Autism & Communication
Interpretation vs. Presentation
Recently, I attended some fantastic neurodiversity training with DIFFERabled. In this Heather Wright spoke of sarcasm and the differences in an Autistic individual interpreting this vs. presenting it. Heather shared how some Autistic individuals are THE most sarcastic individuals she has met but when offering this back they may feel hurt or confused by it, maybe they just missed the humour in it.
This is because part of the autistic experience presents struggles with communication interpretation and/or presentation.
What does this mean?
It is believed that the autistic brain experiences a 6-second delay in information processing. Therefore, the more stressed someone is, the greater this delay may be. Similarly, the more stressed [or aroused] an individual is, the more difficulty they will experience in the communication of larger quantities or complexity of words.
With my Autistic clients, I am continually advocating for them to start working with their Autistic traits [not against them] but also to my clients who present as Neurotypical to allow and consider the neurodivergent experience in their everyday lives. It is not for an Autistic individual to disclose their diagnosis or label to anyone but having grace with this experience can be life-changing for someone.
Back to sarcasm, while an autistic individual can present sarcasm [be sarcastic] in Heather’s example, they are struggling to interpret this [process sarcasm]. This could be due to concrete thinking, the use of complex or abstract language or difficulty with the quantity of words.
What can help with this?
Whether you are an Autistic individual yourself or know someone who is, there is lots that can be done to support this experience, to work with it.
Getting to know how to identify your/their capacity
How stressed are you/they?
Say what you mean and mean what you say
Especially if your individual is seeming more stressed, support their concrete thinking by keeping to factual language.
Allow processing time
It’s important to remember Autism isn’t a measure of intelligence. If allowed time and space to process the information it is likely to be processed. Your/their brain just takes a different route to get to the same place.
There are lots of other ways I support Autism and communication, the foundation of each is supporting Autistic individuals in working with their Autistic experience. If you’d like to discuss this further I’d welcome you to get in touch.
References
DIFFERabled (2014). DIFFERabled. [online] DIFFERabled. Available at: https://www.differabledscotland.co.uk/ [Accessed 5 Jun. 2024].
