Monotone Voice?

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My mom and my peers keep saying I have a monotone voice. Especially if I am reading something out loud or on the phone and then people really cannot hear what I am saying at all.

My mom says I need (some weird word) in my voice, I really don't know what she said it was a word I NEVER heard of before.

I heard that Aspies and Autistic people sometimes have monotone voices.

So what am I suppose to do? SING everything I wanna say?

Any advice or help or encouragement in this department will be APPRECIATED!

She probably said 'prosody' or 'intonation'. Pick small phrases to practice intonation. Easy example: instead of saying Aw, yeah, say AWWWWW Yeaaah. By increasing the length and pitch of syllables you can emphasize an expression.

I have a monotone voice, except for some stock phrases I use because figuring out prosody is too much work on-the-fly. Figuring out what to say is hard enough.

Intonation? Surely you'd have heard "expression"... Maybe something slangly like "pizzazz" that might be too old slang for you?

Anyway, you could probably get some help from a voice coach, or a speech therapist, or the drama teacher at your school. A monotone makes you sound to other people sad, depressed, not a very interesting person, like you don't really want to be talking to them. Getting some expression into it sounds as if you have at least a little energy to expend on communication.

I apparently always had a somewhat monotone voice, but then when I went off to a college on my own with no family nearby, I had a complete breakdown and REALLY went to having a completely monotone voice.

Things are much better now (40 years later!) -- but people still pick up on the remnants of it, and will imitate me. It really upsets me, although to their faces I just laugh nervously. I'd like to shake it completely, but am not sure what else I can do. Talking about funny things and laughing certainly helps though ... I've learned that much.

Yes, I was sometimes told this as a child and teen, less as I got older. I have always been into reading, and I gradually learned, without trying, to menally dramatize the feelings and dialogs of the characters in the books, by using what I had absorbed on TV. This was all automatic--not conscious on my part. This eventually carried over into my actual speaking, and has mostly eliminated the problem for me.

I suggest you try reading aloud some stories, and trying to dramatize them--that is, put some feeling and emphasis into the dialogs and personalities of the characters. If you do it at home, you can just explain to your family that you are trying to fix the monotone problem, by acting out and dramatizing the dialogs in the books, as practice. And remember, use what you've seen on TV as a guide, too.

My case is interesting --

On one hand, some people day that I "sound like a computer" (I spend too much time in front of one).

On the other hand, my parents say that I could sing before I could talk.

Meaning that I either sing or talk in a monotone :p

My voice is and always has been very monotone, but has gotten more variance after I started doing more death metal growls in my singing (deeper too.) Planning the rise and fall of the tone helped as well.

Me2 is super monotone. I tried to pitch up my voice sometime, but my friend say why I talk like a girl

My voice too is very monotone, which often ends up making me sounds sarcastic. Or it makes people unable to tell whether I am being sarcastic or not.

Weirdly ennough, when I sing, my voie is a lot less monotome. But I can only do that when I sing to myself and none's listening.

Simon Baron Cohen writes about this in Mindblindness, which you can order from Amazon. I'm sure it's also in some other books about autism. Basically, neurotypical people (I'm NT) have this ingrained need to attract the attention of other people. So as young children, we learn to do this "rollercoaster" thing with our voices that makes them easier to listen to. An example of this can be seen in "My Fair Lady" when Eliza is learning to say "How KIND of you to let me come." The assumed reason that people on the spectrum do not learn to modulate, or vary, their voices is because they do not have an ingrained need for others to pay attention to them. As young children, they simply don't care. What they say is more for their own benefit. When people with ASD get older and realize it's important for to communicate, it takes an effort of some sort (more for some people than others), so it's never going to be as easy as NT people, who don't have to try to do it. I think a lot of people never realize they have a "flat" voice and it's not a big deal.

Here is a lengthy video explaining how to modulate your voice. I like this because it explains what is going through the heads of NTs when they do it. So it might be helpful in understanding what your friends and family are expecting.

This one looks much more useful to me for an ASD audience. I think you could actually use this to relate to others, improve interactions, and work on simple modulations. It also includes simple body language tips, which can be confusing to many people.

My opinion, as someone who has many family, friends, and exes who are aspies- is that you shouldn't worry about this too much. If you're really worried about it, you could record yourself and see if you think they're right. If it bothers you, you can work on it. I guarantee you that people value you just the way you are.

I have a monotone voice unless im doing something I really enjoy

I realize this wasn't directed at me, but I go through long periods of time where my extended family drops all communication with me (I live alone, but family lives within a half an hour drive). I can't figure out what I did wrong to offend them, and then I have to remind myself that MOST families do this, they let long periods of time go by without communication. However, it's still difficult to keep telling myself not to take it personally.

You could always ask them. If you don't want to make a big deal out of it you could send an email or a text. It sounds mean, but it's the natural NT way to correct social blunders by temporarily rejecting or avoiding the person who makes the mistake. This can be hard to distinguish from what you said, regular stuff like being busy.

Example One: Aspie brother is interested in robots, makes inappropriate joke about robot love in front of 80 year old grandma. Family deals with this by looking down and shuffling feet, not inviting aspie brother the next time they visit grandma.

Example Two: Aspie brother is interested in robots, makes inappropriate joke above, no one cares, aspie brother is not invited the next time they visit grandma because they think he doesn't want to go or because they don't have time to go by the brother's apartment to pick him up.

NT people have like invisible antennae where they can tell when the example one has happened as opposed to two. Maybe you'd never make an inappropriate joke in front of your grandma- I don't know. Some people would- others might not laugh at another's joke and that would be the problem. It just all depends.

Sorry for the long reply. I was just interested in what you said.

[quote="VAGraduateStudent"My opinion, as someone who has many family, friends, and exes who are aspies- is that you shouldn't worry about this too much. If you're really worried about it, you could record yourself and see if you think they're right. If it bothers you, you can work on it. I guarantee you that people value you just the way you are. [/quote]

Thank you for the video links. Voice modulation is important for so many things socially, but I don't know if I'm smart enough to learn it.

I'm autistic, and nobody seems to comment on my voice being monotone. I've recorded my voice and I didn't think it sounded monotone.

I have met many autistic people in my life, but I am yet to come across one with a monotone voice.

I think it's hard for a lot of people on the spectrum to pick up on it, and I think it's one of those small things that people either overlook or are too polite to tell you about. I've heard people doing it, but they also had a flat affect to their faces and fluttery hands/feet. But when people do things like this they generally appear normal to most people- I only know about it because I think it's interesting academically and I watch for it.

Oh and I've noticed that people who watch a lot of TV or movies have better voices that people who exclusively read. People have more expression in their faces when talking to dogs, cats and small children.