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foreign language

Jon

On the NAS site its says:

'If you have Asperger syndrome, understanding conversation is like trying to understand a foreign language'.

I am not all together sure what this actually means. Is it that true for all Aspies? Understanding a foreign language is impossible if you do not know it. Would that not mean that communication is impossible?

Any thoughts?

Parents

  • longman said:

    Perhaps it would be more accurate to say "might as well be a foreign language". It's not that you know that its another language, just that it doesn't make sense to you as the hearer.

    I lose coherence when there is background noise. A social location where other pepople around me are engaged in other conversations and where there is background music and other noise. 

    Somehow I lose the reference point in what someone is saying to me, and it ceases to sound like english. My own way of looking at this is my "translator" seems to have gone off line.

    Usually if I ask to be excused a moment or mask with a cough, and at the same time move nearer a wall or so the sounds come from one direction, the clarity comes back.

    This isn't apparently peculiar to autism. People with some forms of dyslexia get this also.

    I think I might get this too - but I'm not sure - I've always kind of thought it must be the same for everyone is such noisy environments - and that many people just do the nodding and smiling thing, 'cos in that kind of social environment it usually seem that what is being said doesn't really seem to matter - but maybe not...

    hmm... I'm going to have study this, next time it happens...

    (oh and, longman, I'm becoming more and more convinced your initial feelings about 'you know who' are probably right)

Reply

  • longman said:

    Perhaps it would be more accurate to say "might as well be a foreign language". It's not that you know that its another language, just that it doesn't make sense to you as the hearer.

    I lose coherence when there is background noise. A social location where other pepople around me are engaged in other conversations and where there is background music and other noise. 

    Somehow I lose the reference point in what someone is saying to me, and it ceases to sound like english. My own way of looking at this is my "translator" seems to have gone off line.

    Usually if I ask to be excused a moment or mask with a cough, and at the same time move nearer a wall or so the sounds come from one direction, the clarity comes back.

    This isn't apparently peculiar to autism. People with some forms of dyslexia get this also.

    I think I might get this too - but I'm not sure - I've always kind of thought it must be the same for everyone is such noisy environments - and that many people just do the nodding and smiling thing, 'cos in that kind of social environment it usually seem that what is being said doesn't really seem to matter - but maybe not...

    hmm... I'm going to have study this, next time it happens...

    (oh and, longman, I'm becoming more and more convinced your initial feelings about 'you know who' are probably right)

Children
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