Be a good listener…

People who support individuals with ASD often address listening skills. There are some good things that come out of this work. Autistic folk often have difficulty engaging in back-and-forth conversations in a way that’s expected by their neurotypical conversational partners.

But it’s important for the presumably neurotypical teachers to note that we (NTs) are not perfect social beings who autistic people should use as role models for communication.

Neurotypicals need help listening

Occasionally there is information that becomes popular online that aims to help people improve their social interactions. One such piece is a recent BuzzFeed article, 17 Tips to ACTUALLY Listen When Someone Else is Talking. It includes such tips as:

3. Actually pay full attention to what the other person is saying.

These are good tips! It can require some effort to give our friend or colleague our full attention, particularly with buzzing pinging devices in our pockets and on our wrists. And people do appreciate it when someone remembers and refers back to something they’ve talked about.

At first glance, it might seem that this is an article written for people on the autism spectrum. But it’s not! It’s very telling that it is written for the general public. The intended audience of the piece is not folks with diagnosed communication challenges—it’s “everyone.”

And that’s the point to remember: all people have communication challenges. When providing support and instruction to people with ASD, let’s not make the mistake to think that there is one “right” way to communicate, and that it’s our way. “Our way” is riddled with problems: for one, there is a huge number of people who don’t really listen to each other.

It’s all about balance

I hope that the Balance Challenges on this blog can be supportive for autistic people, but neurotypical allies could also benefit from thinking about them with respect to their own social decision making.

And whatever work we do to support individuals with autism, let’s give some thought to striking a balance between “our way” and “their way” of communicating.

For an explanation of the Balance Challenge framework, see Balance Breakdown, always accessible on the top navigation bar.