Written vs. Verbal communication.

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Intentionally or unintentionally, I've noticed that in certain situations, usually involving verbal conversations, especially in group meeting settings, or with unexpected conversations I'm not prepared for, such as phone calls, I am easily "snowed."

If you are not sure what I mean by "snowed," please see the following link for an explanation:

http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/i ... w+job.html

That is the definition of "snow job," but I'm not necessarily speaking of intentional attempts to hide the truth, though intentional attempts are included in this problem. Sometimes though, the result of verbal communication is the same, even if it's not intentional. I often come away with the wrong impression of what was said, or missing important points, through no fault of others.

I don't think it matters whether the "snow job" is intentional. I do think in some situations it isn't the deliberate intention of others to snow me, nonetheless it tends to happen whenever I am involved with verbal communications.

I should mention that I have both ADD (fairly severe), and an ASD (PDD-NOS). Certain aspects of Autism do play into this. Specifically, i believe, my abilities to deal with having been snowed after discovering I have been are rooted in Autism. The fact that it happens to begin with however, I believe is firmly rooted in ADD.

I can't retain everything that happens in group meetings, or unexpected one on one conversations, so I tend to filter them, retaining only those few pieces of information I find are important to me. This means I often miss many things that are important to others. I don't usually discover that I've missed other important details until after the fact, which means that certain things happen afterward I am not prepared for. As a result, when most communication with a person or group is verbal, I'm constantly playing "catch-up."

These "catch-up" situations sometimes are numerous and overwhelming. That's when my Autism kicks in, causing me to freeze up (shut down or "ignore" ~ but it's not really ignoring ~ it's a "time-out" span of time I need to assess the situation, and review what happened that caused me to miss whatever it was). Autism also causes some kind of "flash-backs" to previous situations (of which there are MANY), which causes a kind of temporary PTSD thing.

Once I identified what I believed to be the causes of these stressors, I have begun to insist that all of the most important issues I need to deal with involving others, whether in groups or individually, be dealt with in WRITING. When I have a written record to refer to, I can see things I normally miss with verbal communication. I still miss some things at first, but if I have it writing to review, I can at least find what I missed if I need to, and I don't have to remember exactly what was said. Having it all in writing also allows ME to find things I forgot to say, or to realize if I've misstated anything.

I'm trying to figure out exactly which parts of this problem are rooted in ADD and which parts are rooted in Autism. What I outlined above is just guess work, but it seems to fit. I want to know kind of cement in my head how the two affect each other. To do this, I'm asking here, where the focus is mostly on Autism, but I will also be asking the same questions on an ADD forum too.


When you reply, I would like to ask that you please include whether or not you have ADD/ADHD along with Autism. I believe the two interact with each other, and knowing whether you do or do not have ADD will help me categorize your answers. Don't know if it'll help, but it may.




Do you, or do you not have ADHD (or ADD)?

My questions, relating this specifically to Autism:

How typical do you think this is this with Autism?

I'm sure this happens to others with Autism, but I'm really wondering how MUCH of a problem this really is.

Do you think others with Autism feel as strong a need to have important things in writing?

Do you think most, if not all, Autistics have that much trouble with verbal communications? (Specifically in the way I described above (being "snowed")?)

Do most Autistics experience feeling as if they've been "snowed" on a regular basis?

(I am also asking these same questions on an ADD forum where most users have ADD, but not Autism, to get ADD/non-Autistic perspective as well.)

Thank you in advance!

Last edited by MrXxx on 01 Dec 2011, 5:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Snow job?

Yeah. More like a blizzard than a flurry.

Just so you know:

I just edited one sentence in the OP that didn't make sense. This was copied and pasted and edited from the other forum, and I missed one thing.

This:

is now this:

More seriously, I cannot work in sales or any such thing where negotiating is necessary. I am both too transparent and have no ability to know when someone is withholding information. I think this is related to Theory of Mind. I am transparent because I assume my knowledge is their knowledge and do not see withholding of knowledge because I do not normally wish to withhold any.

Do you find though, that communication in writing solves any of this for you? Is this kind of thing more likely to happen with verbal communication than with written?

(Maybe I should change the topic line, because that's more what this is really about, I think.)

EDIT: Subject line changed.

I greatly prefer written communication. It can help the "snow job" aspect somewhat, in part because written language is more precise. I also think that written communication leaves a trail. I can go back and explicitly reference what someone stated. But verbal conversation is subject to selective memory and outright denials.

If it is in writing, I've got you dead to rights. This works on both directions so I am careful what I write as well. I think it helps keep things above board and more honest.

Ooo, can I answer? I'm posting on the autism board but I'm card-carrying ADHD Since I'm not official as both I'm not sure how helpful you'll find this, but I much prefer written communication over verbal. Since I sometimes can't remember details of things even if they are important to me 30 seconds after I hear it, it really helps me to have something written to refer back to for clarification and as a reminder of dates and times. It also helps avoid those awkward situations when I am sure I heard someone tell me something specifically (oddly, sometimes my memory is really good; it's almost like I am listening to a recording of someone speaking) and they insist that they didn't say it. I have a tendency to get upset when someone questions something I'm really certain about so if there is any way I can get communications in writing, I do.

i have AS, but not ADHD. i prefer written communication, not because i forget or don't catch what people say, but because i don't think fast enough to reply in a verbal conversation. in a group, the topic has changed by the time i think of my contribtion.

Wow! I can't believe I hadn't thought of that, but that is yet another reason I need things in writing! Thanks for reminding me. Also, this has occurred to me before, and I've always considered this aspect as purely ASD, and not ADD related. Great point! Thanks again!

No, you can't.

No, of course you can answer. I've got this posted on an ADD forum too. There are hardly any Autistics there, so most of the replies there will be ADD only. Here, a lot more of us have both. I only want to know what everyone does or does not have in the hopes that it'll help me differentiate between which reasons for needing things in writing are ADD related, and which are Autism related. Not many answers yet, but so far the replies from everyone fit what I've been thinking.

Having both myself, it's sometimes hard to tell which side of me affects what.

What you describe sounds very much like troubles I also have. I have to attend lectures for my classes, and I honestly think that the lectures just confuse me. If i took the textbook and spent a couple weeks with it all by myself I think I'd undertand the material dozens of times better than I do at the end of a long semester of anxiety and grades that don't reflect the amount of time I spend studying.

Also, I find most of my textbooks do something that could be called "snowing" if I get that term right, and the textbook can confuse me too, so I have to go to the library and find other textbooks that make more sense, that don't glaze over things they think are too advanced, or use stupid long off-topic analogies to explain things I thought I understood until then. So, I suppose I'm saying that I don't just need things in writing; I need them in very formal, proper, detailed, focused writing.

Until a few months ago I catalogued many details of my life, writing at least a page per day about what happened that day and thoughts I had. Life has been really tough since I stopped doing that, from lack of time ( a cycle). I'm always in catch up mode, and find myself during lectures very often thinking, "i'll just go read the book on that". But i end up with tons of questions which I have to find special people to answer.

the "flashback" thing is interesting. I have a lot of flashback type thoughts sometimes about things with which I don't understand the connection to the circumstances of moment that I have them. I was in lecture the other day and suddenly remembered a time that I was taking a bus to Chicago sometime in the winter and it stopped at a gas station, where the passengers got out for a stretch. I got out and stood outside on the curb around one of those little rock islands in parking lots where lamp posts are often rooted, and I looked out at some foresty area with many trees behind the station. I suddenly remembered all of this, with temperature, strength of the breeze, etc, all in such detail, in the middle of a math lecture. Why, i have no idea, but I know its related to anxiety. I have a hard time believing this is an ADD thing. To have an attention deficit seems to mean that you have an attention deficit ( that's kind of what I gather from the name of the disorder). My memory i just mentioned wasn't some high energy thing bouncing around in my head. It felt intentional. Such memories always do, and I often find later on that they were relevant to the circumstances at the time, I just didn't pick up on it in the moment, because I was awed by the intensity of it. And other times, such as when I'm at home I run through many memories in a long stream of trying to figure out why something in particular is happening or how to interact with someone I'm actually beginning to be friends with, and Its like going through a huge Encyclopedia of incects after finding a bug on the ground, to find out the name of it and what other insects its related to, which is growing patterns, or just making them clearer. That is intense focus, categorization, using patterns to deal with life, it just takes up time, and you can't finish as much as youd like to before someone is barking at you to turn in some dumb assignment that they put little care into writing out in proper English. And the you're called ADD just because you didn't meet someone else's arbitrary deadline set by an impersonal standard.

I find written communication better than verbal because:

1 - I don't have to deal with body language or verbal tones/inflections.

2 - With written communication I don't have to answer in real time, right away. I can read it over and over to establish a better meaning, and even ask someone else to help clarify things I might not be sure of.

3 - I can then purposely put together my reply, making sure it addresses the issues and says exactly what I mean it to say.

There are still possible issues in trying to decipher hidden meanings in the words/grammar, but again, I can consult others or refer to similar things I may have dealt with before.

I also prefer writing because it gives me more time to prepare my replies and I can do this in a quiet environment. I don't do well in verbal conversations because I'm slower than others or get easily overwhelmed or even overloaded. Listening to people and speaking burns me out.

@ Merculangelo

I'm not sure we're talking about the same kind of flash-back. What I was referring to are more like emotional flash-backs. The same emotions will pop up that occurred during previous incidents of misunderstandings. These kinds of misunderstandings, whether they be from me forgetting something that was said to me, or other's misinterpreting things I said, the emotion caused by it is the same, but it builds up over time from it happening so many times.

This is caused by Autism, not ADD. But even though Autism plays something of a role in the initial misunderstanding, ADD plays a bigger role with the lack of retention of verbal information. I do miss a lot of the unspoken stuff too, and that is mostly from the Autism, but the impact of that is not as troublesome as the missed or lost verbal information retention problem from ADD. It's more troublesome because the unspoken has never really meant much to me anyway, so I don't even care about it. I do though, have the capacity to organize written communication so as to be able to retrieve and analyze it any time I need to. Even if I forget something written, I can just look it up again. I can't do that with the spoken word. So I do have the capacity to utilize words. I do it all the time. That's what makes it more frustrating to have to deal with verbal communication, because I can't so it with that. Body language and facial stuff isn't any help to me to speak of anyway, so it's no big deal to me to miss that.

It is the Autism that kicks in the frustration associated with missing spoken information. It is the Autism that causes knee jerk reactions when that happens. I get angry, because it happens too much, and whenever it happens again, it feels like an emotional flash back that brings up every other time that's happened.

So ADD for the most part starts the cycle, but when the cycle comes full circle, Autism kicks in and internal "fight back" reactions start brewing.

I also prefer written communications for another couple of reasons I didn't mention, and just thought of.

As far as body language is concerned, it levels the playing field. Nobody gets to use it so I don't have to worry about anything going on that I'm not aware of but everyone else is. There is a caveat to that though. NT's don't like being asked to forgo personal F2F communication, because they're more efficient at it because of body language. Plus, speech is just plain faster than writing. So the advantage for me is really a disadvantage for them.

There is one other advantage to writing, and that's mine, but not necessarily a disadvantage for NT's, but it can be. I find it far easier to catch inconsistencies in things others say when it's in writing, because they're right there on the page. That's a HUGE advantage for me, because I happen to be pretty good at catching them in writing. Better than most, I think.

I have found that once some people begin to realize this, they tend to avoid writing anything to me, and start trying to engage me on the phone, or coerce me into face to face meetings. For the first time in my life, I'm now INSISTING everything important be communicated in writing. I don't even answer my phone anymore when the schools call. I let them leave voice mails (almost as good as writing, because I can save and replay them), but I'll answer the voice mails with email.

I've got one person right now (the kid's school case manager) who is doing her level best to avoid writing anything to me. She used to do it all the time, but once I started pointing out certain inconsistencies in her messages, she suddenly started calling me again. i just refused to answer the phone, and gave her written notice to communicate by email only. I've written her several times this school year, and she's only written back a few times, even though email communication with us is WRITTEN into all of our son's IEP's.

I just caught her in violation of one IEP recently. She's trying to get the clause being violated changed to reflect what she's actually already doing, which is in violation of the current IEP. Nice huh? I never would have caught that if all the recent communication had been verbal.

Ditto.

Overwhelmed and overloaded = Both Autism and ADD

I think the slowness is a blend of Autism and ADD for me too, but I'm not sure. Maybe different causes from each, but one thing I'm pretty sure of is the slowness is worse with both than it would be with either one or the other.