What are your problems with speech?

Post Reply New Topic

So, this came up elsewhere, and I started thinking about it.

People think about speech delays or being nonverbal as speech difficulities, but those of us who can speak as not having speech difficulties. So, what are your difficulties with speech in particular? (That is - I'm asking about speech not communication as a whole)

The ones I can think of for me:
-pronunciation
-tone of voice
-word finding delays (and sometimes finding the wrong word, but I identify that its the wrong word mentally instead of speaking the wrong word) - worth note that these word finding delays are specific to speech - if I'm typing then 90% of the word finding difficulties are gone. (They also make me stim a lot.
-delay in when what I've decided I'm going to say comes out verbally means I start cutting people off (i.e. I decide what I'm going to say - and go to start speaking and there's been a good 30 seconds before the speech leaves my mouth and others have started talking)
-overload can cause loss of speech for a few hours

Also of note but not really a difficulty:
-Speech is just sometimes really unnatural even when I'm fully verbal. It's like its entirely wrong to speak even though I can.

For me, speaking in general is a Big Bad Brain Drain.

Writing is a brain drain too, but not as big bad as speaking.

The job of finding words and putting them together into sentences is too effortful to be done at the amount and level that verbally adept people can do it.

I knew this doctor who would call his nurse and leave them phone messages about what to do for his patients, and he would speak a long string of words in a totally fluent, connected, makesensical way to fit as much information as he could into the messages. It was amazing to hear him talk like that.

Sometimes I just come out with the wrong words, or sometimes words just won't come out at all, particularly if a social interaction or question has taken me by surprise. Like if a stranger talks to me when I'm not expecting it, in my head I know what I'm trying to say, even if it's a bit odd, but I realise I haven't actually said what I was trying to, just made a noise.

Other times I just can't grasp the word I'm looking for and another completely unconnected one will come out. Or I'll lose track of my point, because I tend to give a lot of back story to whatever I'm saying, and by the time I've got through it all the point of what I'm saying is gone.

I lecture, interrupt, and use overly formal language.

Sometimes the wrong words come out, or I say things that fit into the conversation, but that I don't actually mean to say. Not like insults--just random stuff that sounds right but isn't actually communication. So I guess "non-communicative speech"?

Sometimes I echo the things I hear, but I do it under my breath or when I'm alone. It's not a big problem.

Speech very occasionally cuts out on me. I have to be pretty stressed for that to happen though. More likely I'll just not be able to figure out what to say and say something irrelevant, or not realize that something has to be said and never say it.

So, yeah, your basic adult autistic language problems.

Speech is definitely more difficult for me than writing. Sometimes I have trouble finding the right word, or I use the wrong word--even the opposite of what I mean to say. Even mentally verbalizing thoughts is more likely to get me to forget what I was saying than just typing it out.

I can't control my tone of voice. People often think I'm being rude when I'm trying to be nice because they say I sound "harsh" when I speak. I also speak very quietly, according to others. I have problems stringing words together coherently. I'm often all over the place in my speech because it's so scattered and I don't know how to organize my thoughts so that they will come out of my head in the proper order.

I have a number of problems. First off, no matter how much I try to break the habit I talk way too fast. This has to do with the area I grew up in : well known for very fast talkers and strong accents do the point even native English speakers have trouble understanding them. I've also been told I mumble and it's hard to understand me and sometimes I begin to stutter or have to start a sentence over, sometimes twice if I'm making eye contact at the same time. Needless to say, this gets me branded as slow and incompetent when the reality couldn't be any further from the truth and never helped in job searches.

This is the essence of what defines Asperger's Syndrome - sensory impairment. I know what I intend to say, and hear different words come out when I say them.

This impairment is what distinguishes AS from other conditions. The sensory input (hearing, sight, etc) and output (speech, etc) work fine, and the brain works fine, but there's something wrong between the two.

My speech is generally perfectly normal. It's just confidence that plays a big role, and I don't have much confidence when I speak up, so sometimes my speech sounds all stupid. I often find myself going to say two words at once, like I might try to say ''don't like'' and ''hate'' at the same time, and end up saying, ''I date.....I mean, don't like that'', or, ''I dote.....I mean, hate that'', or even end up saying the wrong meaning, like, ''I don't hate that.....I mean I hate that.'' It's probably because I tend to say everything I want in one big blurt, so I don't give myself a chance to think. I should relax more when talking, and I'll probably sound much better to talk to.

It can be rather embarrassing.

Oh, right, that's another thing I do - I repeat the same thing verbally even if not the same words, the same idea until it bothers people and they tell me to stop.

No indoor voice. Even at the ripe old age of 34 I talk loudly. If I get really excited about something or am on the phone apparently I'm full on shouting. My inflections are also wrong (sometimes things sound like a question, but aren't cause I raise the end of the sentance) and I speak kind of herky jerky in spurts and spats. Not too bad really.

For one, I get: "Okay, I/we've got it". I feel shut down because I haven't finished, and that can really bother me in a number of ways.

Then I get someone staring blankly at me or outright saying: I don't understand - and, even when my words come out wrong, I feel like what I have said is not that difficult to figure out - and I just go: never mind. I think, too, sometimes I expect people to be where I am at in my head. I can't figure out why they can't figure out what I am talking about. An attempt to explain myself can either become more confusing - I just get tangled - it's better at this point to drop it, but it bothers me when people get irritable or press me to explain myself - it can get really bad, I get in a bigger tangle and my tongue won't work. Then worse when they start filling in what they think I mean to say and I am going: "no. no, no" - but they are so sure.

Then I can take a while getting to the point in a story, and if whoever is listening is impatient and hurrying me, I lose my place and I feel like I am not really telling the story and they don't really care what I have to say - even if they expect me to find what they say so riveting. It's like having a stutter - people don't want to take the time to listen.

I'll answer one way to something one time, and another way another time - then I get accused of not being truthful - and when I try to explain - back to square one - I am not understood and I may as well be saying : whaw-whaw-whaw-whaw.

I think my most commonly used lines are : forget it and never mind. Sometimes I just find it easier not to talk at all.

My bestest problem with speech is echolalia. I love it and find it hilarious, perhaps not the most typical reaction to something that is supposedly a weird weird autismism. I find it hilarious, because the people whose words I echo always think that I am talking to them, that I have an intention of communicating with them when I am saying "trash trash trash trash trash" after they said something including the word "trash". iMother, whose words I often echo, has still not learned that I am never talking to her when I echo her words. I never use, nor have I ever used, echolalia in a functionally communicative way. My echolalia has always been purely the making to myself of a few sounds that I heard, a few to many times in a row, not of my own volition and with no intentions whatsoever. I confess that I enjoy confusing people with it, but I don't try to confuse them on purpose. It just comes out, and they get confused themselves.

Problems explaining things so I use hand gestures to try and explain what I am trying to say, I use visuals with my hands and fingers

Interrupting

Taking loud

Saying the wrong words. Husband knows I don't mean it so he ignores lot of things I say knowing I did not mean it so he takes me literal. People may think I am joking so they laugh because of the context so they assume I was making a joke.

Repeating myself and not even realize it

When I try and say something, it doesn't come out right

Accent, people think I am from somewhere else so they don't know I have a speech problem that makes it sound like I have an accent

I have pictures in my head so I have to translate them into words and I have a hard time summarizing them like putting them together so it may come off as me contradicting myself. Same as with memory I have and it's all memory I have so I describe the images.

Talking too fast