communication tips

hello, 

do you have any tips for me to be able to convey to someone with possible ASD on trying to understand someone else's point of view, I know things like 'if you would put yourself in their shoes' isn't a good idea and most people have trouble with this way of grasping things.. 


  • I kept my answer as general as possible because I don't know you or your situation anything like well enough to tell exactly what you should do. The reason for their reluctance to open up may be completely unrelated to their autism for all I know, and being autistic makes a person neither an angel nor a demon.

    There are examples of every combination of autistic person/non-autistic person that work wonderfully, and examples of every combination which don't work out at all. There are countless different reasons why two people might be incompatible, and autistic traits can be among them for some combinations of people, but they're not necessarily.

    The bottom line is that there's no magic formula for making an autistic person, or any other person, able to see things from a certain perspective if they either can't or don't want to. If a compromise where you meet each other half-way could be found, you'd still have to accept that "half way" might not be as much emotional reciprocation as you expect from this relationship. I can't tell you where that line is.

  • So you think it is just that we are too different then? I’m just trying to address something with this person as we were so close before but now it’s like a million miles away

  • Rather ironically, your post is a perfect example of not being able to put yourself in someone else's shoes!

    The problems of "theory of mind" are not one sided - this is the so called "double empathy problem". Your exasperation at the other person's apparent "refusal" is the mirror image of their difficulties with emotional reciprocation. While I appreciate that we all use language somewhat loosely, accusing them of pre-meditated "refusal" hints that you're projecting assumptions based on your own thinking onto theirs - a failure of your "theory of mind". When you are interacting with them, you are as impaired as they are, because you can't put yourself in their shoes any more than they can put themself in yours, and it sounds like you are experiencing a form of the same frustration which may have been a lifelong problem for them.

    I think this is a very important concept to remember whenever anyone is trying to help autistic people. Putting yourself in someone else's shoes depends to a certain extent on there being likenesses between two people's minds. Autistic people are deemed to be impaired in this respect only because we are in the minority, and it's common that we are more often misunderstood than being the ones who are doing the misunderstanding. We're just expected to suck this up without reacting to it externally all the time, and have grown up doing that, so when we put ourselves in another person's shoes, it's not altogether surprising that we expect them to have an equally thick skin, so to speak.

    I realise there's no specific advice there - just food for thought, and meant in good faith even if I was unable to find any softer words to express it!

  • I'm happy to PM. I've sent you a friend request (I think we need to be friends in order to send PMs).

  • i did the "sallyanne" test yesterday because I have never heard of it before and thinking I would pass it without issue because it for children. I failed it.

  • Hello Duck thank you for your offer on more help. would you be open to discussing this in PM? 

  • Yes but in this scenario the person refuses to understand or attempt to “put themselves in another person’s shoes” even given specifics they still don’t grasp the emotional part of the actions that happened  and the consequences for such which i know is difficult for most ASD but atleast acknowledge that the other party would be affected Maybe this person will never understand it then...

  • For me, being told to put myself in.someone else's shoes, was a communication breakthrough and a novelty that improved my communication skills.

  • i think you are trying to teach someone with ASD, the "theory of mind" which is something we have difficulty with. Am I correct ?

  • Hi. I might need some more info - what's your relationship to the individual with possible ASD, and what kind of situation are you trying to get them to understand?