Non verbal communication

I have great difficulty with non-verbal communication - I see faces but as their expressions change so rapidly, I can't spot the default state which means I can't work out the smaller changes which carry so much information. It's a continually changing set of photos that have no story linking them together. I spend so long analysing each photo that I get backed-up and run out of processing ability.

This is ok for a lot of 'data transfer' conversations like "What have you been doing recently?" or " How was your holiday?" but useless for when people are talking about feelings or personal / relationship things.

Luckily, I've always worked in all-male engineering environments so my limitations were easy to hide - blokes don't tend to do fluffy 'feelings' conversations.

I spot large, obvious body language movements but nothing subtle.

I really don't see that I could be taught to be better at it all because it seems to be a data processing problem - sort of a hardware limitation rather than a set of rules limitation.

I have no experience of teaching kids so I've no idea how effective this training could be.

I have great difficulty with non-verbal communication - I see faces but as their expressions change so rapidly, I can't spot the default state which means I can't work out the smaller changes which carry so much information. It's a continually changing set of photos that have no story linking them together. I spend so long analysing each photo that I get backed-up and run out of processing ability.

This is ok for a lot of 'data transfer' conversations like "What have you been doing recently?" or " How was your holiday?" but useless for when people are talking about feelings or personal / relationship things.

Luckily, I've always worked in all-male engineering environments so my limitations were easy to hide - blokes don't tend to do fluffy 'feelings' conversations.

I spot large, obvious body language movements but nothing subtle.

I really don't see that I could be taught to be better at it all because it seems to be a data processing problem - sort of a hardware limitation rather than a set of rules limitation.

I have no experience of teaching kids so I've no idea how effective this training could be.

I'm not entirely sure what AAC is but I'm  going to guess that it means things like PECs which is a series of cards with all sorts of symbols on so people can communicate with having to speak. This can go both ways of explaining something to an autistic person or allowing the autistic person to communicate without speaking. There is also makaton which is hand gestures, a bit like sign language. This is very common for non verbal autistic people. There are also some electronic things with symbols the person can press and it'll speak for them. They can be very useful tools. We use PECs type symbols in the school I work in. It is very effective. 

I think there can be a misconception that these things only benefit those with limited language but it also benefits those with lots of language but struggle with processing and interpreting body language. For example, if there's a child I know struggles with facial expression and may assume they are in trouble when being spoken to, I can show them a smiley face card or a thumbs up card and then they know it's ok and they are not in trouble. It can also be used to help a child that finds it difficult to know when to stop talking. Showing them a symbol of an ear gives them this visual cue. It can be used much further than this where full sentences can be communicated.

I think it should be a much more widespread tool. Especially with the use of iPads etc these days which could hold large banks of symbols.

I hope I've got the right idea of what the original poster meant. I don't think it's very easy to learn body language. I find I do actually know what a lot of body language means if given one example but when someone is talking and it's going too fast I can't work it out. I do think it's possible to learn a particular persons body language though if they are very familiar to us. I don't know if this is the same for everyone.

No, I don’t think we can be taught to be better at reading body language. Well we probably could, but it’s not easy so we would have to have a very big desire to do so. I have tried, on several occasions, but I never got anywhere with it, apart from thinking that everyone who scratches their nose is lying! ~ so I don’t even try now. And I don’t do personal feelings or relationship types of conversations either, I don’t recognise my own emotions so there’s no chance of me spotting them in someone else, and if someone cries in front of me, I don’t  have a clue what to do beyond walking away or asking if they can do that at another time or place, one where I’m not there!!!! 

I’m not sure this post is about learning to read body language though. But it might be. I just took it as being about different ways of communicating other than using verbal language.