Speaking My Way, Not Their Way: Autism & Building Confidence To Communicate
Overview on how communication can be a struggle for autistic people and tips one can take to become more better when communicating with others.
Communication skills is a very important and essential skill to have that is necessary to progress forward in life but quite of lot of people aren’t as confident as they think they are when it comes to communicating effectively and establishing rapport with others that can lead to building genuine connections. Every autistic person has the desire to be effective communicators and build connections with others but many lack the confidence or know-how to go about it.
Autism is a spectrum that varies from classic autism where the individual needs support in life and has speech impairment, to high-functioning Asperger’s Syndrome where the individual doesn’t have issues with speech and can live independent lives. One of the key criteria of autism is the concept of social interaction and how autistic people communicate with others. As autistic people view the world differently and unfortunately don’t possess the ability of non-autistic people of knowing the art of small talk and the unspoken ‘hidden’ rules of socialisation. That said, it would be wrong to categorise all autistic people by saying that they’re all the same, comes across rude or arrogant when not responding to others, speak in a flat or monotone voice, don’t respect personal boundaries and don’t show manners and empathy towards others. These things aren’t done with malicious intention or cause harm to others, but mainly autistic people do struggle to understand social norms, how to response to sarcasm made by others and what reactions are appropriate to any given situation.
As a high-functioning autistic person, I’ve always struggled with understanding social norms and sarcasm when in a social environment and have moments where I’m sitting with a group of people but not actively engaged with that group of people. A lot of the time, it’s trying to work out what topics to talk about with others that is engaging but not controversial. I do try to engage with small talk, like discussing the weather or how the other person’s week been, but it just feels pointless to me at times. I’m always well-mannered towards others and offer to help people with opening doors for them. However, it can feel sometimes like I’m from a different universe when sitting around others and they talk about topics or situations that I can’t relate to; thus experiencing lost for words. Autistics are well-renowned for talking in great length about their special interests and do lack the awareness of when others are concentrating or not to the topics or subjects that the autistic person is communicating about. For example: my special interests range from: car enthusiast of luxury and vintage automobiles to amateur connoisseur into scotch whiskies, cognacs, wines, etc. to being passionate for British military history. Growing up as a teenager, I’ve watched and religiously followed Top Gear with Jeremy Clarkson and could always remember to specs of each car the show did reviews on and end up being like a car encyclopaedia of information. However, if I talked about my special interests in length with others and I couldn’t tell if they’re interested or not, I could be mistaken for going loopy by talking to myself with no one engaged with the conversation.
Obviously, if you’re surrounded by like-minded people, it makes it easier to discuss about your special interests; whereas being around people who don’t share the same interests as you, will make it harder to engage in conversation and ultimately build friendships. The countless times I’ve been in situations where certain topics or subjects that others discussing and you particularly don’t like or can’t relate to. Mine is talking about football with other people when I’m at my local health and leisure centre doing gym and swimming, just to get a conversation going even though I don’t like the BLOODY sport. I’m more of a snooker fan, especially when Ronnie O’Sullivan is playing. Also, with the modern age of social media and everyone using their smartphones all the time, it seems people don’t talk to one another as much as they did in the past; and people say autistic people are the ones with communication problems.
It’s not only strangers where autistic people struggle to relate to others, but also family members. Throughout my autistic life, I’ve struggled with fitting into the norm of family life and following the same steps as my father and brother, in terms of their work in electrical and mechanical engineering settings. Myself, on the other hand, I’m not naturally gifted in these kinds of work and been seen as an outsider as a result. They can talk for hours non-stop about their work because they are related and I wasn’t able to contribute as I didn’t have the understanding of their work. I was more gifted with a good head for numbers and business, so I set out to train to become an accountant, which the male side of my family couldn’t relate to, so I felt on my own and with no one to discuss my career choice. I had to learn overtime to not let those feelings get to me and constantly remind myself whatever I’m working on, in terms of improving my skills and carving a life of my own, I’m doing what works for me and everything I do is for my own benefit rather than anyone else. The key is that you don’t have to be a master of communication but develop your skills enough to get through life and prosper forward to the highs that you want to achieve.
The recommendations I give to help autistic people to become more confident in their communication.
Treat developing your communication skills like you would overcoming anxiety and mental health.
Now, you’ll be thinking: how on earth does communication and mental health relate to one another? When a person struggles with communication, outside of a physical or severe cognitive disability, it stems from a disposition that is anxiety-related and the person perceives the act of communicating with others a fear-provoking situation. You also have to consider that autistic people are more likely to be introverts rather than extroverts. Growing up as an autistic child, I was shy, didn’t have a lot of friends and my communication was limited to close family and when I was spoken to which required a reply. I was also a late developer with my speech and didn’t speak properly until I was around five or six years old; which a lot of autistic children have challenges with at a young age and do require speech therapy to help them overcome their speech difficulties. I did overcome my speech difficulties and was able to converse very well, whilst still being shy and didn’t understand the nature of small talk.
I think one of the many reasons why I was bullied at secondary school was because I was shy and kept myself to myself, which made me an easy target to bullies. These experiences didn’t help with my confidence at all and pushed my development further back. Once I got into teenage years and early adulthood and overcoming anxiety, I realised that to stand up for myself as an autistic person, I would need to learn to use my voice more strongly and develop the communication skills I need to get through life but never forget who I am as an autistic person. I know it sounds easier than putting it into practice, but if you take small steps at a time and practice speaking to people without fear or worrying what to say, the better you will become with speaking to people. Developing and exercising your voice is very important to stand by your values and your needs as an autistic person; whilst building a more determined, resilient and proactive attitude.
Always approach communications with a kind and well-mannered attitude and determined mindset.
When greeting people in general, always remember to be kind and have your manners with you at all times. Over the years, I have witnessed the decline in people having their manners and not showing consideration towards others. I’ve always been taught that people judge and remember you by the kindness you show and the manners you display to others. Growing up in a autism specialist school as a child, I was taught to have manners and show respect towards others even before my speech was fully developed. It’s not trying to be perfect at saying it, it’s the principle of trying and distilling those values from an early age, which benefits you as you get older. That experience along with other experiences growing up as a child and teenager, as moulded me into the person that I’m today. That said, autistic people shouldn’t have a problem with learning this principle as, from what I have witnessed over the years, they’re some of the most kindest, well-mannered and lovely people you will ever meet. Obviously, you’ll get some bad apples, as with any other group in society, but the majority of autistic people are good people that are disadvantaged by society and have to deal with various challenges to be able build and live a life for themselves. Let’s strive as a supportive community to set an example to the world of the kindness, uniqueness and positives that autistic people can exhilarate and achieve greatness in our own measures.
Consider using physical and visual aids that can help with communicating with others.
This is mainly for autistic children but using cards that illustrate an activity or instruction is very helpful when their communication with others is limited and especially when they’re in anxiety-induced situations, like: busy public places. I remember as a child having a flowchart and pictures that represent activities or actions that one need to take in order and each picture had velcro on the back to stick them on the flowchart in a sequence of when each one need to be done by. Example: having breakfast followed by doing your ablutions and then getting on the bus to go to school and so on. This process also helped children that have cognitive functioning disability. Also, autistic people use certain items that they carry on their persons, as a stimming exercise to deal with anxious situations and to articulate what they're saying when communicating with others. For myself, I always have a pen in my hand or close by as a stimming object to articulate what I’m visualising in my head. To most non-autistic people, they’ll find this act weird but not to me as it has become a habit that I’ve become immune of noticing and just makes sense to me.
Naturally, all children do grow out of this and, with speech therapy, will become better with communicating with others and articulating what their needs are and what they require at any given moment. Articulating their individual needs does come with having growing confidence and, as a society, we need to do a lot more to help and encourage them, with the right parameters, to illustrate what their needs are and how we can meet them. Remember, every autistic child is different and what works for one child might mean the opposite to another.
The more you practice, the better you become.
Obviously, to get better with communication and talking to others, you have to practice more. If you’re a person that suffers massively with anxiety and fear, which a majority of autistic people do, it might seem like a mountainous challenge to go from being a shy person to becoming a confident person when it comes to the art of communication and building rapport with others. Similar with combatting anxiety, the only way to overcome fear of communication is by putting yourself in fear-provoking situations and, with consistent practice, your fear will dissipate over time and you’ll become better at it. As I mentioned earlier, I got better with talking to others by listening to whatever topic or subject they’re talking about and participate in that conversation. You’ll think that is counter-initiative to everything I’ve mentioned in this newsletter but reframe these thoughts and use these conversations with others as opportunities to grow your communication skills and increase your confidence surrounding it. Some topics or subjects won’t make sense to you at times and that is okay; you don’t have to force yourself to participate in a discussion if you don’t want to. On the other hand, if the topics are relatable to you, this gives the uplift and opportunity you need to become better with communicating with others.
To conclude, autistic people do have amazing potential to become great and confident communicators, however it can seem that anxiety or fear as well as the right parameters can be the barriers that holds them back from overcoming their fears about communication. As communication is part of everyday life, it’s important that autistic people can converse with confidence without fearing about what other people might think or allow past mistakes from holding them back and develop the ability of building rapport with others. By using the recommendations I’ve laid out above, they can be more confident in articulating their individual needs and the ability stand up for themselves as human beings and not let their autism stand in their way. That said, never forget who you are as an individual and only focus on improving your communication skills to benefit you and only you, not anyone else. Invision the confident person you want to become and, with determination and consistent effort, you’ll go on to achieve it.