Do you have difficulty verbalizing your thoughts?

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all the time. I have to synthesize from other sources to adapt and able communicate more effectively.

Yes. I have difficulty in verbalising my thoughts. I find small talk extremely hard, running out of things to say very quickly so I use humour to get out of the conversation: just make them laugh then leave. When in groups I can go for quite a while without saying a word because by the time I have constructed what I want to say in my head the conversation has moved on making my point redundant.

Sometimes it feels like I'm ahead of the conversation when speaking one on one. Knowing what the end of the sentence is going to be I try to prepare my answer ahead of time. Occasionally two synonyms will come out my mouth at the same time in a muffled attempt at trying to explain my thoughts.

yea, such often happens for me, but there are so many variables its difficult to say which informs what. often times i know whats going on in the coversation and i'm preoccupied with some idea or other of what i want to remain standing of myself and this seems to be the situation, the concept of what ought to be combined with the reality of actually being that; its not uncommon to end up with just the two of them creating a double helix of consternation. yikes
then solutions or paths away from whatever that was become somewhat ineffable. though that's not to say hopeless; things for me have become much less dire of late, which is to say they've been exposed to be much less arcane than they'd been appearing
all in all, experience just needs gleaning and all one needs to do is apply their grit to it

Yes, I have this problem. It is especially difficult when someone asks me a question that directly pertains to myself - I would much rather talk about things, ideas or experiences. Even then, I have to think through what I am going to say and tend to get bogged down in details and tangents, while missing the point. At times, however, I can be quite articulate, given that I have adequate time to plan out what I am going to say.

I think this is something you have to keep practicing.

I was horrible at speaking a few years ago, but I've got better with practice. Yet even now, if I spend a few days locked away from the world without talking to anyone, my conversational skills will regress.

I used to practice conversations when I was alone. I would think of a conversation topic, then brainstorm all the directions the conversation could go in - a flowchart is useful for this. Then I would practice speaking the conversation with myself out loud. It helps reduce the unpredictability of the situation.

I still get nervous sometimes and that can really f**k up a conversation. WHen someone knows you're nervous, they might find it hard to build a rapport with you. But the more people you meet, the less nervous you'll become. Sometimes you should do this away from where you live. That way, no matter how badly you screw up a conversation, you can forget about it and never see the person again. I went backpacking through Europe a few years ago. I was much less anxious talking to strangers because I knew I'd never see most of them again in my life. This is very useful. Since then I've done a lot of travelling and found it very useful in learning how to interact with humans.

Recently, I've been recording myself and listening to how I sound. It's worse than I thought, but I'm learning how to speak more acceptably now that I know what I sound like.

Yes, I notice the same thing! I can have a very hard talking if I´ve been alone for awhile. Or, if someone calls me on the phone and I´m not expecting it.

I´m also better at writing, as many people on this thread mentioned, because there is the time to find the exact right word. However, even this can be frustrating for me....I´m a rather slow writer because of this, and I still search for the words while writing. At least I can take the time...although, I spend rather too much time on the computer, unfortunately...

As an adult, I´ve gotten better at expressing myself, but I do it sometimes in a half-hazard way. I´ve learned to say SOMEthing, at least, while I´m searching for a better way of putting it. It´s also amazing how often I say "I can´t really explain it". Aarrgghh!

Sometimes when I'm speaking I'll get so lost in my own thoughts I'll forget to say anything I also struggle to think of words more then the typical person when talking, as I just get caught up in my conversation I forget to plan what comes next.
In writing this never happens though. (and I'm much quicker at writing - well typing anyways - then talking) It's funny how the brain works.

That's part of it.

The other part is dealing with topics and ideas and words that others don't want understand or want to talk about.

For me it's that mixture of high level conversation with low level expression that kills me.

I also have working/short term memory problems, so that's a big part of it too. That's not neccisarily AS related...

I have issues with speaking. Whenever I have to speak to someone, my mind starts racing and I end up stuttering or sounding like a complete fool. I know what I want to say, but the words never come to mind. It's made me so insecure when having to speak to anyone; even my loved ones. I end up being "the listener" instead of speaking my mind.

I'm not sure if I have AS, since I don't seem to have the other symptoms. Has anyone ever been diagnosed with an issue similar to mine?

All the time, and it drives my boyfriend crazy. Half the time I end up having to describe the thing I'm trying to talk about because I just cannot get the word itself to come out of hiding. My great grandma gives me a little grief about it too. She'll say things like "You're not suppose to be having that kind of problem at your age, that's my job." or "How the hell can you know all those big words but forget what a toaster is called?"

I have to think a lot in my head if I want to express something complicated. Apart from that though, I like to use straightforward statements coz it's less taxing on my mind. Some people however find it too blunt, but whatever.

I do a lot of "talking" in my mind when I'm by myself. There's usually an idea which I want to express, so I attempt to figure out how to say it in a concise, articulate manner. It's a rather tiring task, but oh well...

I have trouble articulating emotions, for the most part. In conversation, I'll either become very grandiose and intelligent-sounding, or I stumble over every word and look like a tool.

I express my thoughts with writing. I enjoy writing blogs on the wordpress.com website.

When I'm in an emotional state, what I'm thinking and what I'm saying are two completely different things. I get so frustrated that I cry, yell or storm off. My poor boyfriend is a saint for putting up with it and trying to guess what I was going to say. =\

However, words come out clearly (maybe not audibly) when I'm talking about something I want to talk about, usually where I bore the hell out of the other person with everything they never wanted to know about insert random topic here. But, when it's the other way around and I have to listen to their monotonous gossip or boring fact, I space out and nod my head, only knowing a minuscule amount of what the original subject was. This happens quite a bit when talking with my AS mother on the phone, who will never let you get a word in edge wise.

Thank goodness for the interwebz!

Yes, this is a big problem for me.

If I get to talking about modern genocide(which i study in my spare time) in history, I get a surge of anger/sadness, anger against the perpetrators, sadness for the victims. I find I'm at a loss of words to explain events because of this surge of feelings.