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'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.