Thought...Speech...STRESS!

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I have recently discovered an interesting connection between how those with Asperger's (at least some of us) turn thought into speech, and some of the stresses to which this can lead.

I am a 55 year-old Asperger's (undiagnosed) father of a 23 year-old Asperger's (diagnosed at 4) son. I am an engineer (big surprise, 'eh?). My Myers-Brigs type is a strong INTP, and my Rizzo-Hudson ennea types are 5,1,9, and 2. What all of this boils down to is that I have a driving need to analyze and understand...well...pretty much everything, including myself. The experience of having a son with AS, and watching him grow, has taught me limitless volumes about myself, and I assume many others with AS. So it is my hope that my experiences and understanding about my own AS will help others in their quest to understand theirs.

I have always suffered from "meeting anxiety". Meetings are very stressful for me. I get very tense and my blood pressure goes up. Ultimately I just go into overload and shut down. But recent experiences with meetings, coupled with what I've observed and learned about how we process speech, has led to a very interesting revelation.

Thought to Speech

My son was diagnosed with AS at age 4, after his daycare expressed concern that he didn't socialize or converse at an age-appropriate level. While he could actually read a children's book to us, he could not convert the thoughts in his head to verbal speech. He qualified for and got assistance, which consisted of one-on-one assistance from a teacher/therapist who used, among other things, Facilitated Communication. I won't go into FC here, but it involves helping the child to actually type out what he wants to say on a handheld keyboard.

The fascinating thing about this was that my son could translate the thoughts in his head into words on paper using a keyboard, and he could translate words on paper into verbal speech, but couldn't go directly from thought to speech. He had to see the words to speak them. Of course, it did not take him long to realize that he didn't need a keyboard and paper to "see" words, he could simply visualize them in his head and "read" them verbally. He went from echolalia and simple two-word sentences ("Want milk") almost directly to conversing in full sentences.

All of this didn't seem particularly extraordinary to me at the time. After all, doesn't everyone speak by visualizing the words in their heads first? Well, apparently not. After talking with several people about this, I found that I was quite different from nearly everyone else in this respect. It turns out that, before I say anything, I have to see it in my head and think it through. While this makes my speech very correct (I rarely say something that isn't carefully thought out and exactly what I mean), it also makes it somewhat slow. I've always said that I don't "think quickly on my feet", and that I'm "not good in a face to face confrontation". This is because I can't fully think things through quickly enough to keep up in a conversation. I prefer written communication, letters and email, rather than expressing myself verbally. On paper, I'm a lion; verbally, I'm a lamb.

Over the years, I've learned to compensate for the effects of my Asperger's in many ways. When it comes to speech and conversation, I have learned to anticipate what the other party might say, and get a head start on preparing and thinking through my next response. It's very much like a big chess game, trying to anticipate my opponent's possible moves and my subsequent counter-moves. All of this happens subconsciously, without my even being aware of it. When it's my turn to speak, I find the words almost fully formed and ready for me to read out of my head. I can comfortably maintain a conversation with one or two people, especially if I know them well and can more accurately predict what they will say and how they will respond. Perhaps this is why I tend to have a small number of very good friends, and am very uncomfortable in crowded situations.

…to Stress

But what about meetings? A group of people, maybe five, ten, or twenty, gathered to talk or discuss a topic. How do I anticipate what everyone might say? The answer… I can't. I'm out of my element, and struggling to keep up. I can hold my own for a while, maybe half an hour or more, but the chess game is just too complicated. It's exhausting and I eventually overload. This is a recipe for stress. If the meeting is of a technical nature, on topics with which I'm familiar, it's a lot easier to anticipate what will be said, and I can stay afloat a lot longer. But if the meeting is on a topic with which I'm already not comfortable (people, personalities, finances and budgets), it's a lost cause. After half an hour, I'm overloaded, dazed, and completely stressed. I can't get out of the room fast enough. The longer I sit there, the greater the stress becomes. My back, shoulder, and neck muscles tense up, and my blood pressure rises.

I'm happiest and most comfortable when I'm working on my own with my computers. Writing scripts, designing and tuning networks, installing and configuring equipment… being an engineer. Everything's predictable, very little speaking, no stress. Meetings are my bane and I try to limit them, both in frequency and duration. I can't avoid them altogether, but I've made it this far.

I don't know if this is true for all Aspergians, but it is true for my son and me. I thought I'd share it and maybe help someone else.

That is interesting. I'm not aware that I visualize words, though I know there is some translation going on there between thoughts and words. I have noticed, however, that I have to visualize things that other people are telling me. For instance, there's someone I work with on occasion who is also a coder, and whenever she's explaining some code to me on the phone, I have to visualize the code in order to understand what she's talking about.

I can totally relate to what you say about meetings as well. Although I'm pretty sure 99% of all meetings are completely useless anyway.

I can agree with everything you have said, I find when I am stressed in the midst of conversation I end up only thinking of what my response is going to be and not actually listening for the majority of the time to the other person. I think I'm just so focused on trying to get a relevant answer out... I take a long time to analyst everything and the more my emotions are involved I cannot respond quickly, when I go into sensory overload I usually say nothing, but I will then send an email later on sometimes 2 or 3 days after the event stating my point of view.

This is more or less true for me, too. In stressful situations or situations in which people are talking about things with which I'm not intimately familiar, I have a really hard time going from thought to speech. I don't visualize words, though. In classes, I often try to write down my thoughts before sharing them, but unfortunately this rarely works because by the time I've written them down, the rest of the class has moved on to something else.

I don't visualize words; instead I hear myself speaking them before I write them down. If the writing is going well, I will hear and write them almost simultaneously. For speech things are different. If I'm feeling relaxed and in control, the words will "be there" and I can voice them rather than hearing them in my mind. If I'm upset, the words won't "be there" to use in the normal way; instead they will spill out from my emotions, sounding childish and confused and being accompanied by labored breathing. Naturally, I prefer to communicate through scripted speech, emails and letters. I can open a meeting, giving a detailed introduction to the business at hand, but then I pretty much have to retire and let other people talk.

wow - thank you for putting that into words! The 'lion/lamb' analogy is how I've felt for a long time. Can I steal it?!

I do much the same with speech except I don't see words... I see myself giving the speech. I'm very visually oriented. I will literally rehearse what I'm going to say to an audience in my head before I say it. Whatever way you do this, it is exactly what is taught in public speaking or even in general interview classes for the public at large - they tell you to stand if front of the mirror and literally practice what you will say. Before an interview or a meeting I will rehearse possible responses over and over again. I run my own social scripts and think up and practice responses all the time. While an NT may need this kind of reinforcement for a 'special occassion' I just need to do it on a daily basis for all interactions. But, like you, I only have the stamina and enough script for so long... it's exhausting.

If you do pursue a diagnosis and share it with your employer, they can make accomodations for you - give you opportunity to take breaks from long meeting and such. it doesn't need to be dramatic or a big deal. If small changes could help you be more productive hopefully your employeer would be willing. Also, if your challenges ever become an issue on the job, you would be protected with a dx. just a thought...

I found that I had this intuitive connection to my daughter and her challenges. They just didn't seem so weird to me and the ways to work with them seemed obvious. It was very much a 'been there, done that' sort of thing. Glad to hear another parent making some of those same connections.

Perhaps there is a connection to stuttering. I don't visualize words, always say what is on my mind (well, most of the time I feel this ). Maybe this is why I do that, but I think this is only one cause of many. There are language formulas I try to come up with right after a thought emerges. This is not at all a perfect task of my brain. I even don't finish thinking when I'm already saying the words so the further part of the sentence depends on the result of this simultaneous thinking.

I do the same thing, but rather than 'seeing' the words I store the sound of them in my auditory memory before saying them. (Or, used to, anyway.)

When I was a kid I'd build complete responses to people in my head and then recite them. That was slow, though, and by my teens people were getting impatient and/or would walk away, and so forth.

So, in my late teens I started trying to find ways to push my brain to understand and respond to people faster. (Interestingly, I just saw another thread where someone was asking about repeating what other people say to you in your head before being able to understand it. I also do that, which slows things down even more.)

The result was ending up with a sophisticated 'script' which could give fast answers, but the downside was sometimes saying things I didn't think, feel, or etc.

Then I tried not using that method, but found that my working-memory is so bad now that I can't do it the way I did it as a kid. So, I still use the 'script,' sort of, but have a lot more control over it. My speech these days is slow, stuttery, and filled with a lot of word-finding-"you know, like that... thing?" moments, but it's a lot more accurate.

I've always hated getting 'flustered' (actually not able to generate a verbal response) in discussions/arguments in real-time.

This is terrific. I've learned a lot just from your replies. It seems that many of us have the same issue, but because some of us are visual thinkers and some are auditory thinkers and some of us are conceptual or abstract thinkers, we handle the same problem in slightly different ways.

This is a fascinating topic, and I wish I had the time and resources to actually research it.

Hmmmm... I didn't mention "programmed responses", those little things that we always have ready to blurt out (without thinking) in certain situations.

I just ended a phone call with my son with the business-like "Thanks a lot...bye", rather than the "Love you, bud...talk to you soon" that I usually use. Ha ha.

Well, nothing's perfect.

That's not the case for me. The thing with me is that I have to hear words in my head, before I can speak.

I don't visualise words (or anything much), and I don't hear them either - least, I don't "hear them out, then say them", I just speak. And usually run into difficulty when the situation is even slightly complicated, like if I'm asked an open-ended question or someone asserts something I know to be incorrect. ^^

I do not visualize words as I'm thinking. I don't really think about the words much at all. It's more like I have an image in my head of what I'm thinking, and then I translate that into English, problem is sometimes this takes a few seconds. I'm really not that much better at writing than I am at talking either. I stare at a sheet of paper or a computer screen thinking about how to write something just as often as I do in conversation.

No but I have to feel or see them. I can't visualize them so the only way to see them is through text, or alternatively feeling them in my head.