Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello. I am a speech-language pathologist working with elementary school kids (~5 to 12 years old). What do you think about the direct instruction of pragmatic language skills? SLPs are tasked with teaching our students the expected pragmatic language skills for a school setting, such as not interrupting, taking a balanced turn when sharing, using "respectful language" with adults, etc etc. However, we also want our kids to know that it is okay to have divergent social skills and that "expectations" are subjective and variable. It's a fine line between saying "this is what's expected in school" and "you're doing it wrong." I want the students I work with to know that I accept them as they are, while still providing them with at least the background knowledge of what types of things people expect in certain social situations and why breakdowns may occur if those expectations aren't met.
I want to hear from the perspective of autistic adults. If you have the time, could you provide you answer the following questions:
Thanks in advance for your feedback!!
I really struggle with balancing a conversation (or at least I perceive myself to), knowing what the signs are that someone is interested/not interested and how to wrap up a conversation, and respectful language.
The last (respectful language) probably impacts my life the least now that I'm an adult and in a more colloquial environment. I struggled with it because: (1) a lack of appreciation for neurotypical rules around 'respect' - everyone deserves respect, and this notion some people deserve 'more respect' is odd to me- we're all people. I'm still awful at showing 'respect' for people who I dislike. (2) the way I process language - having developed a lot of words through reading, words have a 'situation' where they fit. Using the wrong word causes me discomfort (and makes me take a lot longer to write essays as an adult, because I can't find the 'right' word)- sometimes a swear word is the 'right' word for an emotion, or a thought is best conveyed by a more colloquial sequence of words. On the subject of swearing, it also acts as 'stress relief' for me.
Finishing a conversation/balancing a conversation- this impacts me the most in daily life, and leaves me combing back over interactions to work out if I committed a social taboo. I think this is likely linked to the multiple incidents of people saying something was 'rude', sometimes many days after it was said, but not showing a reaction I could interpret at the time, so I feel blindsided by the accusation. Similarly, I often want to be involved in the conversation as I am afraid of what I might be missing/the social conventions I might break if I don't pay attention to the conversation. As my brain processes and recognises patterns so quickly, it is also hard to balance a conversation as it is like the other speaker is talking too slowly- I have a good idea of what they're going to say before it is said.
I wish my teachers had realised how much I really was trying. Yes it wasn't always at my full potential, but that is because my brain was/is so busy, just being inside my head is overwhelming a lot of the time. The NT adult perception of me asking 'why' and wanting to be involved in every conversation as insolent and nosey ignored the obvious truth: kids are so curious! Autistic kids (and adults) throughout the spectrum even moreso. One day I hope we can stop seeing malevolence in every interaction.
A few things that might have helped me as a kid:
-Nonverbal signs a conversation is ending/the other person is loosing interest (e.g. feet pointing the other way - that was easy for me to get to grips with)
-Emphasising the patterns of social situations and how they can practice them - this does border a little on encouraging masking and can be absolutely exhausting, but equally can be quite reassuring once you know what to look for
-Explanations! All the time an explanation contains new information, I will be more than happy to listen to it - in my own teaching, I'm struggling to get a balance between over-explaining and giving enough information, but explaining why things like school appropriate language are used can help autistic children categorise and understand. I saw someone describe small talk "as a way to let the other know you're a safe person" which I quite liked.
Obviously these are specific to my experiences, but good luck with your efforts!
I'm in my sixties now and don't remember social interactions at school that well. I vaguely remember children were told not to interrupt and to speak to teachers in a respectful way, but I though that was all of us. Although, autism was unheard of in my primary school in the 1960s. Maybe the children who tended to interrupt were autistic and nobody knew. I was a quiet, dreamy child who was frightened of getting things wrong, so I observed and copied.
As an adult, I didn't learn I was on the spectrum until I was in my early fifties. I then had to learn about why and how I was different to other people. After reading about neurotypical "small talk" I then realised that it wasn't an invitation to talk about weather patterns or my favourite pastimes at great length. I've now learned to do short replies to "how are you?" or " how was your weekend? " and then ask "what about you?". I look for prompts from others as to when they are interested in what I have to say, so I know it's ok to talk more about something, and if I accidentally interrupt I apologise.
I do want to say though that I think that it would not hurt for neurotypical people to be trained to communicate more like we do. For example, why say "it's warm today, isn't it?" if you don't want to know about what is causing that weather, or to get a reply like " actually, I feel quite cold". Why not just say "hi" and smile at someone if you don't really want a conversation with them? Also, if a neurotypical person asks "how are you" and an autistic person replies " I'm not doing too well actually " don't just say something like "sorry to hear that" and move on, try to gently find out what they are struggling with. Autistic people are at much higher risk of mental health issues and suicide, and sometimes would benefit by just having someone listen to them.