Accents!?

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I have Aspergers, and I've noticed when I speak it's sounds like I come from down south in England. I've heard that people with Autism don't, or tend not to have regional accents, they tend to have wandering/drifting accents. I come from Sheffield in Yorkshire, in northern England. People say that I sound quite "posh", like I come from London, but not the posh-posh London accent, they say my Sheffield/Yorkshire accent comes out in places. I was talking to my parents once, and I came out with a Scottish accent, when I've only been to Scotland once.

But I'd like to know is there any scientific research about Autism/Aspergers/Accents? Please can people give me details. Thank You!

- It would help if you come from the UK in order to answer this question!

Sorry I can't answer your question in regards to any research that's been done on this subject.....But I have aspergers as well and have been asked many times through my life if I'm Canadian. I live in California and the Canadian accent has a rather subtle difference from ours, but since I was in middle school I have been asked by many different people where I was born because I sound like I have an accent. I think I just pronounce some words a bit differently than most people, or put an emphasis on certain words.



just my 2-cents on the subject.

Same here, I'm from Manchester but have been told that I don't sound northern or sound posh. Someone once said I sound like I am from Oxford. I haven't seen any research but it would be interesting.

I am from Rome, and when I talk to peers of the same city they say my accent is totally missing, while their is very understandable. This summer, when I went in Sardinia, the people there said that my Roman accent was missing. So yes, I think I don't have a real accent. I don't know if it has something to do with AS, but I read somewhere that aspies don't have accents, and also have problems with dialects. In my case, I have both.

In Tony Attwood's "Asperger's Syndrome: A Guide for Parents and Professionals" book, there is a section on "Prosody or the Melody of Speech" which covers this. I tried to copy and paste from a link but it doesn't let me, so here is the link:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9Tl0 ... ts&f=false

When I was a child someone asked me where I was from because they thought I had an accent, although I didn't know what they meant because I was living in the area I was born, and they didn't explain. As a younger adult I was really taken with accents and was always mimicking, my favourite was Scouse.

That happens to me, too. Going to the Caribbean hasn't helped much, either. Sometimes all it takes is for me to hear a certain accent before I start copying it, and I've been accused of being Canadian a lot.

My accent is a slack/cockney accent and I don't sound much different to other cockneys.

I have a Northern accent with North Eastern thrown in (my partner is from the NE), although English is not my mother tongue, I sound like a local. It does depend what I am listening to most at the time though - if I am listening to podcasts made by well-spoken people in London a lot, then my accent gets notably more "posh".

I am from Liverpool, UK but don't have much of an accent. Some people are able to recognise that that is where I am from but others - including other people from Liverpool - insist I sound like I am from elsewhere. I have been told I sound like I am from Scotland, Ireland, the USA, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, "the Southern Hemisphere" (because that is totally specific O_o). Personally I think I just have a relatively neutral "English" accent with a degree of Liverpool (aka Scouse) thrown in. Another way of looking at it might be to say that I am a well-spoken Scouser. Because of that I can understand if people think I am from Ireland - the Scouse accent was heavily influenced by Irish immigrants - but I have no idea where people get the rest of their, frankly bizarre, ideas about my accent from.

I'm from the South of the Netherlands and there's a thick accent here too that I don't normally use. I speak "ABN" which is indeed like the "accentless" form of Dutch taught in schools but not really spoken due to every place having its accents.


That being said, in English I can bust out pretty much any accent you can name, from Indian to Russian, from Texan to Irish, but using either "american" or "british" as normal way to colour/color (:)) my speech. I've able to do this ever since I started to speak English and made me think I was being hypnotized/abducted at night and being prepared by "some government agency" to become an international spy. .

I don't think I have a particularly Scottish accent but I can copy accents sometimes I can do welsh and Glaswegian- a very strong nasal Scottish accent- always but I sometimes pick up accents to do with special interests. But I've also always had a very expressive voice which is unlike a lot of Aspies- to the point my cousins ask me to read them a story because I read it well.

I live in Surrey in the UK and have sometimes been told that I have a "posh" or "cut glass" accent or that I use "received pronounciation" even though I come from a working-class background. At school I had to try and "roughen up" my speech in order to fit in.

I find it very hard to modify my voice. For example, I could not manage a French accent when learning the language. I found it relatively easy to "encode" English into French (and vice versa) but when I tried to speak in French the results came out in a rather machine-like way. I can't do comedy accents or impressions at all

I have a thick Norweigan accent yet I'm Australian.

I grew up with a strong regional accent.
When I moved form one place to another I started to take on aspects of those accents. I am influenced by the sounds of those about me.
I live in London and sometimes people ask me if I'm English (I am) because my accent is all mixed-up.

However, I can still slip into the accent I grew up with when people ask to hear what it's like.

I've lived all my life in the same region where I was born, and people repeatedly ask me where I'm from. I'm in Southern California and they tend to think I'm from Oregon.

I also have a difficult time not temporarily picking up accents. For instance if I spend the day around someone from the south, or from England, I start talking more and more like them. Even watching movies where people speak with accents can have this effect on me. But it's just temporary.

I once had somebody tell me that I had a Maori accent.

Everybdody else just seems to think I talk oddly, but one person says I sound just like Maori folk.

Don't know what to think about that.