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

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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.

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.

Neurotypicals Take Note – Being a good listener

April 11, 2015April 13, 2015 / Aaron / 1 Comment

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.

and

8. When the other person is talking, listen for a key word or phrase, and then use it as a springboard to dive into your next comment or question.

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.