tend to speak with an edge as if I am teaching someone else. I just don't connect emotionally, no matter how hard I try. This sort of thing is apparently good for job interviews, just if I can get called for one! I am usually hired on jobs that I know a lot of information about, but I can't seem to get any job that is worthwhile to me, like I end up getting crap. I am apparently always overlooked for someone else when it comes to the good stuff.

I don't like typical NT speak, though. I don't go to parties, unless I know a few people there that I can easily relate to.

I was recently at an AS group in my area. The first meeting, they sat around a table and had something like a sort of controlled discussion, talking about where they wanted to go in a couple of weeks for an outing or whatever. I wasn't that talkative, because my advice wouldn't have meant much, since I wasn't in a position where I could go at the time. But, this past meeting, they sort of walked into this room with games and stuff. They had a meeting wherein they were talking about whatever was on their minds. I stood against the wall, quiet for the most part, quite bored, until someone walked up and started talking to me. Then, it wasn't too bad, because he was into the same types of movies and television shows I was into. Yippie!

- Ray M -

I stutter and trip over my words.

I am much better at writing than I am at speaking for the same reasons. I can edit and delete and reorganize. I think that is also why I do not go use chatrooms - I tried one time on a different message board and it was just too fast paced.

I am interrupted alot at home too - especially by the kids and then I just lose track and it is like forget it (lol). I also had one doctor I saw before who was so obnoxious I really couldn't stand to see him and would skip out on appointments. That made him think I was really being "non-compliant" (psychiatrists LOVE to write that one down in your file) but in reality he would ask so many questions but constantly interrupt me before I could answer. It would stress me out so much I would sound like a complete idiot.

I tend to consider if I want to chime in on conversations too. I am usually the quiet one - sometimes ackwardly so even when I know I SHOULD just say something I just can't seem to get any words. Like my daughter just had a birthday party and we invited alot of relatives. I should really be able to chit chat with these people but I generally don't speak unless spoken too. I do get along with my husband's uncle though because he is a very interesting person with alot of unconventional ideas so I can go on about things with him.

My son does that quite frequently. I know it is very frustrating for him - especially if anyone (like his sister) tries to finish his sentences for him. It is hard to get her to understand not to do that.

i think aspies comunicate verbally in a different way to most NT folk......
there is an alomost instant "radar" that nt's can pick up a lack of intent in our voices...combined with lack of eye contact and inability to know when to come into a conversation...aspies are always getting talked over and ignored in a conversation which is frutrating for us. yip writing skills are better in aspies we can collect our thpughts before we dispaly them where as in verbal communication...unless we have learned a response or know what it is we are expected to say we have to think before we respond and this slowness in conversation...is termed a "lack of reciprocity" by the psych's...this is why we dominate conversations with our topics of interest because we can have flow as we know every response possible as we are prepared for it.
Most aspies chose to deal with this by avoiding socialising.......this is a choice, but we need to be aware that we lack thse skills and accept it and dont try to be a gifted speaker, just speak at your own pace....i stammer for words too i didnt knwo why until recently...its great to have a diagnosis.

i think aspies comunicate verbally in a different way to most NT folk......
there is an alomost instant "radar" that nt's can pick up a lack of intent in our voices...combined with lack of eye contact and inability to know when to come into a conversation...aspies are always getting talked over and ignored in a conversation which is frutrating for us. yip writing skills are better in aspies we can collect our thpughts before we dispaly them where as in verbal communication...unless we have learned a response or know what it is we are expected to say we have to think before we respond and this slowness in conversation...is termed a "lack of reciprocity" by the psych's...this is why we dominate conversations with our topics of interest because we can have flow as we know every response possible as we are prepared for it.
Most aspies chose to deal with this by avoiding socialising.......this is a choice, but we need to be aware that we lack thse skills and accept it and dont try to be a gifted speaker, just speak at your own pace....i stammer for words too i didnt knwo why until recently...its great to have a diagnosis.

I don't talk much and when I do it's mostly facts/information, very little social stuff. Chit chat and more personal stuff only happens if someone engages me in a conversation and asks me direct questions. Speech can be difficult - I get distracted really easily, or else the other problem is that I get overwhelmed by the fact that another person's attention is focused on ME and that's enough to throw off my train of thought. I start to trail off, have a hard time finding the words and getting them out, get kind of a wide-eyed look. I also tend to say things/present ideas in a way that really confuses NTs. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but it's always been normal for me to have to rephrase or explain things a few times before they understand what I'm trying to tell them, even if it's something seemingly simple and straightforward. Another problem is that I'm such a visual thinker, I have a hard time putting my thoughts into words. Especially if I'm tired - I end up using gestures and doing charade-like things because I can visualize things so vividly but I can't translate it into something verbal. (And like other people have already mentioned, I communicate much better in writing and it's so much easier - that's when the 'real me' comes out.)

I have some trouble articulating myself if I'm trying to communicate something other than a simple response. To compensate I developed good grammar skills but it doesn't seem to really work, as now I spend even more time thinking about how best to order my sentences.

I also experience much difficulty in structuring my communications. This isn't just in regards to verbal communication but also written, such as essays. With writing for example, I find it hard to see any structure in an essay I've completed; I just see lots of random sentences that are somehow related to each other.

I often have problems with trying to speak to others, particularly when I'm trying to describe something. I can only think in pictures unless I really concentrate, so converting the pictures in my head into words can be very difficult, and I often stutter, and find it hard to get any words out when that happens.

Another problem for me is getting words in the right order. This can happen if I try to say something that suddenly comes to my head. For example, if I'm trying to say something like "I thought that film was cool" or something similar, it can come out "It was cool, that film, I thought." Both of those tend to happen if I don't concentrate on my sentences before I speak, and since I rarely do that, it tends to happen quite frequently.

Yeah, that's what happens to me too. But the more you have to say, the harder it is to get it in order. It's like all the words are jigsaw pieces and the more you have to say, the more pieces you have to assemble. It's hard work.

Yeah! I don't know what it is with NTs. They seem to think it is so easy to talk with others, yet my interests are so limited, that I doubt if anyone is even into them. I can talk about music, but I listen to music that is so far off the scales from the mainstream, music that is very hard to listen to by most people, and probably over 80% of the population wouldn't know half of the bands I mentioned. I can talk about TV and movies, because I watch quite a lot of those, usually three hours per day.

So, what do I talk about? Even this one aspie likes football, and that is something that I have no interest in and no knowledge about. Sports talk simply bounces off me. It's repulsive, and so is all this talk about girls, dates and the sex stuff. I have no interest in that sort of talk, and that tends to dominate NT speak. I also don't want to hear at all about someone's boyfriend or marriage problems. Maybe I can get into a discussion about the workplace, some of which also dominates NT speak, but I tend to go off in tangents and try to educate the person about the horrors of the corporate world, which tends to be too political and overwhelming for many. So, really ... there's nothing much to talk about.

I'm a member of a local environmental group, and go to meetings once in a while, but it's quite far, so I don't do much as of now. This has interests similar to mine, so things like that I don't mind.

- Ray M -

my speech is a right mess.

for a starter i class myself as semi-mute, alot of the time (when i am stressed or just not in a good way) i don't speeek at all. this is for 3 main reason

1.) i cannot make the words form right

2.)I don't want to sit or stand there and stutter or make no sense because it make me feel bad

3.) i don't want to talk deep down, and even if i want to talk or know i really should, i really do not want to at all. way to scary

I find speech can be really scary, i wonder about wether the meaning which i added to a word is anything like the meaning the word really has. It is very frieghtning when i ask people to reflect back what they think i have told them.

at the same time as this i cannot see the poiint in useing a series of varibles to try and define constants? it make very very little sense.

jammie