Communicating with someone who has speech impediment

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At a local autistic support group that I attend, there is a person who I find myself having conversations with, but I can only understand may be two or three words out of what he says in a sentence.

Typically I might hear this:

'Erscrzerwaze frzer, parking space, scruzzer wuzzer suvver chup suhr, supermarket.'

The incoherent words are also quieter than those words which are clear.

I was wondering if anyone had any advice regarding being able to conduct conversations with someone who talks like that. Can I do anything that will make his communicating with me any easier? I am worried about raising the issue with him directly, and upsetting him, if there is not anything that would help.

I have a couple of acquaintances who have CP and speech impediments, and I've learned to communicate with them pretty well. Unfortunately the only advice I can give you is to listen carefully, ask them to repeat things if necessary, and give it time. It took me about a year to learn to understand one of them--before that, other people had to tell me what she was saying. I thought I wouldn't learn, but I did. It's like learning a different dialect, or understanding someone with an accent.

If the other person understands this and is aware of it they should know you have trouble understanding them. You might have to tell them in order for them to know, though. Different people often understand different amounts of what someone with a speech or language impairment says. If you have an auditory processing peculiarity, you might for example have greater difficulties than others in understanding. Or if you're not used to it, because you the see the person only every now and then.

There's a chance talking about it will upset him. But well, either you two want to talk or not. If you want to talk to him and you find yourself unable to pick up on something, you should talk about having difficulties understanding him.

A lot of people don't have the patience to bother with someone with a language or speech impairment and show it. Or they try not to show it, pretend, try to avoid talking to the person who may then be hurt by these actions. That's why when explaining you don't understand someone, it can be really important to also tell them that you are interested and that you don't mind it taking longer to figure out what was being said.

My friend Travis relys on sign language, so I had to learn that. He also has classic autism, and knows that I have AS, so he actually tries to use his words with me. But the word "no" sounds like "mo" when he's talking.

Most people I've met with speech impediments know full well that they're hard to understand, so they're quite patient about being asked to repeat themselves. It's when you pretend you understood them even though you really didn't that they get annoyed.

You could ask him to write it on a piece of paper.

Thanks for the advices. I struggle to hold a conversation at the best of times.

I knew an autistic guy who his mom tried to hook me up with who had terrible speech. I generally try not to be rude about these things because I know people can't help it but if I can't understand you then I can't understand you. I have that issue down here where some people say stuff and I can't understand what they say because half of them talk like they have cotton balls in their mouths along side having overtly pronounced southern accents -_-

You don't have to bring up the speech impediment. Keep it natural and just ask him to repeat and give him extra time to process. Be patient.

I can be extremely hard to understand at times because of my speech issues. And sometimes it is very hard for me to understand others. One of my really close friends has Down's Syndrome. She was my roommate at Special Olympics Worlds and training camp. We lived together for a total of 14 days. We both are very aware that we can be very difficult to understand and neither of us ever have a problem with people telling us that we are hard to understand. We are both very patient and do our best to speak as clearly as possible. Sometimes I will even just write things down if I am having a particularly difficult speech moment. When I find others difficult to understand, I am also very honest about it. I don't think people's feelings are hurt if you have a hard time understanding them. I would just tell your friend, "I am sorry, it is difficult for me to clearly hear all the words you are saying. Please forgive me if I don't understand you. I may have to ask you again. I want to make sure that I really understand what you are telling me." If you say it something like that, your friend will probably not be offended.

Sometimes people don't know how they are speaking. I often don't know how my speech is coming across unless someone else tells me because I hear it in my head very loudly and clearly. But I know that I am often capable of unclear speech so if someone points it out I am not surprised and I try to speak more slowly and more clearly. My friend with Down's is very aware of her speech difficulties as well since no one has every been able to fully understand her even in her own immediate family. But she just takes it in stride and even makes jokes about it. So it is possible that your friend is also aware of his issue and so if you tell him that you are having trouble in a respectful way, I think everything will be ok and he will try to help you understand him better.

I have a friend with cerebral palsy and he has dysarthria (slurred/unclear speech, poor pronunciation) and when we first started hanging out, I only understood about half of what he said, and had to ask him to repeat himself all the time. As time went on, my brain became attuned to the way he speaks, and now I understand him clearly 99% of the time. It's just a matter of patience and time. If you stick with it and keep asking your friend to repeat himself, or repeat back the words you thought you heard him say, eventually you will become attuned to his unique speech patterns and it will be easier to understand him.

Please go slowly, give the other person a lot of time to reply and do not, I repeat do not go on to the next topic until the other person has had time to reply.