Latest / Aspergers & Autism Podcast [The Aspie World] AuDHD / Aspergers Does It Even Exists What YOU NEED To Know
Transcript
- 0:00In this video, I'm talking about how you can communicate to an
- 0:02autistic person and five of the best strategies for improving
- 0:05and helping with communication. All that and more is coming up.
- 0:15Hey guys, welcome back to the aspy world.
- 0:17My name is Dan. I have autism, ADHD, OCD and
- 0:21dyslexia, and I make weekly videos on this type of content.
- 0:24So if you're new around here, you've stumbled across this
- 0:25video and you'd like to learn more.
- 0:27Remember to hit that subscribe button by clicking the
- 0:29notification bell down below. And if you're watching over on
- 0:31Facebook, we should give this page I like and I followed so
- 0:34you don't miss a video. All right, let's get on with it.
- 0:37What's going on? Aspy world Thinking differently,
- 0:40fan where we think differently daily.
- 0:43What is going on? It's super good to be making
- 0:45videos again. And and yeah, it's coming to the
- 0:47end of summer. I'm kind of feeling that whole
- 0:49autumnal kind of feel. So yeah, I wanted to do this
- 0:51video because I did like a collection dive on my Instagram
- 0:57asking people you know how what are the biggest issues they
- 1:00have, you know. And a lot of people came back
- 1:01saying that communication was one of the biggest things like
- 1:04people not being able to communicate to them.
- 1:06FYI, if you are not already follow me on Instagram.
- 1:10I do a lot of content specifically on Instagram.
- 1:12I'm asking you questions and talking to you engaging and
- 1:15stuff. So head of to my Instagram give
- 1:16me a follow the same on Twitter. Give me follow on Twitter.
- 1:18I love communicating and talking to you guys on there.
- 1:20So please do that. Right now my links are on the
- 1:22screen and in the description below you can just click it and
- 1:24go straight through. Yeah, Semi DM, stop autism and
- 1:28communication. So let's let's just dial it back
- 1:31a second, right. And if you are new around here,
- 1:33drop me a message down below in the comments saying, hey Dan,
- 1:35I'm new and if you're not new just drop me a message saying
- 1:38Dan sticking around to you. Another video, I love talking to
- 1:41you guys. I read and respond to every
- 1:42single comment. So do that right now.
- 1:45So let's start at the beginning. Autism is a neuro developmental
- 1:48condition that impacts the communication aspect of the
- 1:52neurological past and the brain, which basically means that
- 1:55things get kind of a bit jumbled up.
- 1:57And the brain of an autistic person is quite unique in the
- 2:00fact that it's ceasing in a different way.
- 2:02So this actually does impact the communication effort of social
- 2:05communication and social etiquette and also communication
- 2:08in many formats, especially verbal and audio format of
- 2:12communicating. So I was thinking about this
- 2:14thinking like how do you, how do I explain to somebody or how do
- 2:18I how do I help people who say you work, you know, in a place
- 2:22and you're a manager and somebody on your team has autism
- 2:25or hey, maybe you're a teacher and one of your students has
- 2:28autism. Hit me up with a like button.
- 2:30If you guys are like a teacher or like a professional working
- 2:32with somebody on the spectrum, I'd love to know.
- 2:34You know, just give the video a thumbs up.
- 2:36Give me a gauge it to see who's watching his videos and you want
- 2:39to communicate better to those, those people or that person.
- 2:42And I thought it would be really cool to list out five of the
- 2:45coolest ways and the most effective and impactful ways
- 2:48where you can not only communicate to somebody, but you
- 2:51can also improve and learn as you go by doing these strategies
- 2:55and techniques. So stick around to the end of
- 2:56the video, see all of them, because I pretty much guarantee
- 2:59these are going to be absolutely gold for you, which is super
- 3:01awesome. So this brings me to #1 being
- 3:05patient. Now being patient is having
- 3:08patience with people. So people on the spectrum may be
- 3:10confused when you're talking to, they may be slightly agitated,
- 3:13they may be, you know, a bit kind of distracted.
- 3:17And especially I know for me as well having ADHD, which comes
- 3:19comorbidly pretty much a lot of the time with autism, you can be
- 3:23distracted. So it's not easy to stay on a
- 3:25flow of conversation, you know, So having a patience and being
- 3:28patient and tolerable with somebody on the autism spectrum
- 3:30and just giving them a little bit of time to kind of go, OK,
- 3:33well, I'll, I'll go over it again, don't worry.
- 3:36You know, it's not, it's not them trying to take disinterest
- 3:40in your conversation. It's them having an issue with
- 3:43trying to really Nestle down and get that full scope of focus in
- 3:48the conversation. So I have a real big issue in
- 3:50focusing on things, especially when people were talking to me
- 3:53like actual with just voice talking to me with no
- 3:55explanation and there's no images and stuff.
- 3:57So I'm always a bit, kind of a bit like, ha, I'm really trying
- 4:00my best to focus, but then I can also see the wind moving the
- 4:03trees in the background and I get really taken by that.
- 4:05And then I start thinking about kind of like the nature of wind
- 4:08and how bizarre it is. And so that's just how our brain
- 4:10works. We're seeing everything as a
- 4:11really big open picture where it's really difficult to focus
- 4:14just on that one thing. So that being said, I I highly
- 4:20recommend having patience. Rule #1.
- 4:23Just just take it back, give them some time, have some
- 4:26patience, and just be, you know, maybe you're not a patient
- 4:28person, right? Maybe like you're a busy person
- 4:31which wants to go go go go go. But learning and practicing
- 4:34patience with people on the spectrum will pay dividends
- 4:37major for you because it's going to increase your relationship
- 4:40with them and you will be able to learn a bit more because
- 4:42they'll be able to say that well you know you appreciate them and
- 4:45they'll be reciprocated. OK, moving on to #2, and this is
- 4:49one of my favorite ones to do, and that's annoy everybody.
- 4:53Now this one is repeating when needed, so people on the autism
- 4:57spectrum, like myself sometimes have difficulties in
- 5:00understanding what you're saying.
- 5:01So I may say to you, hey, can you repeat that again?
- 5:04And can you repeat that again And can you repeat that again?
- 5:07And it may be so frustrating because you're trying to talk to
- 5:09this person about something that may be imminently like, I need
- 5:11this done right now and I'm trying to do this thing and I
- 5:13need to tell you this stuff and that.
- 5:14I'm saying, can you repeat it, please?
- 5:16And it may seem frustrating, but you have to remember they're not
- 5:19asking you to repeat that sentence because you are boring
- 5:24or they are trying to wind you up or they're trying to do
- 5:26anything other than just understand what you're saying.
- 5:29They're literally having a difficult time understanding,
- 5:32decoding, deciphering the the, the communication that you are
- 5:35passing to them because you think about communication.
- 5:38Communication is moving particles from 1 area of space
- 5:41to another area of space and a cycle of communication is then
- 5:44having those particles then reciprocated and moved back to
- 5:47that area of space that they once were.
- 5:48So if there is a difficulty in understanding what the particles
- 5:53are, then you're going to have a real big issue there.
- 5:55It's kind of like, you know, having a circle hole here, but a
- 6:00square block that's passed over and the square block can't fit
- 6:03in the circle hole because it doesn't understand.
- 6:04It's not the right thing. So if you had someone saying,
- 6:06OK, pull up the square hole and I'll push the square hole over.
- 6:10And then the square hole goes, the square goes through the
- 6:12square hole and you add it, you get kind of metaphorical idea
- 6:15I'm talking about here. So when somebody on the awesome
- 6:17special approaches you and asks you to repeat the thing, they're
- 6:20not being annoying. They're not doing it to get into
- 6:21your skin. They're just doing it so they
- 6:23can understand what you're saying.
- 6:24And it's one of the most interesting things, because I
- 6:27always have to ask people to repeat themselves a few times so
- 6:29I can get the data, the information, and really digest
- 6:32that. So yeah, just bear that in mind.
- 6:34Nobody's playing any games and always being a fool.
- 6:36They're just asking you for your help because they just need a
- 6:38little bit of time to understand what you're saying.
- 6:40OK, #3 is absolutely paramount. And I feel like this one is
- 6:45something that people always forget, and it's the last thing.
- 6:48It's when they're talking about communication, they're trying to
- 6:50communicate with like kids on the spectrum, especially
- 6:52teachers and stuff and just people in general, they forget
- 6:55this one and they don't even come to the mind.
- 6:57This is the use of images. Now, images are a great way of
- 7:01communicating. Now everybody in the autism
- 7:02spectrum are visual thinkers. We think with our brains in
- 7:05visual format of pictures and seeing bigger scopes of things.
- 7:08And images are a great way to convey things because people on
- 7:11the autism spectrum have an issue with understanding
- 7:14emotion. So it's difficult for me to
- 7:16understand emotion from so on if they don't directly say, hey
- 7:19Dan, I am sad. It's hard to understand if the
- 7:22person's sad, if they're happy, because I have a hard time
- 7:24looking somebody in the eye. And people in the autism have
- 7:26difficulties with eye contact. So if eye contact is difficult
- 7:29and you're not looking someone in the face, you're not even
- 7:32going to notice if they're crying or if they're like really
- 7:35smiling. But a lot of the facial
- 7:36expressions are really kind of a miss.
- 7:38And there's a whole video on facial expressions that I'm
- 7:40going to do. So make sure you hit that
- 7:42subscribe button so you come back.
- 7:43When I upload that video, it will alert you and tell you that
- 7:46I've uploaded that video on facial expressions.
- 7:47But for right now, just know that it is an issue.
- 7:50Now because of that, it's hard to really convey emotions.
- 7:54So one way that I get people to to do it is using emojis on your
- 7:58iPhone or smartphone or smart device or whatever it is because
- 8:00you get a text message and somebody has like a crying face.
- 8:02You know, instantly this persons upset.
- 8:04There's no ambiguity. There's no having to guess if
- 8:06this person okay beating around the Bush or whatever, don't have
- 8:08to say anything to send you an image.
- 8:10You could send a complete text message in just emojis and I
- 8:13would get what you're saying because I can.
- 8:15I see visually and I'm like, okay.
- 8:17Well that makes sense. So always think, try and use
- 8:19emojis. Try and use pictures, draw it
- 8:21out if it's easier for you. If you haven't got the right
- 8:22emojis, get a piece of paper or go on your phone and get the
- 8:25drawing app and just draw out the story or the image or
- 8:29whatever you're trying to convey.
- 8:30It's going to save you so much aggro and hassle trying to
- 8:34explain something when someone is more of a visual thinker than
- 8:37like a typical audio kind of input device.
- 8:40So images are king. OK, so #4 is a great one.
- 8:44Nobody ever does this and I think that everybody should.
- 8:46And I develop this idea from my line of work because I work
- 8:51social media, you know, and I do all the social media stuff.
- 8:53And one of the biggest things is I rely on data that I process.
- 8:57I process that data and then I analyze it and then I see where
- 9:00I went wrong, where I went well and then I repeat the went well
- 9:04part of the data and that means me forward and is how you grow
- 9:06things online. So when you apply that to
- 9:09communication, the only way you're going to know is to ask
- 9:11someone for feedback. So ask the autistic person, Hey,
- 9:15could you let me know which parts of the conversation were
- 9:16difficult for you and which parts you understood?
- 9:18And then you'll be able to understand how to fix the parts
- 9:20that were wrong and how to continue with the parts that
- 9:22were good. Asking for feedback is Data
- 9:24Analysis 101 and computing it, analysing it and moving forward
- 9:29by, you know, actually executing the strategy is going to be just
- 9:35amazing and the person is going so much appreciate you for
- 9:38asking them which parts are good, which parts are bad,
- 9:40because I can guarantee nobody's ever thought of this.
- 9:44OK, so #5 the last tip I have for you guys, the last strategy,
- 9:47which is a good one, good goosey one, which is explain the
- 9:51detail. Now, I don't have to be the one
- 9:53to tell you that autistic people love the fine detail and the
- 9:57very menu focus detail in everything.
- 10:00Now being on the auto inspection myself, I love to see the big
- 10:03picture and I love the details and things.
- 10:05I love the the the minute details because the minute
- 10:08details build a big picture when people talk about things is that
- 10:12you know, I went to this thing the other day and I did that and
- 10:15they kind of blanch over all the stuff.
- 10:17They can just go OK, well I did a bunch of stuff but you
- 10:20typically know what I'm talking about and people just kind of
- 10:22nod along and as if they know what they're talking about.
- 10:24But autistic people can't build a picture from half nonsensical
- 10:28information. So remember when you're talking
- 10:31to an autistic person and you're explaining something give the
- 10:34fine detail because the production is in the detail.
- 10:38The proof is in the detail. You are going to cut out a lot
- 10:42of miscommunication errors, not understanding what you're saying
- 10:46and acuity issues lags in kind of the story.
- 10:49The person come out and say, can you explain that again?
- 10:51But explain the part where you went to do this or I'm supposed
- 10:53to do that because the detail is where it's at.
- 10:56So remember, give as much detail as possible and that will really
- 11:02improve the communication that you have.
- 11:03An autistic person, I can guarantee you right now if you
- 11:06can just this is a task, okay, go to, you know, your autistic
- 11:10friend or whoever it is you're dealing with and then give them
- 11:13a fine detail in the next piece of communication that you give
- 11:16them. And the reaction you get is
- 11:18going to be just incredible. They're going to understand what
- 11:21you're saying so much more. And so if that works, which and
- 11:24I will do, come back to this video and leave a comment and
- 11:26say, Dan, you nailed it now for that.