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ASD Email disclaimer?

NAS76602

Hi all,

Non ASD people seem to struggle with my abruptness and straightforwardness in my emails. I’m told they come across as aggressive and cold and can be upsetting. 
I don’t see it that way at all no matter how many times I read and rewrite. It also causes issues in my professional life too. 
I'm thinking of adding an email disclaimer saying I’ve ASD and to make allowances and responses should be short and sweet. 

has anyone else done this? Is it a good idea? Or am I just opening myself to hassle?

thanks x

Parents

  • Honestly, tone is a problem even for neurotypical folks. When teaching English to secondary schoolers they frequently struggled to identify appropriate tone to use when writing for different audiences. They're just not exposed to formal communication styles.

    I even once had to take a university head of department to task for claiming that I was rude when writing to them in a formal style. They had become so used to students e-mailing them in an informal style, that when a student was e-mailing them in a formal style with a legitimate concern about the way the course was being run they interpreted it as rude because they hadn't seen a formal e-mail in years. I actually remember asking them if they'd have called me rude had the e-mail been a physical letter and you could literally see how hard they had to think about it. Basically, most humans seem to be poor at parsing written communication styles if there is a difference in age between correspondants.

    All of that said, I do tend to highlight as a closing paragraph in any e-mail that I tend to write in a formal communication style and as such if the reader has felt that the e-mail was blunt it is likely because I am trying to ensure that there are no misunderstandings in communication. It doesn't always work, but is about the best I've been able to come up with.

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  • Honestly, tone is a problem even for neurotypical folks. When teaching English to secondary schoolers they frequently struggled to identify appropriate tone to use when writing for different audiences. They're just not exposed to formal communication styles.

    I even once had to take a university head of department to task for claiming that I was rude when writing to them in a formal style. They had become so used to students e-mailing them in an informal style, that when a student was e-mailing them in a formal style with a legitimate concern about the way the course was being run they interpreted it as rude because they hadn't seen a formal e-mail in years. I actually remember asking them if they'd have called me rude had the e-mail been a physical letter and you could literally see how hard they had to think about it. Basically, most humans seem to be poor at parsing written communication styles if there is a difference in age between correspondants.

    All of that said, I do tend to highlight as a closing paragraph in any e-mail that I tend to write in a formal communication style and as such if the reader has felt that the e-mail was blunt it is likely because I am trying to ensure that there are no misunderstandings in communication. It doesn't always work, but is about the best I've been able to come up with.

Children
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