Ok, this doesn't add up (Nonverbal Communication)...

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More Ganondox theorizing time. If you are offend by Ganondox theorizing please leave this thread immediately.

If autistic people are supposed to find nonverbal communication difficult, than why is it that severely autistic people find nonverbal communication easier (example, nonverbal Autists who are fluent in sign language) than verbal communication. If the two conditions are the same only one is more severe, then this simply does not make sense. However, I think I've found the explanation. Saying that aspies have difficulty understand nonverbal information is a misnomer. Yes, the information that isn't processed is nonverbal, but it's not because it's nonverbal that it isn't bring processed. If teach an aspie that flipping someone off means "f**k you", then they will know that flipping someone off means "f**k you". Rather the reason it isn't being processed is because NTs have the instinctive ability to subconsciously pick up these signals, while autistic people for what ever reason do not, or at least don't pick them up as well. Autistic people can learn to manually read people, and some people here on the forum have claimed to master this skill to a extraordinary level, but manually reading someone is a lot harder than automatically reading someone. The lack of instinctly picking up human body language may actually make it easier for autistic people to learn the body language of animals. Now, the initial difficulty in reading people leads to later problems with nonverbal communication. As the aspies may only know of the bare semantics after they learn language, it may damage their understanding of pragmatics. As they don't release subconscious nonverbal communication exists, it may interfer with them picking up conscious verbal communication, and it may also throw off their own signals that they are supposed to be sending. I believe that the root of any form of autism is the lack or weakening of social instinct, which then results in a change in psychology which resides the brain into a more autistic brain due to neuroplasticity and an autistic psychology develops. As for what causes the initial gap in instinctual communication it could be a number of things that could vary from person to person, but I'm pretty sure sensory issues and gestalt perception probably often play a role in it, which is determined by neurology.

ehhh... i dont understand at all very complicated sentances.

Redacted

Last edited by nat4200 on 21 Apr 2012, 1:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

I theorize that talking is simply an awkward method of communication.

There are claims that people with autism can not communicate with out using words, but there are people like you who communicate better with ways that use less words. The truth is that people with autism are only inherently bad at the one type of communication which is mislabeled.

Verbal in this case doesn't mean spoken, it means formed with words. Speaking, writing, and signing, are all "verbal communication".

Based soley on my own life, I can communicate without words where the non-verbal forms of communication are used consistently or they have been taught. One problem I have though is aggregating different sources of information, including non verbal into the bundles that reflect the actual meaning. I am learning sign langauge at the moment and finding it hard but enjoyable, I have a good memory for the signs and can use and recognise them easily once they have been explicitly taught, however I am hopeless at following the gist of signs I have not yet been taught.

I see. Well, can you classify as many forms of communication as you can think off as verbal or nonverbal? I mean, is it possible to think verbally without language? And does what I say have any relevance after that interpretation of verbal has been taken into account?

Yes, for autistic people, there is a lack of or weakening of the social instinct, i.e. lack of or lesser processing of verbal and non-verbal communications in the NT social direction according to the NT model of NT eggspectations.

Eggsample: When someone points at something for me to look at, I look at their finger, not the thing they pointed out. I saw their arm, hand, and finger move at the physical level, the end. My eyes followed the movement until they reached the tip of the finger, the end.

Eggsample: When someone writes me a note full of between-the-lines social meanings, I don't get any of the social meanings. I just got what the words said. To get the social meanings, I have to think that way, and I don't automatically do that.

Eggsample: My social knowledge is lacking, because I spent all my life not processing verbal and non-verbal communications in the NT social direction, instead taking things physically or in a different direction, so I don't have whatever allows NTs to act like NTs in my brain. I can greet someone when I am eggspecting to greet someone, and I run over it a few times in my mind, but I can't greet someone in response to an unexpected greeting that I am supposed to reciprocate right away. This is a simple automatic process for NTs, but not for me.

exactly.

"Sign language" has nothing to do with "body language".

Someone else started a post by asking if the reader was good at charades -on the theory that aspies shouldnt be good at it "if they are bad at body language" which is absurd because like sign language charades IS verbal and has nothing to do with "body language".

If you want to play a game that tests your ability to read true nonverbal communication -then the game to play is not Charades, but poker!

A great theory, but I bet someone who is good at communicating in sign language can't understand two people signing at once.

NTs can read body language of multiple people well intuitively or automatically.
This is something that aspies struggle with.

Jason.

Indeed! Sign language is not body language, you have to deliberately & consciously learn the former, mostly. I mean, there's some 'sign language' like pretending your hand's a phone, to signal somebody about a phone call, for instance, that nobody told me about. But was obvious, when I saw it! And, if you want to learn facial expressions, poker is a way to do that, too. Oddly, I'm pretty good at poker (I used to play, for money, with my wages, lol).

i dont think the problem is in understanding non-verbal communications at all, but the understanding of neurotypical non-verbals.
i indeed more often then not fail to recognize nonverbal signals when communicating with my NT friends, but the ones that are on the spectrum i have no problems with whatsoever, and vise-versa.
another reason for me is that most NT's also cannot read my bodylanguage, where my autistic friends can...