What is it like to be nonverbal/non-speaking?

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Hey I've noticed that a few of you here are nonverbal, if that term is not something people like to use on wrongplanet.net then I will change it but for the purposes of this post I will use it, until notified otherwise.

I have been diagnosed with higher functioning ASD and for me I could always talk, and I wanted to know what it feels like to talk, because I can only imagine.

I suppose I can identify a little bit, because when I am sensorily or emotionally overwhelmed I can't speak, I Will use gestures or repeat nonsensical words over and over again, that I have heard from people around me. It's uncontrollable I can't stop it.
So my questions are: Is it that feeling of being overwhelmed, but constantly? (You might not know because it has always been that way for you.)

Has the internet and computers helped? Because if you answer then you have good receptive language right, which means you could use a computers etc.

Here's a weird one, but how far do other autistic individuals be discriminatory like neurotypicals would for autistics who can speak?
And of course anything else you may find relevant.

Haha I suppose I've always been striving to understand things, and I always try and advocate neurodiversity, I hope to be a psychologist one day, to do some good. I would just like to understand more.

Thanks

While I am aspie-autistic I have become non verbal because of tongue cancer. Computers have hepled a lot because without them I would have to rely soley on body language .

But computers are far from a panacea. People often assume you can not hear or are intellectually disabled. I often find before I finish typing my response the conversation has moved on to another topic(s).

Before I could speak fluently, it was hard to not be able to answer people and tell them things. People would be asking me things and I wouldn't know how to answer. I only had images in my head what I was doing but didn't have words for it. They also couldn't understand me and I couldn't tell them either. Also only my parents understood me, no one else didn't so my non verbal communication wasn't understood. I also couldn't defend myself so kids could say whatever they wanted about me to get me into trouble and I would be the one in trouble and I couldn't tell my side of the story if something happened to explain it was an accident so I got in trouble for it because they thought I did it on purpose. So after a while I would panic and run if I accidentally hurt someone because I knew trouble was coming so I figured if I got out of there, no one would know it was me because I wasn't there and just deny it happened. yes being non verbal sucks so I can't help but feel disgust and anger if I see anyone say how they want to go back to being non verbal again. They really want this life back? No voice to speak up and defend yourself and to tell anyone your wants and needs and feelings and go back to people not being able to understand what you are saying. But unless they have an AAC or can write or type, that is fine.

Put in mind that my language delay was due to chronic ear infections and hearing loss for less than a year so when I had surgery in my ears, I had many years of language delays. Many professionals supported this so I know it's not my mom being in denial. So I think this didn't count for a diagnoses for meeting the autistic criteria but now with the new ASD criteria and it's including environmental factors, I am totally unsure now.

I never talked until I was about 8 years old. And then only spoke single words occasionally. I have had a lot of speech therapy and can talk some if I have to.

I suppose it is a combination of being overwhelming and just plain uncomfortable. It feels unnatural to me. Always feels forced.

Being able to communicate fluidly and comfortably in forums was a real breakthrough for me.

I go to school for autistcs and nonverbals get teased and ostracized some.

I didn't talk until I was 5, but before that my parents were seriously worried because I didn't start talking. I had tests. Apparently I was able to listen before I can talk because I could understand what the person (who did the tests with me) instructed me to do. The result was that I had a very high IQ.

I may have thought in pictures (or visually) and I still do (I now have coding mechanisms for languages that I know). I suppose that not talking and visual thinking are related, at least for me. I can hardly speak for others.

Since I was 5 there were incredible changes. I start to talk, read and write at the same time. At 6 I learned to read musica notes. At 7/8 I started to talk a bit of German. At 11/12 I learned to read Cyrillic. Recently at a way older age I started to learn Japanese.

For a fair time I have been fluent at English and Esperanto, and to a lesser degree, also at German.

As a child I was nonverbal for a number of years. Well, for most of my childhood. I had to see a speech therapist etc to pull me out of the nonverbal state.

Even today, if left on my own for a while (i.e. no contact with family etc), I naturally return to that state. Of course, if left on our own, most of us wouldn't speak - but the feeling is different from just 'haven't spoke to anyone in a while' (it's very difficult to explain (in words) - but an interesting question. I'm going to think on this for a while then get back to you).

To answer your question: speech feels very unnatural - even now.

Even writing here feels odd, as writing here requires using the English language, so I have to think in words in my head before writing out the words.

I don't post here often as 1) I'm busy, but also 2) posting requires thinking in words, and I personally find it tiring.

It's like a cat trying to bark. I think the cat would rather just be left to be a cat.

If it could be explained in words, it wouldn't be 'nonverbal'. In much the same sense, if music could be explained in words, there would be no need for music.

For a lot of people who post here (I mean on this forum), posting will require considerable effort, given it requires the poster to think in an 'unnatural' way.

I feel for nonverbal/non-speaking people but again, Most of them have ways to speak. Though I imagine Like EzraS said it would be like being left out. I don't think autistics would discriminate fore they have been discriminated to. And also they have the same feeling of being left out.

I was non-verbal until I was 5. I was a classic "Kanner's syndrome" case in that I didn't relate to other children or most other people. I was told later by my mother that I seemed to be floating around in my own world. What I do remember about that period of my life is a LOT of disorganization around me, lots of noise, lots of sensory stuff. I wasn't blissfully floating around in my own world, I was trying to block out all of the noise and confusion.

I learned to talk when I was 5. I went to speech class and then I became a more or less normal talker. However, I still had (and still have) plenty of other autistic symptoms.

I have suspected that too. I learned to speak at a normal time, but I think mostly in images and I have some trouble with language processing. I often find myself with an image of what I want to say in my mind while struggling to find the words for it. Talking does feel quite unnatural to me and I do generally prefer to be silent, although most of the time it's not too bad. I do often have to take breaks from typing but that's probably just because of my ADD, although I do find verbal communication to be exhausting and despite typing rather fast I still take a while to compose messages.

That is a very interesting theory. I am definitely a very visual thinker. Even typing words, I have a mental image that goes with each word. Maybe one reason why I type so slowly.



For myself I prefer to be left out/ left alone for the most part when it comes to social interacting. And yeah everybody texts these days, so that helps a lot.



I'm sure it happens to a lesser degree, but it does happen. Autistics can be mean to others the same as anyone else. We even have a couple of outright bullies. But on the whole I think my schoolmates are a lot more accepting than mainstream.

So everything depends on each person, there are darker people in themselves, they are more open. We cannot judge them because they are more closed in them. They may have had psychological trauma or it is difficult for them to expose their emotions, thoughts. For example, my uncle lost his hearing (not 100%) a few years ago, he now wears a hearing aid but almost no one communicates, it was a trauma for him to lose his hearing. We the family bought from [url=https://www..com[/url] even a device that increases the sound waves, to hear better. But he has already formed this habit of not communicating too much, of being closed in himself.

Last edited by B19 on 07 Jan 2020, 3:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.: spam

What's it like being nonverbal? I couldn't say. whahaha.

I had to make up for not seeing that opportunity for a joke back when I was 15.

WHY LEAVE ME ALONE ..

I was non-speaking until age 5.

I didn't feel "stifled" in any way, if my memory serves me correctly. I probably didn't speak because I was neurologically incapable of speaking.

Yet, all of a sudden, in the summer of 1966, I started speaking! I guess whatever was causing me to not speak resolved itself---though, of course, the autism remained.

I really have no idea why I didn't speak until the summer of 1966. I believe the "world cleared up for me," somehow, through therapy and through just "growing up"; hence, I developed a desire for social intercourse; hence, I started speaking.

I can talk now. Sort of. But it's forced. It doesn't come naturally.

I've never understood how a person who knows words can be non-verbal. I'm not judging, as there are understandable reasons as to why some autistic people are non-verbal, but I still can't quite imagine what stops them from voicing words. I'm not talking about selective mutism, I'm talking about people with autism that never speak but can type. It interests me. Someone give me an analogy or example so that I can understand what it's like for the non-verbal folks.