Does it help to say, I am the greatest?

January 18, 2016January 18, 2016 / Aaron / Leave a comment

“It pays to be overconfident”

That’s according to a recent study that claims overconfidence leads to higher social status and “peer perceptions of social and task skill.”

I can’t help but have a gut response that says, so many people can see right through that overconfidence or are just put off by it. But even if we accept the research, does that mean we should always trick ourselves into thinking that we’re the best?

Not according to psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, says straight up, don’t be too confident. He sees overconfidence as the trait most likely to lead to terrible decisions. In a recent interview, he described overconfidence as:

the kind of optimism that leads governments to believe that wars are quickly winnable and capital projects will come in on budget despite statistics predicting exactly the opposite

So, then, what are we left to think? If we’re super confident then we may get the respect of our peers, but make bad decisions. If, on the other hand, we doubt ourselves constantly, won’t that impede our drive and damage our self-image?

It seems, once again, that what we need to do is strike a balance. Find that middle ground between:

extreme self-confidence that can cloud your judgement

and

extreme self-doubt that leaves you powerless

There’s a huge space in between, where you find the confidence to tackle challenges, and at the same time the questioning necessary to find the true best solution.

The Balance Challenge is all about making decisions that work best for you and the people around you. Finding the right balance between confidence and questioning can help guide the way.

Audience… It’s Complicated

August 31, 2015January 20, 2016 / Aaron / Leave a comment

A hospital? What is it?

Watching that scene from Airplane, it’s pretty clear to most folks that Elaine knows what a hospital is. When she asks, What is it? she means something like What’s the matter with the woman who needs to go to the hospital? Dr. Rumack assumes What is it? refers to what a hospital is… but of course she knows! That’s what makes this scene funny.

But generally, how can you be sure of what your audience knows and doesn’t know? This exchange between Rumack and Elaine is a funny example of when someone assumes another person doesn’t have knowledge about something they clearly do.

So when you’re having a conversation, just how do you figure out how much detail to go into? You might explain too much, like Dr. Rumack, and give information that your audience already knows. Or you might not explain enough and talk over their head.

Self-advocate Kirsten Lindsmith has a good post about the impact of this dilemma on her social interactions.

If I don’t stop to explain, I inevitably say something that my audience doesn’t understand, and I lose their interest, or worse, seem rude. But when I over-explain, I come off as annoying and condescending!

via The Little Professor is Compensating for Something: Theory of Mind and Pedantic Speech | The Artism Spectrum

Balance Explain & Skim

It’s important to explain your ideas to people who may not know—they don’t have all the same knowledge that you do.

Yet it’s also important to not go into too much detail—you can’t explain every single detail.

How do you do both? Strike a balance!

explain-skim

Continue reading →

Teacher Balance—Support and Independence

July 31, 2015January 20, 2016 / Aaron / 1 Comment

A student raises her hand.
Teachers: What do you do?

Do you run over to help immediately, carefully taking time to walk her through every part of what she’s working on?

Or do you tell her, “No questions – try it yourself first”?

As with most questions, the best and most accurate answer is: it depends.

Teachers want to provide support to students when they’re confused, but they also want to encourage independence so they develop skills to problem solve themselves. How does one do both? First let’s look at the dangers of the extremes—if you only do one or the other:

Only Providing Support

It’s crucial to provide support for students, especially when they are learning new content, or when a particular student is struggling.

Providing Support

So should you run over to help students at the first sign of a question? Not necessarily…

If a teacher provides too much support, students can become reliant on them. They can develop a dependency on your help and not develop the skills to tackle challenging work on their own.

For this reason, you may want to be careful about situations like this:

If you help students every single time they ask for it – they may never learn to problem-solve
If you give third, and fourth… and fifth chances when not handing in homework – they may never learn to take responsibility
If you swoop in at the first sign of disagreement and solve the group’s problem – they may never learn to resolve peer conflicts

To avoid enabling students, teachers shouldn’t solve their every problem in every instance. Sometimes you need to foster independence. Let’s look at this more closely.

Only Encouraging Independence

So we’ve learned it’s crucial to encourage students to be independent. Have we found the answer to the hand-raising problem: just let them figure it out themselves? Not so fast.

Encouraging Independence

If you expect too much independence—and don’t provide support to achieve it—students don’t learn how to become independent. They can flounder in their confusion or frustration, not knowing where to start or what to do next.

So you can’t always expect students to figure our problems on their own. Think twice about things like this:

If you refuse to answer questions – students won’t know you’re there to help them when they’re genuinely stuck
If you give directions once and only once – you leave out students who need more time to process, and your directions just may not have been clear in the first place!
If you expect students to organize everything on their own – they lack models of essay outlines and notebook sections to know what organization can even look like

So we don’t just throw students into the deep end of the pool, as they may flail—and fail—without appropriate support. Let’s now look at a balanced approach.

Continue reading →

This is the BEST POST EVER! …well, I mean, it’s fine.

July 21, 2015January 20, 2016 / Aaron / Leave a comment

Opinions are like bellybuttons: everyone’s got one.

I recently mentioned the AppleWatch to a friend, and before I could finish my sentence, he said, “Oh my GOD! The AppleWatch is SO dumb! Why would anyone want something so useless and so expensive?!” I was caught off guard—I was about to mention something I like about the watch, but all of a sudden I felt like I couldn’t say anything positive about it.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. And everyone has the right to express their opinion. But there are lots of ways to express your opinion, from a brief mention to a forceful tirade. So which should you do, and when?

The first thing to do is consider whether it makes sense to share you thought or hold your thought. Some opinions are better left unsaid if all they’ll do is hurt someone.

So if you decide to share your opinion, should you be enthusiastic and passionate? Or calm and measured?

Only Enthusiastic

If you feel very strongly about your opinion, you may decide to share it enthusiastically. You state it with passion, because it is a very strong belief. It’s like a tidal wave, crashing to shore with incredible force!

There are times when it makes sense to share your opinion with this much fervor. With friends who agree with you about how awesome the Minions movie was, be enthusiastic!

But if you are too enthusiastic, or too enthusiastic at the wrong time, you may have become “overzealous”—spending an extreme level of energy expressing a belief. You could anger or bother the people around you.

Only Measured

So if being too enthusiastic is a problem, what’s the alternative? Being measured. This is like calm waves on the ocean, moving slowly and evenly.

Being measured is when you share your opinion in a calm and reserved way. When talking about a controversial topic, or with someone you don’t know well, it is often helpful not to share too enthusiastically.

But as with all things, being too measured can be a problem, too. People may think that you don’t care about your opinion. Being too measured could be mistaken for indifference. In those cases, other people in a group may make decisions without you, because they assume you don’t care. For example, don’t let your team at work decide everyone needs to come in an hour early if you have a very long commute and can’t make it!

Balancing Being Enthusiastic and Measured

Better than one extreme or the other, it’s best to find a balance between those two extremes:

scale enthusiastic measured

There are a lot of choices in between too enthusiastic and too measured. When having discussions in a group, consider just how enthusiastic or how measured to be when sharing your opinion.

Remember that sharing opinions has an impact on other people: it can make them uncomfortable, angry, or disappointed. OR it can make them interested, curious, inspired, or constructively challenged. And other people’s reactions all come back to you!

Continue reading →

When is Rude Really Rude? Fuggedaboutit!

July 15, 2015July 15, 2015 / Aaron / 1 Comment

From “NYC Basic Tips and Etiquette” by Nathan W. Pyle

New Yorkers don’t mean to be rude; they’re just impatient. Time is highly valued here, so we show others respect by making an effort not to waste theirs

from Why Do New Yorkers Seem So Rude?

New Yorkers have a reputation for being rude. Pushy. Selfish.

A recent article describes the reason why: New Yorkers value time. Associate Director for International Student Services at New York University, Tom Sirinides, explains that the pushiness is a response to a need to get places on time, that New Yorkers don’t have patience for people who delay them.

This is meant to provide a reason, a context for why New Yorkers aren’t nice to one another. Does that then make it OK? The next time you get body-checked on the sidewalk by someone not looking where they’re going, do you just think to yourself, “Oh, that’s fine—he’s in a hurry.”

From “NYC Basic Tips and Etiquette” by Nathan W. Pyle

When you visit or live in New York, there’s a perception that you have to be pushy and rude to survive, just to get by. But all things get taken too far, and when that happens there’s a need to consider balance. In New York, and everywhere where people live around other people, folks should consider the balance of assertiveness and restraint:

If you’re too restrained, it’s true you may never get on that crowded subway. so
metimes you just have to push a bit.
But be too assertive and you run the risk of being unnecessarily violent and hurting others, just because you don’t want to wait three minutes for the next subway.

Many New Yorkers—myself included!—could benefit from leaning a little more toward the restraint side.

And perhaps more important than the explanation of New York rudeness are Sirinides’s thoughts on understanding other cultures’ customs:

Never confuse differences in etiquette with moral failings—or, in other words, don’t assume someone is wrong or backward just because his or her customs differ from what you’re used to

Good advice for anyone—whether visitors surviving in New York, or neurotypicals responding to social differences of folks with ASD.

Tell me more about this “highway”

July 1, 2015July 1, 2015 / Aaron / Leave a comment

“It’s my way or the highway.”

I write articles for my job. I tend to write long articles, including lots of details. I like it that way! That’s how I write, and I think it’s good, and how it should be. The problem is, the articles get sent to hundreds of teachers to read and use. So my colleagues sometimes give me feedback to shorten an article, to take out some details.

I sometimes feel like telling them to “take a hike!” It’s my way or the highway, as they say. What I mean is that I don’t want the feedback. In those times, I feel I am the only person who could possibly know what’s best for me and my work. In other words, I want to stick to doing things my way.

The problem is, there are times when advice from others is actually very helpful to me. (In fact, I should probably make this blog post a little shorter, according to the feedback of some readers…)

For lots of people—including, but not only folks on the autism spectrum—it can be hard to know when to stick to your way of doing things, and when to be open to advice and try new ways. Let’s explore—

Only Sticking with Your Way

archor Sticking with your way of doing things is like an anchor, firmly planted in the ocean floor. It doesn’t move, doesn’t budge for anything or anyone. This can be important to do at times, like when you are 100% certain that you need to take a break from a long work meeting (your way), even if others are insisting you stay.

But too much sticking with your way, too much of the time, means you vehemently insist on only doing things the way you do them. You then ignore the advice other people give, even if that advice will actually be helpful for you. There are times when a friend, relative, teacher, or coworker gives you advice that will be helpful—even when you feel like your way is better.

Only Trying New Ways

So what’s the alternative to sticking with your way? It’s trying new ways of doing things. For this, we use an image of a sailboat, whose route is guided by the wind. This is when we are open to advice and feedback, we listen to and consider the guidance of our relatives and peers and make changes in our behavior according to their suggestions.

This is not to say that you should always be open to new ways of doing things! If you only try new ways, you can lose sight of the important things you’ve learned about yourself. And if the advice comes from someone who doesn’t know us well, or who does not have our best interest in mind, trying their way could be harmful to us.

So what to do? Strike a balance!

Balancing Sticking with Your Way and Trying New Ways

Are there times when you should try new ways of doing things? Absolutely, yes. Are there other times when you should absolutely just stick to your ways? Yes, also. Let’s think about the balance of the two.

balance stick with-try new

Remember in the end, Balance Challenges are meant to help you find solutions to make things the best they can be for you and others with you.

With that in mind, think about a couple questions that might help guide finding this balance:

WHO is giving the advice/feedback?
- If it is a “trusted source,” someone who you have a close relationship with—like a parent or established close friend—you may want to consider trying their new way. Trusted people, if they really can be trusted, try to have our best interest in mind.
- For example, if your mother suggests that you text a friend from school to see if they know the homework you forgot, she’s probably trying to help find a solution, even if it’s not something you’re used to doing. Maybe that’s a 60/40 toward the try new ways side.
WHAT are they asking you to change?
- Is it “no big deal”? If it’s not a difficult thing to change, it might be worth trying their way. If it doesn’t work after a couple tries, at least there was the chance it could have been helpful.
- If someone is suggesting to you that you completely change the way you dress and cut your hair to impress other kids, that’s a big deal and probably a time when you lean toward sticking with your way. Perhaps that’s a 70/30 on the stick with my way side.

But be sure not to fall into the only trying new ways trap. Obeying the directions every classmate and teacher without question can lead to uncomfortable or dangerous choices.

But it doesn’t hurt to be open to new ideas. When a trusted person gives advice or feedback, rejecting it immediately means you fall into the stick with my way trap, and when that happens you don’t make tough things better.

The most important lesson for most things: balance.

June 17, 2015June 17, 2015 / Aaron / Leave a comment

I recently got an email from a company trying to convince me to pay for their email reminder service. The first line was:

The most important lesson you can learn when starting a sales career: persistence.
—FollowUpThen

To be fair, I don’t have anything like a sales career, so I don’t claim to be an expert on such things. But I do think that advice is misguided. If you focus exclusively on persistence, you run the risk of being overbearing. I imagine there are people who would be more likely to buy something if that salesperson just backed off!

Instead of focusing on persistence, I believe the better advice is to always consider striking a balance. In this case, it’s a matter of finding a balance between, on the one hand:

persistence

and on the other hand:

patience

This is a fairer and likely to be more effective to help you get what you want, and make other people around you happy.

Persistence – or patience – to the extreme

persistence

You can’t enter every interaction with the mindset that you will persist at all costs. What about checking in on a professor who’s agreed to write you a letter of recommendation: if you send follow-up emails day after day asking when it’s going to be done, the professor might get so annoyed that she’ll change her mind and not write the letter. So much for persistence! All that did was pester her.

patience

But by contrast, you can’t only be patient and trusting. When arguing with Time Warner Cable to lower your ridiculously expensive monthly bill, keep pushing! Ask to speak to a supervisor, then another supervisor if necessary until your expectations are met. There are indeed times when persisting is necessary.

It really comes down to striking a balance between persistence and patience. You figure out how much to “lean” in one way or the other in different situations by considering the context.

Balance in all things

Any time someone uses the phrase “the most important lesson is,” it should be following with “a balance between…” Just about all advice—even good advice—can be misinterpreted or misapplied and taken to the extreme. Instead of thinking, “In my life, I always need to x” I believe more people will be helped by thinking, “In my life, I need to find the balance between x and y.” There’s a lot of space in between, and that’s where people end up the most successful and satisfied.

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

All the World’s an Audience

June 15, 2015June 15, 2015 / Aaron / Leave a comment

What do you say to whom, and how much, and when…?

People usually don’t address their six year old sister with “Your Honor…” and they rarely say “Sup?” to their principal.

We don’t speak the same way to everyone. We make changes to what we say based on our audience – who we’re with, and what’s going on.

Let’s look at a couple decisions we make about changing our language for different audiences – WHAT, and HOW MUCH – by thinking about balance.

WHAT to Say

Do you discuss details of upcoming dentist appointments with your friends? Not usually – that’s something that’s typically discussed with your parents.

Do you say, “Good afternoon” to classmates? Probably not that much – that’s something reserved for someone like a teacher.

So what topics do we raise, and what words make sense to use, based on whom we’re with?

A helpful way to think about this difference is through balancing casual and formal language.

Casual and formal language can be hard to define explicitly. In general, casual language is words and topics that we say naturally, the first things that come to mind. Formal language describes words topics that we think about and consider, and possibly censor, for a particular type of person. For example, if you were late to school one day, you might tell your friend: Damn. My stupid alarm didn’t go off. But for your science teacher, that doesn’t match how she’s expecting to be spoken to – for her, it would be more like: I’m sorry, won’t happen again.

The main question to think about is:

What is my connection to the person I’m speaking to?
- If I’m with someone of “higher status” than myself, I should probably lean more toward formal language. This might be a teacher, professor, principal, boss, or a relative I don’t know very well.
- If I’m with a friend or someone younger than I am, I can usually lean more toward casual language.

HOW MUCH to Say

There’s a whole other aspect of considering our audience: after we’ve figured out what to say, we have to consider how much to share.

When talking about my favorite TV show to my friends who also watch that TV show, I can get into an incredible level of detail about all the evidence I have for my theory that a certain character didn’t really die… If I try to explain that much to my mom – who hates the show – she’ll be totally disinterested and confused. She won’t know the characters or the plot points, and she’ll probably not care!

This speaks to the need to balance how much we explain and how much we skim.

explain-skim

This balance of our language is again based on who we’re with, but this time, it has more to do with the topic than our status connection to the person. It helps to think about:

How much does my audience know about this topic?
- if they already know a lot, I can probably lean toward explain – we share knowledge about it
- if they don’t know much, I may want to skim more – unless I’m teaching them something or making a presentation
How interested is my audience in the topic?
- if they are interested, I can lean more toward explain
- if they are not too interested, you may want to lean toward skim

Of course, it’s sometimes challenging to figure out how much someone knows, and how interested someone is. But it helps to have it be “on our radar,” something we think about and consider.

Be “Slider Savvy”

For folks who want something more concrete, a helpful visual is this slider. It represents the same elements of the balance, but as a continuum from one extreme to the other. Our decisions about how much to “lean” toward one side or another can all fall somewhere along the slider:

For example, on our explain ~ skim balance, when thinking about talking to dad’s friend about pi day (March 14, or 3/14, so named for the number pi which begins 3.14), it probably makes sense to be somewhere around 80/20 skim. He may or may not know or be interested, but it couldn’t hurt to mention.

…but in after school science club, it might be good to be more like 60/40 explain about pi day – to talk about it, and in some detail, but not so much detail that it takes the whole club time.

Why bother think about audience?

In the U.S., people sometimes refer to our right to free speech to mean we can say whatever we want to whomever we want. In reality, there are often negative outcomes to making mistakes about what we say to whom. Talking about a topic to your boss that he finds inappropriate (too casual) could lead to getting fired. Talking in too much detail about something that a classmate isn’t interested in (too much explain) may mean they avoid working with me in the future.

The Balance Challenge is all about the thinking we can do in social situations to help us create the best outcomes for us and the people we’re with. Balancing casual and formal language, and explaining and skimming, can help to do just that.

And as always, remember this advice is not just for folks with ASD, but for neurotypicals as well. Anyone who knows me (or reads this blog…) knows that I myself can always benefit from trying to lean more toward skim!

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

Neurotypicals Take Note – Accepting Compliments

May 23, 2015May 23, 2015 / Aaron / 5 Comments

What do you say…?

How often has someone said that to you? Or how often have you said it to your student or child? The problem is, the answer is a lot more complicated than just “Thank you.”

Social conventions are so complex, and autistic folk are not the only ones who need tips and practice. These are social lessons that neurotypical folk could benefit from!

Neurotypicals need help accepting compliments

As evidenced by Jacqueline Whitmore’s How to Gracefully Accept a Compliment – written for a presumably neurotypical audience – accepting a compliment is complex. She acknowledges,

Most people love to be noticed, but few know how to accept a compliment gracefully

Some people respond too humbly. They deflect the compliment, or say things like “it was nothing.” They may pass the compliment on to others (“I didn’t do much – it was a team effort”).

This may appear kind—after all, it avoids bragging—but it may go too far. When someone gives a compliment, they generally want to recognize another’s accomplishments. So it’s jarring if someone essentially denies that they were responsible for the accomplishments.

And then other people respond too boastfully. They are quick to accept the compliment and may even add on to the list of their accomplishments. Sometimes they go into detail about how hard they worked.

This usually bothers people, too. It can make the complimenter feel like the other person thinks that they’re better than them.

A complicated skill for all

Because neurotypicals clearly don’t do this complimenting thing all that well, they oversimplify it when addressing it with children with ASD.

A colleague of mine once made a nice comment about the shirt that a student of hers was wearing. The student was on the autism spectrum, and at first glance the exchange seems quite ordinary—

“I like your shirt!”

“Thanks, I like your earrings.”

The only problem: she wasn’t wearing earrings.

What happened? An adult must have taught this young man something like, when someone compliments you, say thank you and compliment them back. He probably got the added tip from a teacher, women like when people compliment their jewelry.

This again speaks to the need for neurotypical professionals working with folks with ASD to accept that they don’t have all the answers about the social world.

It’s about balance

What the advice comes down to is yet another balance, this time between humility and boasting. And it’s one that all people—autistic and neurotypical alike—could be better at.

A Balanced Approach to Teaching Social Skills

May 13, 2015January 18, 2016 / Aaron / Leave a comment

I recently read a couple of great posts on social skills training from M Kelter of Invisible Strings that connect to the idea of balance. M speaks of the real emotional dangers of social skills approaches that force people to change who they are:

In a world that puts so much pressure on people to assimilate and resemble others, being different can hurt…but learning to hide those differences? That can be equally destructive, if not more so.

I don’t know what the answers is for this…how the balance is struck.

via Etching Helvetica: stories from the autism spectrum

It is indeed a complicated issue. But at the risk of oversimplifying, I think that M has identified the answer: balance.

In the field—or community—of autism, there are strong feelings about social skills approaches. Without wading too deeply into that debate (which you can read more about from Karla Fisher, for starters), the debate sometimes breaks down into:

Teach-Skills Group: people (mostly neurotypical) who argue that autistic folk need to be taught social skills, that it’s essential in order to be successful in our society
Don’t-Teach-Skills Group: people who argue that autistic folk don’t have anything to gain from learning neurotypical social skills from neurotypical people

What’s implied by the Teach-Skills Group’s assumptions is that in order to be accepted, one must act “normal,” like “everyone else,” i.e., like neurotypical people. An example is eye contact training, something that many autistics describe as distracting or even painful. This can put autistic people under a lot of pressure to conform in a way that can lead to the kinds of emotional destress that M discusses.

However, the Don’t-Teach-Skills Group may be taking things too far: there are certain social expectations in our society that, if not followed, can lead to unpleasant results for all people involved. If one doesn’t compromise at all on their idea when working on a group project at work, for example, the project can stall, and that person may be reprimanded or even fired.

M again clarifies this division quite well:

Because of this tension, discussions about social skills training often lapse into a binary either/or dynamic. It’s described as either helpful or destructive, the end. Once that framework is in place, it’s tough to really sound out any nuances with the topic (which is understandable, given some of the bad history there).

via Autism/Aspergers Q and A: social skills training and managing negativity

The Balance Challenge is all about nuance—the many, many places in between two extremes. We can begin to find that space by looking at this:

Finding a Balance Between Exposing People to New Ideas and Embracing Differences

Both are valid: it’s important to expose people to ideas they’re not aware of AND it’s crucial to accept what makes people different

But exposure only, without embracing, and social skills training becomes a one-sided, stressful, high-pressure environment

And solely embracing, without exposure, can rob autistic folks of helpful information about the neurotypical social world

If neurotypical people (teachers, therapists, friends and family) are charged with teaching social skills to people with autism, they can:

expose autistic folk to common social expectations… without demanding they act them out
explore the reasons why these social expectations exist… without trying to convince them they’re universally correct

And autistic folk learning social skills can:

offer their perspective on the social world… without insisting that the neurotypical one is wrong
discuss what’s challenging about NT expectations… without refusing them outright

Like all learning and growth, this process may be challenging or uncomfortable, but shouldn’t be so much so that people with autism experience emotional duress. Hopefully, they can work with a trusted neurotypical professional or friend.

And together, neurotypical and autistic folk working with one another can decide which skills are crucial to learn and understand (greeting a principal/boss, maybe?), and which are a matter of difference in perspective (eye contact, perhaps?).

Striking this balance is crucial to teaching autistic people, while honoring and validating people’s different perspectives, something almost everyone can agree is at the heart of being social.

Balance Explain & Skim

Only Providing Support

Only Encouraging Independence

Only Enthusiastic

Only Measured

Balancing Being Enthusiastic and Measured

Only Sticking with Your Way

Only Trying New Ways

Balancing Sticking with Your Way and Trying New Ways

More on balancing needs

Persistence – or patience – to the extreme

Balance in all things

WHAT to Say

HOW MUCH to Say

Be “Slider Savvy”

Why bother think about audience?

Neurotypicals need help accepting compliments

A complicated skill for all

It’s about balance

Finding a Balance Between Exposing People to New Ideas and Embracing Differences