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Cogs
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17 Feb 2012, 1:08 am

I really struggle with questions where I can't figure out what information the other person is wanting or how to respond when the information they want is related to a broad or big topic. I can get totally overwhelmed, my brain comes up with too much possible information to process, I can end up defaulting to visual thinking, then it becomes very hard to use words and let the other person know I can't answer.

I don't know how to structure my thinking to handle broad questions and stop my mind overwhelming its own ability to process info. I also don't know how to effectively communicate to someone that I'm now overwhelmed and words feel impossible to use.

Id appreciate any suggestions for how to handle these situations or how to improve how I process broad questions/questions that relate to lots of info?



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17 Feb 2012, 1:16 am

I'm sorry I don't know how to help. I often have the trouble of knowing what I want to say and just not being able to get it out. Too many visuals and thoughts. I over analyze meanings a lot.

Good luck, sorry again that I don't have an answer to this.


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Mego
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17 Feb 2012, 2:20 am

I have the same problem because i feel like I need to know so I can be appropriate with my answer....i say..."what do you mean?" a lot to people. Most people will further explain.



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17 Feb 2012, 2:44 am

Cogs wrote:
Id appreciate any suggestions for how to handle these situations or how to improve how I process broad questions/questions that relate to lots of info?


If it is a vague question, give a vague answer or tell the person to be more specific in their question. I think it's a matter of being able to prioritize and discern the question in a systematic method, try to view the question in multiple small specifics and focus on the most relevant and important specific first, once you have deciphered every specific of the question, you will start to find the question becomes more explanatory.



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17 Feb 2012, 4:31 am

In interviews, if I'm asked "Tell me about yourself?" I ask exactly what they want to know.



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17 Feb 2012, 8:23 pm

I also have this problem. Often, I reply with too many words and ideas and overwhealm the other person. Or too few. I think part of the problem is that if the conversation is with an NT, the words are not really what the question is about. Especially a vague question. They "talk" with all those other signs and signals that spectrum people are blind to. So often it's like we are talking to each other in different languages. That's how it feels to me, now that I have seen myself through the ASD lens. They aren't looking for information like we do. They are looking for "connection" which is elusive to us a lot of the time, especially if it is unconnected to information. IDK.

I find written communication much less ambiguose and presently am sticking to it as much as possible. Also, talking to other Autistics is much easier since we don't use the "sign language" stuff. We just say what we mean and mean what we say.



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17 Feb 2012, 8:56 pm

ECJ wrote:
In interviews, if I'm asked "Tell me about yourself?" I ask exactly what they want to know.


Yeah. I'm with you. But from reading things on "How to have a good interview", it seems they are really just interested in how confident you are in your abilities. If you don't talk yourself up, they think you must not really believe in yourself, so therefore aren't really that good. It's BS, but then most social interaction is!


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MrXxx
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17 Feb 2012, 9:18 pm

Those are known as "open" questions. Questions for which there aren't necessarily any "right" answers. The purpose of them is to get you to think. To develop a line of thinking and share your thought, opinions and views.

Many IEP's for Aspies in school specifically instruct teachers to avoid asking such questions of Aspie students, or at least to be aware that the student may or will have great difficulty processing them.

I have a bit of a theory about this. It seems that most of us don't like questions that don't have a "right" answer, because they require so much processing. Probably a lot more for us than for NT's. I don't think that's all there is too it though.

I think we have such a strong need to find correct answers, but when we're young, don't have enough knowledge or life experience to draw on to come up with a right answer. I think it's more that we struggle with that need, and don't yet have the tools to fulfill it that it's frustrating.

As I've gotten older, those kinds of questions don't bother me as much, because I have a bigger body of knowledge and experiences to draw from. Combine that with the fact that I've learned to overcome the feeling that all answers must be correct, and I've gotten a lot better at dealing with such questions.

Another aspect of this is that we do get really frustrated because we think we don't know what the asker is looking for. They're looking for what you think. If you think of it that way, there's really no wrong answer, as long as it's on topic.


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Last edited by MrXxx on 18 Feb 2012, 12:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Cogs
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18 Feb 2012, 12:01 am

emtyeye wrote:
I think part of the problem is that if the conversation is with an NT, the words are not really what the question is about. Especially a vague question. They "talk" with all those other signs and signals that spectrum people are blind to. So often it's like we are talking to each other in different languages. That's how it feels to me, now that I have seen myself through the ASD lens. They aren't looking for information like we do. They are looking for "connection" which is elusive to us a lot of the time, especially if it is unconnected to information.


Does this link to the emotional purposes of communication? I only tend to understand the information request. I think I miss a lot of non-verbal information, but didn't connect it with this problem before. When I am talking to other NTs (who speak the same language as me) I often feel like I am 'translating' from the words they use into something I understand.

MrXxx wrote:
I have a bit of a theory about this. It seems that most of us don't like questions that don't have a "right" answer, because they require so much processing... Another aspect of this is that we do get really frustrated because we think we don't know the asker is looking for. They're looking for what you think. If you think of it that way, there's really no wrong answer, as long as it's on topic.


Interesting insights and helpful advice, thanks. Your correct answer theory makes sense, I think this is compounded by what emtyeye said about missing NTs signs and symbols.



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18 Feb 2012, 6:12 am

If I simply have no idea what they are asking I will ask for clarification or ask them to be more specific.

Sometimes I will include the frames of reference I am using in my answer e.g. "many people think that", "my personal opinion is", "if you mean x, then I would say y" etc.

Sometimes I do come away from a conversation afterwards and wonder whether I went into too much (or not enough) detail, but such is life.