How Come I can Communicate Better by Typing?

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Not that I'm very good like some people on here. But I find it hard to communicate verbally..not because of shyness. I tend to stumble onto words and even mispronounce words even though I know how that particular word is pronounced.

Also I have trouble being lucid in my discussions with people. It's as if I'm struggling to put feedback or a point into words. The thoughts are there but I can't seem to articulate them into words.

This annoys me to the extent that I can't communicate to people in the way I want. I've tried and tried for years to build up my vocabulary and mimic people in the way they articulate. But so far, it's never worked and this has really frustrated me. I can't even see my doctor without my dad or another person to go in with me. I get confused not by what they're saying but how to word my responses.

Is this a huge trait of ASD and does anyone else have this problem?

Are there ways to improve this problem?

It seems to be an ASD trait; and yes, I have this problem too. I think it's because typing gives me the chance to slow down the process, mull over individual words and how they affect the context, and then place them in the proper order without concern over their pronunciation. Once what I have to say is expressed in the way that I want, I just click on 'Submit'.

It's too bad that the spoken word isn't so easy to use.

As for how to improve this 'problem'? I don't know, unless one consults a speach therapist.

I also find it hard to verbalize my thoughts to words, like there is a disconnect between
my brain and mouth, consequently I don't speak much as its to much effort.

I will always prefer to communicate via typing or writing notes, but a lot of people only read grudgingly, so I've had to learn to sort of type
things out in my head, then I just sort of read out loud what I've typed on the white screen of my imagination. Inside my head, I type
like 100 words per minute or more, but my hands can't type nearly as fast as that, maybe 40 wpm.

I just don't seem really wired for speech: I can talk if I must, but it's uncomfortable and unnatural for me, and I don't have any
confidence that I'll be able to express myself adequately.

{Edit: I was in a mood yesterday, and a bit unreasonable, and I've since changed my mind about a couple of things I wrote here,
so I deleted most of a paragraph.}

Last edited by mizmusic on 13 Dec 2008, 11:16 am, edited 2 times in total.

I think it is an ASD trait. I am not sure.

The difficulties you describe I can relate to very much. I cannot add anything to it, because I commonly mispronounce words I know, cannot verbally answer spontaneously, I'm said to have varying cluttering, though I think not.

Though unlike you I still consider myself better in talking than in writing, because I very rapidly answer with something (useless) and then have the other help me through he course of the conversation. My typing is excruciating slow. 20 minutes and more for just this post is ridiculous.

I got told that I also speak to fast, which seems to worsen stumbling over words and mispronunciation. Just an idea, but how is your speed when you manage to talk several words, say, in front of your doctor?

I have the same experience as the OP.

When I talk, I find myself talking circles, if that makes sense. Typing and writing give me that extra time. Plus I'm visual so it helps me to 'see' the words.

One of the things I did when I found out when I had AS (at age 28), was talking only when absolutely needed. I felt bad for people around me having to listen to me go on and on about interests and being incoherent.

Me, too. Google "Semantic pragmatic disorder."

What's that?

I feel that I make a mess of spoken conversations, I just can't work out what I want to say in time. I'm sure it's a time thing that's going on here. Time constraints can be fun but when I'm dealing with people I just want to get it right. I can get by, and fairly simple practical communication seems to work a lot of the time if I'm feeling calm, but otherwise there's loads I don't say that I should, and often there's loads I do say that I shouldn't.

My mind keeps chucking ideas into my consciousness too quickly for me to catch them all and decide what to do with them. Even with all the time in the world I have to let some ideas go. The processing is no place for spectators.

A lot of what I say is imitation, if somebody else has said it, I feel safer with using the same phrase. Though I think the content is original.

I have to be careful with immediacy. I have a habit of being too sardonically humoured for some people's comfort.

My attention on what people are saying to me can evaporate, and I don't like asking for a third repeat Nor can I easily interrupt when it's appropriate (not enough time to judge it), or question the other person to clarify their message.

When I'm really nervous my speech does start to break up, I miss words or scramble the sentence. It only gets that bad when I really feel threatened, which mercifully hasn't been very often.

I derive a lot of security from knowing my computer has a delete key

And by the way, NO, therapy would not help at this level. The first problem would be in finding someone who would be capable of understanding the substance of what I want to say, even if it were perfectly articulated. (Not gonna happen.) The second part is persuading that person to take the time to break it down and teach me how to say what I don’t know how to say. No one on earth has that amount of time.

I’ve been thinking to myself for years that “Genius is easy. The hard part is explaining it to the rest of the world.” I have always dreamed of having my own personal Aaron; someone crazy enough to understand me, yet sane enough to translate it. We could save the world.

It means that a person has disruptions in fluency of speech due to both speech and language difficulties. (But it's not the same as stuttering.)

Difficulties with language could for example be sorting through the words that one means to say, difficulties choosing words, difficulties with syntax. (So about everything that can also be in autism.)

Speech difficulties could include varying rates of speech, frequent accidental mispronunciation, muttering or slurring, excessive breaks, phonological difficulties.

One person with cluttering might make excessive breaks after every or every few words and seem to compromise often by coming to and end with what they want to say early or just making no sense due to that they can't find the phrase they want to use.

To 'What did you do besides riding a bike yesterday?'

such a person might answer 'I, yesterday, I, eh, I also did, well, I did, I also rode, eh, a, eh, a bike.'

Another person might speak really fast, slurry, leaves out syllables instead. Which is kinda of hard to translate to written text now.

I can relate to this as well, especially when it comes to subjects that I'm feeling emotional about. The closer it is to my heart, the harder it is to speak in conversation about-- but I can write up a storm.

This is a strategy I use quite often myself and I highly recommend it to anyone who is good with written words. I mentally write what I want to say and then read it. To me, a written word is more "real" than a spoken word; even more "real" than an image--the written word will call up the concept more easily than a spoken word or a picture, if that makes any sense.

I am apparently decent at communicating in spoken language--the comments I get are along the lines of "formal", "big words", or "you sound smart", rather than "unintelligible" or "confusing". But I'm still a great deal better with written language; when I speak, I'm likely enough to leave something important out because I didn't have the time to think of it, or I forgot it while I was communicating something else. I often do write down what I mean to communicate and give the documents to people; but that's only when it's very important and I know they will read what I wrote.

If you can speak and get your ideas across doing it, then to maximize communication you should make some allowances for verbal-centered NTs, because some of them will not communicate as well if forced to read, just as I don't when forced to talk. Just so we meet somewhere in the middle... Of course, if your efficiency goes down to the point that you're communicating very inefficiently when you talk, then please do write--there'll be much better communication, at least assuming literacy on the part of your target NT. The point is to maximize the amount, accuracy, and speed of information transfer, not to look "normal". That's why, when I need maximum accuracy, I'll write. That sacrifices speed (writing and reading is slower), but it fits the purpose. On the other hand, there's no point writing for just making small talk, because it doesn't really matter what I say.

OMFG!! !

I know that so well!! !

And then, there are things I can manage to write in English, but not in German, my native language. The foreign language provides a kind of distance, that is very useful...

But some things are even impossible in English!

Hmmm...I do somewhat relate to this Semantic Pragmatic Disorder. It even says it's found among autistic children. Oh great, another disorder....

It's strange though, I had people compliment me all the time in the way I spoke but on the otherhand, my "normal" way of speaking came out jumbled. I could write or read from a book and only speak out of the subject. In contrast however, I have always had trouble with words coming to me randomly as I posted. It's like I can't process from an abstract way of talking. Makes me almost feel like a robot only worse...since I already know what I want to say, I just can't process the data as quickly as other people.

Another strange thing I forgot to mention is I find myself making up words especially when there's too much input or stress around me. I use to do this a lot when I was little and would try to explain with hand expressions. This is when I started getting into sign language. Embarassingly, I almost preferred that over talking...only thing is I'm not deaf.

It's the same though to sound, I'm sensative to loud noises but can't seem to hear a distinct dialogue unless whoever is talking is very sharp with it. The problem I have with this though is people speak up and it's not the volume. So sometimes I pretend I know what they're saying with a yeah and a uh huh.

I guess the second paragraph came off topic, just thought I'd also bring that one up as well. Glad I'm not the only one here.

nah, don't worry about semantic-pragmatic as a separate diagnosis--it's a subset of autism, a trait some (many?) autistic people have.

thank you for all these posts i do not feel so alone today now