alex doesn't have Asperger's

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I don't think it's at all universal which parts of communication we do and don't pick up on.

I know that if I'm paying enough attention to catch the words, I'm not going to catch much else. But I have to work pretty hard to catch the words, and minus that work (or minus the possibility of it yielding results) I pick up a fair amount of nonverbal communication.

I still get the sense that the parts of nonverbal communication that I get aren't totally the same as the parts of nonverbal communication that most people get. Which is why I have had seemingly contradictory reputations as both "so perceptive you can't fool her" and "really dense at reading people" at nearly the exact same time.

I think all of that is also a reason it's taken awhile for research to seem to catch up with the fact that autistic people are not totally devoid of nonverbal communication abilities despite the fact that people at least since Temple Grandin (which is awhile) have been saying things like "I can listen to the words or hear the tone of voice but not both," and since Donna Williams described extreme perceptiveness about reading people at the same time as extreme naivete about reading people.

I have never thought it particularly good that most of the tests of reading body language in autistic people require using or understanding language while taking the test.

Nor have I thought it particularly good that the parts of body language that we are tested on reading are parts that ordinary people have an easy time reading. However I haven't figured out what to do about that part, because as far as I know ordinary people don't have an easy time reading (and presumably consequently don't know about) the kinds I find the easiest to read.

And even worse is the fact that many of the tests of reading body language use actors. Actors don't act natural body language. Actors act stage conventions. The ability to read stage conventions is not the same as the ability to read body language.

There have been some recent attempts to rectify this, with results that (predictably, at least to me) contradict the idea that autistic people don't read body language, period.

A particular anecdote about nonverbal cues and all that, for those who aren't appalled by the notion that autistic people can observe things about our lives without having specialists around to declare our observations accurate:

I had a social worker at one point who creeped me out immediately upon meeting her.

She also immediately creeped an autistic friend out, even over the telephone.

I don't know what my friend heard in her voice, but what I saw in the way she moved was that she was deliberately projecting an image that was completely separate from who she was, and that who she was was not only terrified but potentially vicious. I couldn't, at all, read the image that she was projecting. Not even a little.

I found out soon enough, though, because every non-autistic person I talked to found her delightful and nice or something. Which I found quite peculiar because she was neither. (By the way a lot of people, I'd even say most people, project at least a bit of a false image of themselves out of insecurity or something without being nasty people. But she came across as nasty.)

To make a long story short, all of the non-autistic people I mentioned found out the hard way that she was in fact quite vicious, and had done some unspeakably cruel things to clients, beyond the usual level of bureaucratic callousness I mean. She also, before people found out how awful she was, ended up earning the trust of her coworkers until they confided a lot of things in her in everyday conversation. She would hold onto all that information and use it to get them fired, or blackmail them into quitting, if they started sticking up for clients too much.

And the only people who saw it coming out of anyone I knew were me and another autistic person -- from her nonverbal communication.

Not that I think all autistic people have the same abilities at reading nonverbal communication as each other, but it's certainly not at all unheard of for us to pick up on aspects of nonverbal communication that other people can't. And I've noticed that those of us who have trouble understanding language often pick up on body language easier (during periods when we're not processing for language, whether that's always or just a lot of the time), which makes me think it's often a matter of how many things we can juggle at once, rather than a flat-out inability. I think some people get sort of "locked" into an all-verbal no-nonverbal (or close to it) mode, but it's not by any means the only mode an autistic person can function in.

Personally, my best times for reading nonverbal cues (but still not the same ones as usual) are when I'm not having to use or process language, and when I'm not having to insert myself in the middle of the interaction and thus track what I'm supposed to do within it. Also, in retrospect when the information finally filters in past all the other things I was trying to pay attention to at the time. (Just as verbal information I often can't understand at the time but comes to me later.) So if you ever see me looking my most oblivious, be aware that's probably my most aware. It's just that if I move all my body parts into "looking aware" then I'm using up energy I could be using on awareness, weird how that works.

In some ways the experts' pronouncements on that one become a self-fulfilling prophecy, though. I spoke to a scientist about all this once, and she was talking about how she hadn't heard of autistic people reading nonverbal cues. And I asked her, of the parents she worked with, how many said their autistic kids could read even small amounts of tension easily. She was pretty stunned and said "Every single one of them, but I couldn't figure out how to fit that into what I'd heard about autistic people not reading nonverbal cues, so I just didn't think about it."

Which I've also heard from parents. That their kids have some kind of preternatural ability to sense the moods of people around them. It's not preternatural at all. It's only preternatural in comparison to an expectation that they not be able to read nonverbal cues (and I can see someone even thinking "Autistic people can't read nonverbal cues, so my kid isn't reading nonverbal cues, so they're just picking it up out of the air or something", instead of just re-examining their assumptions about what autistic people can do). And I suppose it could also seem preternatural to someone who can't read the same cues their autistic kid is reading, and therefore believes they don't exist. But it's not, it's just reading different cues, and reading cues when we're not expected to be.

Nonverbal cues:

With people I don't know, I cannot read it at the time and listen, but given a period of time (minutes to years), I understand the body language of the individual, and what their actual intent is. I've finished interacting by this time, but I get it eventually. A delay in such in my case.

I don't exhibit any that's discernable by "normal" people, except to my mother who I smile at, laugh with, etcetera. She can see past my "blank" look that's interpreted in many ways by people who don't know me (most are wrong).

I have an uncanny ability to read into emotional inflection people put into their voices if I've been given an example before; I know when my mother is feeling an emotion, and I, naturally point it out to her. I'm right most times, and concerning most people, no matter how slight their emotional tone.

I so identify with what Anbuend posted.

It has confused me a lot, this combination of high (and accurate) sensitivity, with low ( woefully out of synch), sensitivity to what's going on.

Especially the split/conflict between verbal and non-verbal in that using verbal tends to shut off the non-verbal. I really am more "intelligent" about/with people in the flesh when I tell myself not to talk, not to try to understand what people are saying.

Am just wondering whether this might have something very important to do with why the best longest lasting sexual relationship I have had was with the papa of my son, who is french and who I met when I could still hardly speak or understand the language.

Interesting topic, how verbal/language is/can be so alienating/disabling.

I had decided that I didn't have anything else I could contribute to the thread then it took the turn it did. For a couple of years I have been thinking about this idea of having acute sensitivity to others' emotional states and how it didn't seem to relate to what I have been reading about the Autism Spectrum. I wonder if the following mechanism is at work.

High sensitivity to emotions might relate to a brain-based disconnect. Much like a blind person develops acute touch, smell and hearing to compensate for the lack of sight, perhaps people with autism sometimes develop acute sensitivity to the emotions of others because there is a disconnect with their own emotions functioning "normally" and the sensitivity is a compensation. As a personal example, I have wondered, over the years, why my immediate family has commented that I am more aware of emotional states than anyone in the family (you can't easily pull the wool over my eyes), yet I isolate/protect myself from emotionally-charged interactions more than anyone else in my family. If I observe without interacting, I am great at reading non-verbal signals, but if I am interacting on a level that brings up emotional stress, my ability to accurately "read" others shuts down. I believe that I self-protect because I am sensitive, and that I am sensitive because I have compensated for not having efficient emotional intuition in stressful situations (my intellect and emotions don't work as effectively to produce "typical" emotional intuition).

I've had difficulty comprehending language in a similar way. I understand and communicate with language very well, but under certain stress situations, where emotional stress is involved, my language comprehension shuts down. The two areas I have noticed this happening is at 1. parties, and 2. standardized test taking. Social gatherings, where I don't have a "script" make me anxious, and particularly if I am on a "date" which, by nature, is about the most emotionally charged experience I have had other than death. The emotional stress of a party can shut down my ability to hear - my hearing fades out and I can't follow conversations. Its annoying, but I've learned that its just the way I respond to stimuli so I try to get out of the situation and not worry too much.

Test taking, the second area, rarely went well for me in school, particularly standardized tests. I was always told I was smart, but that smartness wasn't reflected in my mediocre test performance. A couple of years ago I did an experiment on myself by taking several internet intelligence tests over the course of a couple of days. If I wasn't feeling any stress while taking a test I did very well. But on tests that had the restriction of a time limit, I began to worry that I wouldn't have time to finish, my emotional "fear" state went into overdrive, and the emotional stress actually shut down my ability to comprehend what I was reading. I was shocked that I literally couldn't understand simple phrases. But I also began to understand that emotional stress blocked my verbal / reading comprehension. Maybe this is a similar mechanism that blocks what others here have mentioned:

One thing that we innately understand about ourselves is that too many types of input, particularly emotional and language, can cancel each other out. Therefore, our stress level rises if we are trying to, or are expected to, function in situations that require both language and emotional comprehension. People, particularly "new" ones, are an emotionally stressful unknown - we don't know how they will respond to us. The emotional stress of a situation further shuts down our ability to understand both verbal and nonverbal communication, and only after our emotions have returned to our normal level, can we evaluate what we have experienced, and begin to understand what has happened. When we are in the middle of emotionally-charged interaction, we simply can't comprehend because the emotional stress blocks our comprehension.

I've personally taken great comfort in the idea that emotional stress shuts down my emotional comprehension. I do have emotions, strong ones, but sometimes I've felt (and been led to believe) that either I didn't have emotions, or that they are so damaged that they are beyond repair. Once I started realizing that there seems to be a mechanism that can shut them down, I've been reacquainting myself with my emotions and the emotions of others. I've begun to allow myself the time to understand what I have experienced in emotionally-charged interaction, even if I can only figure it out days later, and that has allowed me to start to reintegrate emotional understanding and fulfillment into my life.

Z

If Daniel is correct, then surely that would mean about half the people on WP do not have Asperger's.

Only HALF!?!?!? I would estimate closer to 80%!(There have been a lot of spammers here, and THEY don't listen.)

What you describe here is exactly how I am. I have little doubt I'm aspie anymore.

I do this too.

Same here.

GEE, most people I know must be aspies then! Ever hear women talk about gossip or their problems? How about men with sports? In fact, THEIR interests seem more narrow than mine, even though they say the opposite!

To carry on with Anbuend's thread of thought. Is this the Dexter phenomenon? I mean in opposite. You know how Dexter says that kids and animals always seem to know what he is and grown up people (except for a very few) don't get it? Perhaps we are like that. We are the sensors. I generally can get the vibe of a room if I'm not listening to the input that my system is giving me. My coworker the other day was saying that she didn't get our boss because she could never tell what sort of mood he was in. I always know exactly what mood he's in. Not that I'm able to apply it, but I generally get the vibe of him. I can tell as I approach his office without seeing him what mood he's in.

Now in a room of people I don't know really well, I have to use a different system. I've kind of developed this over years of starting new jobs on a fairly consistent basis and always being thrown into these group orientation/training situations. I have to blatantly disregard the input that I'm getting from all the noise, talking, breathing, moving about, etc. Then I just kind of see it. It's hard to describe and makes me sound a little whacked out I suppose. This is handy because I can usually figure out who to stay away from in the workplace. I also give a lot of lectures in my job field and a brief going over the crowd with my "supersense" tells me who I'm going to have to work harder at to get my point across to.

I used to be a social worker and I figured out very quickly who the bad guy was in the office. No one believed me, but I just knew not to trust her with too much personal info. Low and behold, she became the person who was instrumental to my dismissal. Imagine that!

I think it likely that (as also true in the way I do things) you are responding to sensory input, but you're not responding to anything you can understand by applying conscious logic to the situation, you're responding to patterns you're already aware of without having to think about it, so if you want to understand these things you have to stop trying to logic it out or think consciously about it in general, or else that will interfere with your better understanding of the situation.

I figured out it must really be something like that, after I realized there was a pattern to most of what I know, or can do, etc (that has gotten more pronounced if anything as time goes on, rather than less). Anything undertaken consciously or deliberately is something I'm going to struggle with greatly, but if the knowledge, movement, or whatever, gets triggered by something, then it's going to work just fine.

Which has led me to basically learn to use the conscious/voluntary/whatever stuff mostly for the purpose of steering me between one triggered movement/thought/etc and the other, or for emergencies when triggering of things isn't going to happen, and to otherwise get out of the way because some part of me knows better how to do things than I can come up by deliberately trying to think about it.

Which I suspect is just an exaggerated version of what a lot of people experience.

And which is probably not the best description of it, either. I don't know all the words for the different kinds of thinking involved. I just know that if I am consciously concentrating on various sensory input I have less ability to sit there and figure out what it actually is.

I've also found that peripheral vision tends to be best for a lot of this stuff, so for instance if I'm sitting in a group of people I'll not look directly at anyone and then I can see the entire wider pattern out of the corners of my eyes and put it together easier than if I was looking straight at them. It's almost like consciously looking or listening to one specific part of what they're doing will distract me from taking in all of what they're doing and then unconsciously figuring out what's going on.

Alex is a example to all of us who suffer from AS. I am so tired of people trying to discredit him. I think Alex has AS,and it shows . I am also tired of the people trying to DX or un-DX someone when they are not experts. Alex has done a good job tring to unite the AS community,so we can shareand understand.

WELL SAID!

AND, as far as the "experts", there ARE sites comparing many of their criteria, and THEY are left wanting ALSO. Frankly, I wish there was some objective test, hopefully a material one, that would analyze things, and give an accurate answer beyond debate.

What is the point of "discrediting" alex anyway? He had this system up for free. He hasn't said anything off the wall. He hasn't even had much interaction with the whole thing. If he was a stupid EVIL NT or a very nice altruistic AS person with a 200+ IQ, would it really make any difference if this forum was as it is?

BTW The OP here was really just trying to show how strict adherence to particular DSM criteria can be ludicrous. He wasn't really saying anything about alex, but using him as an example.

Oh, I see!

That is me to a very distinct T. I would read the question over and over for almost 5 minutes before attempting an answer, every time I read it i became more stressed. Then mid-writing I would have to go back and re-read the question to make sure I was doing it right, or to see if I missed anything.

A lot of this topic rang a lot of clarity in me. Especially Daniel's post about not realising something until some time after the occurrance. This is one of my biggest problems, and why I try and avoid confrontation on all levels. I just don't get things up front, its like I can't think fast enough to keep up. If i get in a verbal fight, i'm useless, the other person will talk circles around me, because I simply can't react quickly enough.
If something goes wrong on my phone bill or I get bad service and I attempt to complain, as soon as the other person begins resisting my complaint I hit a brick wall, say "ok" and hang up. Then later will realise "Hey, wait a second, I did this, and they did this so I can't be wrong" Then I'll call them up again with this brand new point, and they will throw up something else and its back to "oh....ok....but...what about.oh...ok bye". Wheras someone normally would go "NO, that's not ok, I want to speak to a manager".
Its not until after the event has happened I can rationalise the situation, put things into perspective and have a KILLER and I mean KILLER point, but the moment's gone usually and its too late.

I say despite some of the drivel in this topic, it be made a sticky. Perhaps it could be edited somewhat. There is a lot of REALLY useful unformation in here.