1. Create a concrete plan you share with you child and set expectations before going on the vacation – If we know exactly what’s going on and can see a schedule beforehand it feels much less overwhelming to tackle new places and new experiences.

2. Make sure you’re staying in a place with enough space – when I was a kid, if we stayed in a place with plenty of space, my parents had no issues. For example, every year my parents would take us to Pawleys Island, SC. Generally that trip was fine because my parents rented a big enough house and I had my own space, which is something a lot of us on the spectrum need. One year, we moved to a much nicer but much smaller house. I had to share a bedroom with my brother and the house was very compact so we felt packed in and I had a lot of difficulties. Even though the house was nicer, renting the bigger, albeit more shabby, beach house was much better for our family.

3. Plan your vacation during the destination’s off-season and go to a place that’s less crowded in general  Autistic people can get overwhelmed in large crowds or places that have a lot of people. And when you go to tourist destinations, that can be even more overwhelming if it’s during a busy season.

4. Plan a lot of physical activities  Things that involve bike riding, walking, swimming, or even outdoor activities like the zoo, are good for helping to get rid of that excess nervous energy that can build up .

5. Doing more shorter vacations like day or weekend trips can be easier than going on a single longer vacation If a week long vacation is too much, try doing a few 3, 2 or 1 day trips. If your child hates the trip, you can leave without worrying about the fact that you paid for a whole week.

6. Since activities can be overwhelming, limit them in time and scope and plan them so that they work for your child - 

As an example, for a trip to a museum, create a plan of things to see and do and share it with your child before going in. Whatever you do, don’t just walk around looking at things. People, especially kids, on the spectrum don’t like uncertainty.

Also, call ahead and ask what the least busy time is – sometimes google has a graph that shows how many people are at a specific attraction for each hour of the day.

Also, plan mini tours that involve activities related to what you’re doing (like a scavenger hunt). Often times, places like a museum will offer guides for children.  Don’t be pedantic, the experience of new places and experiences should be enough. You don’t need to teach them everything about everything you see and don’t try too hard to make sure they’re learning. Children will remember activities related to what they saw, not  what was written on a plaque you made them read.  Be more hands off and your child’s curiosity will do the rest.

Plan an escape if it’s a new overwhelming experience. One time we went to a haunted house. My sister who is also on the spectrum was insistent upon going in so my mom talked with the people running it and they came up with an egress plan for her to go to a guide to take her out if she got overwhelmed and needed to leave.

7. Always have a plan of where your next meal is coming from – either bring your food or plan to eat at a specific place you research that is fun and not overwhelming from a sensory perspective

Plan rest times – While it can seem like it’d be better to make use of all the time you have and do as much as possible, if you do less things and have built-in breaks, the things you do will be much more rewarding and memorable. You don’t need to see the whole city or even the whole museum. A lot of parents

8. Be aware of your child’s needs and prioritize those over your own- If your kid likes rocket ships, go to the air and space museum. Even if you think you’d enjoy an art gallery more, you won’t if your kid is having a melt down the whole time. You can still go to the art gallery if you make it fun, but sometimes the path of least resistance is best.

9 Prepare staff in advance - Tell them you have a kid on the spectrum and explain that a meltdown is possible. That way, if a meltdown does happen they will be more patient and accommodating and you won’t get as many people judging you.

10. If you have multiple kids on the spectrum, consider one parent taking them each separately on different vacations based on their needs and interests. Or if you’re doing activities on the same trip, maybe split off so each child can do something that will work for them.

The post Planning a family vacation with Autism – 10 tips for success appeared first on Wrong Planet.

Noise canceling headphones are great at cutting out low frequency sounds like the hum of a jet engine but can be less effective at the higher frequencies. Because of this, if higher frequency sounds bother you, you may have better luck using cheap ear plugs and ear muffs that you can find on Amazon. But without active noise cancellation, cutting out bass sounds will be tough so if you’re sensitive to bass, you may need to shell out some money for headphones with active noise cancellation.

1 – Sony WH-1000XM2 $350
These do an incredible job of cutting out all frequencies. While they’re close to Bose in noise cancellation, I think they actually do a better job at higher frequencies and also have a lot more features, like disabling noise cancellation of voice so you can talk to people and still block out bass.

2 – Bose Quiet Comfort 35 / 20 $250 – $330  (QC25 – $130+)
Bose is the king of noise canceling headphones, but also the priciest. They were the first to popularize noise cancelling headphones and also create professional sets for pilots. Bose also make in-ear headphones that cancel noise even better than over the ear headphones, but they may be more or less comfortable depending on your preferences. Check out the QuietComfort 20. The wired version of Bose’s over the ear headphones (QC25) are still available and sometime can be found for as low as 130 dollars on Amazon, which is a steal, considering their noise canceling is just as good as the bluetooth headphones that cost at least a hundred more. These are what I use and they’re life changing.

3 – Sennheiser PXC 550 – $300
I have owned a few pairs of Sennheiser over the years and they’re my favorite headphones. I believe they sound better than both Bose and Sony in terms of audio reproduction. Sennheiser also make noise canceling headphones that cost less than this model, but they aren’t as good.

4 – Cheap ear muffs – $15
In terms of getting rid of sound, ear muffs provide the most protection. You’ll see airport workers on the runway wearing these for that reason. You can put earbuds under them and still listen to music. They can be uncomfortable if you’re wearing glasses with thick legs though and they can hurt your head because they press very firmly against the side of your head. Because of this, they can become irritating after being worn for a while.

5 – Ear plugs – a few cents
Ear plugs are good for getting outside noise levels to go down, but they don’t do as good a job of blocking out bass. You also can’t really listen to music unless you put over the ear headphones on and that doesn’t sound so good because the plugs block out some frequencies more than others.

The post 5 Noise Cancelling Headphones for Autism appeared first on Wrong Planet.

My criticisms of Atypical’s freshman season were certainly no secret, as I shared my feelings both publicly in various news outlets and privately with Robia Rashid, the show’s creator.  At the time, I mentioned that a lot of issues could be fixed, but my biggest problem with season one was the lack of autistic involvement.  To remedy this problem, I suggested that, at the very least, an autistic consultant needed to be hired for season two.  Fortunately my suggestion was taken to heart, and with the addition of autistic consultant David Finch many of the show’s major problems have been addressed.  From the moment I began watching season two, I felt freed from the brackish misrepresentations that distracted me in viewing the first season and I was consequently able to enjoy the show. I even laughed out loud during a few of its funniest moments.

I am very surprised that the show improved as much as it did and while I intend this review of season two to be very positive, I think I will need to go through some of the problems I had with season one in order to fully convey how big of a leap forward the creators took in the show’s sophomore year.

Alex Plank with cast members Keir Gilchrist & Michelle Farrah Huang

Another incident in the first season that I felt was not positive was the depiction of Sam breaking into his therapist’s house to leave her a box of chocolates. In season two, Sam continues talking with his therapist, who surprisingly takes his calls despite his behavior in season one.  I think that she seems accepting of this communication out of guilt over the way she handled things in the first season.

In general, Sam’s relationships in season two are much more realistic and, more importantly, are extremely positive from a standpoint of portraying autism in an accurate and constructive manner. For instance, instead of furthering the myth that those on the spectrum cannot have a romantic relationship, season two goes a step further and features multiple women vying for Sam’s affection. If anything, Sam treats these women with more respect and maturity than they show towards him which is one very enlightening commentary on how being autistic can actually make one more compassionate, not less. 

Season two further explores the one thing I liked most about Atypical in season one, its portrayal of family dynamics. I believe that the viewers who loved season one focused on that part of the show and either forgave the autistic representation issues or did not notice them. I think that’s why a lot of parents were excited about the show while autistic people, even those with a roseate view of the series, could readily point out specific issues that they felt should be fixed in the second season. 

I appreciate that season one resonated with many families who watched and were ecstatic to finally see a family like theirs being represented on television. Thankfully, season two improves even more on that front, as the way that Sam interacts with other characters indicates a positive shift towards his being treated more as a real person and less as simply a diagnosis.   Moreover, the way he is talked about is also more positive. 

Alex with actor Brigette Lundy-Paine (Casey)

Many reviews of Atypical have focused on the plot lines centered on autism. To me, these elements of the show seem like PSAs, and while I appreciate that Robia and her writers felt the need to include these important topics in an effort to teach the audience about things we face in the autism community,  I think the scenes that are designed to deliver exposition information about autism actually end telling us the least about autism. For instance, while I appreciate the intentions behind bringing up the issues of police being untrained when it comes to dealing with autistic people, that storyline seemed a bit forced. In contrast, I felt much more was conveyed about autism with much more depth in the storyline of Casey’s birthday involving a tradition of rituals that Sam adheres to as his way of expressing his love for her. This year, Casey brushes Sam off and expresses frustration due to a belief that Sam is obsessing over these birthday rituals from a place of selfishness when she clearly is trying to deal with other issues. However, the resolution of this conflict, and Casey’s realization regarding Sam’s true intentions, stands out as the most beautiful moment of season two. 

Alex with Atypical Creator Robia Rashid

In conclusion, the second season of Atypical far exceeded my expectations, and, if it continues going in such a positive direction, by the third season I think it could more than make up for the problematic representations from season one. Robia’s receptiveness to suggestions makes me excited to see how she further includes autistics in season three. 

In that vein I’ll end this piece with my biggest suggestions for season three. First, I think an openly autistic writer should be added to the writer’s room. David Finch, the show’s consultant, who I believe was instrumental in fomenting the major improvements of this season and penned a hilarious  New York Times best-selling memoir, would be a perfect candidate.  I personally served as a consultant on FX’s The Bridge, so I know how difficult a job it is to ensure that autism is fairly and accurately represented while concurrently serving the overall story and tone of a show. David did a remarkable job and I think those on the spectrum who’ve been critical of season two fail to acknowledge how difficult a job it was to improve the representation of a character who had already been developed for an entire season. Atypical accomplishes this with a character arc that fixed the issues gradually while not changing him drastically enough to betray the underlying character viewers had come to expect. 

Finally, I want to see even more autistic characters in season three and I want to see another autistic character with a bigger role. Autism is often thought of only in reference to kids or teens. If Atypical wrote in an adult autistic character, perhaps one Sam could see as a role model, I think that would be a powerful addition to a show that I’m actually really starting to dig. And if you’re looking for an autistic actor to play him, contact my agent. I think I have some availability.

The post Atypical’s 2nd Season is a Step Forward in Autism Representation appeared first on Wrong Planet.

For many autistics on the spectrum, moving out from your parents house and living independently can seem like a daunting task. We like routines and familiarity so any change can be hard to handle. But I think we need to embrace growth, even at the expense of comfort. Since college, I’ve lived in a variety of different places, but I’ve made a point of always living away from home.

Alex in his Dorm Room

Living in dorms is a great way to prepare you for living more independent after you graduate. But I would recommend getting a single room because sharing a room for an autistic person is the worst possible thing I can think of. I need my own space. Fortunately my University had accommodations for individuals with disabilities and I was able to get a single room.

Even with a single room, I quickly had to learn to deal with issues like noise that come with living in dorms (and apartments). I have a sound sensitivity so the bass from other people playing music was hard to deal with. I’ve written about the importance of noise canceling headphones, but I didn’t have those at the time. I’ve also developed simple strategies for improving sound over time like using foam to seal the door frame and even a jacket on the door to block sound, and having a white noise machine, fan, or AC to make it harder to hear outside sounds.

I moved from the original dorm into a four bedroom apartment style dorm I shared with three other people. This brought up new issues I had to deal with, such as keeping the common areas clean and sharing the space. An autistic friend of mine commented that the most important thing you can do with roommates is to keep things clean. If you can do that, there won’t be many other problems.

In the summer after my freshman year, I got an internship at AOL headquarters in northern Virginia. Since I could only live in the dorms during the school year, I lived at my grandparents’ house which was close to the metro. I could take a train some of the way and a bus the rest of the way. But the whole trip, including transfers, took an hour and a half (see my article on the benefits of driving & autism).

After a while, I decided to rent a room from an engineer at AOL who worked on my team. I was able to carpool with him every day or we could ride bikes along the bike trail from the house to our work. This was much better because driving with him cut out an hour an 15 minutes for me (saving 2.5 hours a day). Living with someone older taught me a lot of things that would help me in the future for living with roommates. I learned the importance of helping to clean (doing things like sweeping and vacuuming, for example). The next summer, I rented the basement of a house in Washington, DC. I picked a home a block from the subway so I could easily get to work. Living independently in a city is much easier if you don’t have a car so this experience was great for me.

I started dating a girl in college while I was living in DC. We eventually decided to move in together. Living with a significant other brings a whole new set of issues, some great, and some challenging. We decided to rent a house. While the relationship didn’t last, I learned a lot about living with a partner and the importance of having your own space. I do recommend making sure you have your own space if you’re going to live with a partner. A studio apartment might be challenging!

When I graduated from college, I lived with my grandfather again for a little bit and then moved to western Massachusetts where I lived with my friend John Elder Robison. After almost a year, I decided to move to Los Angeles. This was one of the scariest moves for me because I’d be leaving the east coast where I had my support system of friends and family. I went on Craigslist to find an apartment in Los Angeles and I still live there. Making the move to LA was one of the best decisions in my life. It gave me countless opportunities that I didn’t ever have on the east coast.

While I had to go out of my comfort zone in order to become increasingly independent, doing so has given me many opportunities and has increased my quality of life. I’ve also gained confidence knowing that I’m living on my own, supporting myself. While some people may think living at home is the best option, I urge you to at least give living on your own a shot. After all, if it doesn’t work out, you can always move back home and you’ll merely be back to where you were. After all, life is about experimenting, trying new things, sometimes failing, and sometimes succeeding. But without trying, you’ll never grow.

The post Leaving Home & Living Independently on the Autism Spectrum appeared first on Wrong Planet.

“That’s really incredible,” said a well-meaning educator who had called in April about our Autism Advantage program, which runs six-week training cohorts for autistic individuals around specific talent sets. “I’m searching for a program which can teach autistic people acceptable behavior for the workplace. Yours is like that, correct?”

We now love conversations like these. They give us an opportunity to explain what we’ve helped dozens of leading companies understand. Our Autism Advantage program doesn’t make autistic people ‘acceptable’. We bring out and strengthen their talents to improve their careers.

Our programs provide training and structure to help individuals understand and accept who they are as autistic people, identify and master their skills long overlooked by others, and employ those skills in order to find career success. We provide understanding of neurotypical behavior in order for autistic individuals to better navigate integrated workplaces, coach companies in building neurodiverse workplaces, match autistic candidates with employment opportunities, and provide coaching and assistance once hired.

We do this because we’re located in Silicon Valley and realized that many autistic talents are well-suited for hard-to-fill technology roles. We started our training from this point and our current series focuses on autistic individuals with data analytical skills (if you are interested in these programs, we encourage you to sign-up). However, it would be ridiculous to think that autistic talent is limited to tech. That’s why we don’t just place candidates within tech roles and why we’re structuring future training opportunities around additional talent sets. Our six-week training acts as a deep dive into developing the talents of autistic individuals from the autistic frame. We go over many things, but at the core of our trainings are four key components we’ve realized are applicable to anyone looking for work.

1. Self Awareness. When autistic people hear the term “self awareness” it’s often in being reprimanded for not mirroring neurotypical behavior. In Autism Advantage, we emphasize the actual meaning of the term: understanding who you are and how you operate in this world. Some of our program participants are deeply ashamed of their autistic traits at the beginning of each of our trainings. We help them see that autistic traits can used to their advantage. If the X-men has taught us anything, it is that unique traits are needed and necessary. Accepting and understanding who you are as an autistic person allows you to find ways to leverage your autistic traits as an advantage throughout your career.

2.Master Your Skills. Cal Newport is a computer scientist who does deep thinking on workplace success. In his book So Good They Can’t Ignore You he examines the repeating patterns of success found in individuals from blues musician Jordan Tice to Apple founder Steve Jobs. Newport discovered that the most successful people are the ones who take an existing skill set and practice it over-and-over again to mastery. What inspired Newport to first research this pattern was seeing an interview with comedian Steve Martin on the Charlie Rose show where he discussed giving advice to aspiring comedians:

Nobody ever takes note of [my advice], because it’s not the answer they wanted to hear. What they want to hear is “Here’s how you get an agent, here’s how you write a script,”. . . but I always say, “Be so good they can’t ignore you.”

It wasn’t an exceptional talent that distinguished Steve Martin from his peers. Like other new comics, he was good but not great. While other new comics focused half of their attention on finding better and better gigs, Martin tried a different approach. He focused all of his attention on practicing his own skills over and over again. He worked clubs whose audiences would boo him but would also laugh three weeks later when he finally got the joke he had tried before just right. In mastering his skills, Martin began to distinguish himself. It was in learning how to be obsessively good at what he did that found Steve Martin success.

There is a dwindling number of educators who deride “narrow autistic interests” as a bad thing, an antithetical attitude to Newport and Martin’s advice to apply rigid structure and obsessive focus on a subject in order to master it (“If I stay with it,” said Martin in the same interview discussing the advice he gave himself when he decided to learn how to play the banjo “then one day I will have been playing it for 40 years and anyone who sticks with something for 40 years will be pretty good at it.”). If the key to skill success among neurotypicals is adopting autistic traits, then we should encourage those traits in autistic individuals themselves.

Whether it be city bus schedules or complex data systems, autistic people build expertise on the subjects they love by rigorously acquiring knowledge. If you are on the spectrum, you’ve most likely done this by becoming proficient at a key group of skills that you may not have even realized that you were practicing over-and-over again to perfection – skills like research, observation, analysis, evaluation, and communication. Think about the things you love, then think about the skills you used to build your knowledge of them. These are all skills you can apply to other aspects of your life, including work. Neurotypicals spend millions of dollars each year on books and seminars to get them to this place. Recognize your skills, lean into them, and practice them over-and-over again.

3. Market Your Skills. No one likes a shameless self-promoter, but almost all hiring managers love when someone can demonstrate how their skills can fit their company’s needs. That’s a big thing we work on in Autism Advantage. Here is what Daniel, one of our recent graduates shared with us after we placed him in a position with professional services firm EY.

What the Autism Advantage program gave us was a space to relax and dig deeper into our personal strengths. I discovered that I’m actually a great presenter and I’m good at public speaking. Understanding that means that I now know how to personally pitch myself.

When Daniel started our program, he hadn’t yet discovered that he had those skills. By graduation, he was able to confidently talk about them with others. You most likely have a different skill set than Daniel. As you discover yours and practice your skills to mastery, they will become much easier to talk about. Many autistic people have difficulty talking about themselves, but discussing your skills and how they apply to others is one way to accommodate our strengths.  The interview process if filled with people who love to talk about how great they are. There’s no need to copy that. Talking about how your skills can provide solutions to the job you seek will be valued by the the person hiring for the position.  Once hired, offering your skills as solutions to your managers and teammates will help you advance throughout your career.

4. Network. There’s a misconception that autistic people aren’t good at networking. Most of the internet would collapse if that were true. People just network differently. Neurotypical people tend to highly engage interpersonal networking while autistic people often more easily navigate networking online. Our team has also noticed that many autistic people tend to be great (and better than neurotypical peers) at interpersonal networking if allowed to use it to exchange information on subjects they love. Academia and the arts are filled with autistic people skilled in networking this way. Networking is absolutely essential to your career. The more connections that an individual makes through networks, the more opportunities for success there will be. However, that doesn’t mean that everyone needs to network the same way.

We heavily emphasize networking in Autism Advantage, but we do so from an autistic frame. We recently took our program participants to a strategy session at the San Francisco offices of LinkedInto discuss networking from the autistic point of view. Connecting with others is key to career success. Think through how you best network and then use those channels as you look for work. Let people know you are looking for employment and what your skills are. Other people know of opportunities and connections that you don’t. Everyone networks differently. Figure out how you best network and use those networks to increase opportunities throughout your career.

At the end of each of our Autism Advantage training programs, we increase the opportunities for our attendees by connecting them with leading companies who need their individual skills. We help companies realize why they need autistic talent and how building support for neurodiversity within the office is not only good for the individual employee but for the entire team. On the candidate side, our trainings dive into many things, but these four concepts our participants deeply examine will also prove key concepts to you: develop your self awareness, master your skills, market your skills, and then network. We don’t make autistic talent ‘acceptable’. We help autistic individuals strengthen their talents to improve their careers. The world needs autistic talent. Focus on developing each of these things and you’ll be able to confidently show everyone why.

——-

By Jack Hogan and John Marble, Autism Advantage

Jack Hogan is a technology expert and co-founder of Autism Advantage, a program which trains autistic talent and matches them with leading companies. John Marble is the program’s senior advisor and is a former presidential appointee in the administration of President Barack Obama. He is autistic.

Autism Advantage operates in partnership with Expandability, a non-profit initially established in Silicon Valley to aid disabled programmers. Autism Advantage was developed out of Expandability’s highly successful Autism at Work program it first pioneered with software company SAP. Those interested in the program can sign-up here. Additionally, Autism Advantage continuously seeks input from autistic individuals as they build programs and welcomes the input of suggestions and new ideas.

This is a sponsored article. 

The post Before You Look for Work Here Are Four Things You Should Absolutely Know appeared first on Wrong Planet.

You may wonder, as I did, why scientists need actual brain tissue. Shouldn’t tools such as fMRIs and EEGs be sufficient for most research? The answer to this question is no; Scientists are unable to study the full structure of a brain without having the actual physical brain tissue. Also, the only way to see how gene expression occurs in different parts of the brain is to study the brain tissue itself.

These samples can help scientists understand the genetic functioning of brain cells, epigenetics, gene expression, and changes specific to neurons. The scientists also hope to gain a greater understanding of how our unique brain structures relate to the special skills we possess as autistics.

Now, while donating your brain to science may seem like a bizarre thing to do, it’s actually becoming common place for people with unique brains. For instance, more and more professional athletes have been pledging to donate their brains over the last few years for concussion research. And I personally believe that those of us on the autism spectrum have much more fascinating brains than the average pro baller.

Now you’re probably wondering what supporting this program entails. It’s actually pretty simple. All you need to do is register on the It Takes Brains Page. You can sign up as an individual with autism or even as a family member! You can also change your mind at any time if you decide that you no longer want your brain involved.

But the best part is you can brag to all your friends that your brain is going to be flash-frozen in Carbonite like Han Solo in Star Wars (Autism Brain Net doesn’t use actual carbonite in this process, unfortunately, but the technology is still super cool and futuristic).

Please follow my lead and make a pledge!

-Alex

The post It Takes Brains! – Autism Brain Net appeared first on Wrong Planet.

Some things are obvious. For example, if you’re a computer programmer and you’ve been asked to compile a program that does X, Y and Z, you find out soon enough.

Other things are not quite so obvious. Like how your co-workers, customers and boss perceive you. Keep in mind that people generally won’t go out of their way to tell you how they feel about you. Especially if it’s negative. (Want to know why? See below.)

Yet other people’s opinions of you matter at least as much as your technical skills. In fact, studies in the Harvard Business Review have shown that people would generally rather work with a likable dunderhead than a brilliant boor. Apparently, since the dunderhead is likable people are willing to take more time to help him or her learn, whereas the boor gets no benefit of the doubt since they don’t like him…and sooner or later the boor will make a mistake.

Not to mention that, as career expert Penelope Trunk has pointed out, modern teleworking, outsourcing and automation mean that if a problem can be solved from across the hall, it can be solved from across town, across the country…or across the Pacific Ocean. Or from the software’s Help screen. That means that more and more, the jobs that stay in the U.S./First World at good salaries are the ones that involve helping people face to face and making them feel good about it. If all you do is deliver technical information, someone, somewhere can and will do it a lot cheaper.

The only way we can escape this worldwide race to the bottom is to build close relationships with those around us, so we’re special to them.

Of course we need to do our jobs and do them right. We also need ways of knowing when our relationships are going astray, while we can still either save them or change jobs ourselves before it’s too late.

So, without further ado, here’s some warning signals:

• You have less and less to do. Your peers do parts of your job for you, or even just learn to get everything done without you. Or your boss has reassigned pieces of your job. It’s a pretty clear signal that you’re not seen as necessary to the organization. Sooner or later, the boss will decide that the company can just do without you — and eliminating your job will save money (and not just your salary either, especially if you get benefits).Also, your boss may reason that if you just let other people do parts of your job, you’re not really attached to your work and hence not really doing well at it. (Not to mention that if you just let others take over, the company may not want you managing its fate in a competitive world!)
• You do get plenty to do…it’s just a bunch of “special projects”. Now, some special projects are very important, and help propel you to higher things. The “special projects” I mean more like sorting and alphabetizing the agency’s catalogs it gets from suppliers. Anything that might be nice to do but they could certainly do without.They’re probably getting ready to do without you.
• People don’t chat with you as readily as they used to. There are two reasons for this.One is that if they know the boss is after you, they don’t want the “guilt by association”. That is, if the boss sees or just hears of them talking to you, she might assume they’re on your side and thus they’re just as bad as (she believes) you are.

  Another is that no one likes to be the bearer of bad news. That’s because many if not most people “kill the messenger” — they attack the person who just happens to tell them about bad stuff. The human mind hasn’t yet evolved to be clear about who’s saying stuff you don’t want to hear and who actually caused it. And if they don’t yet know that you know, they’re afraid of inadvertently telling you.

  Sure it’s important that somebody warn you. Somebody else, that is.

• When you walk into a room, it goes quiet and everyone looks at you.Somebody might as well get a bullhorn, jump on the nearest table and go: “ATTENTION, ATTENTION! WE WERE ALL TALKING ABOUT YOU, AND NONE OF US WANTS TO TELL YOU WHAT IT’S ABOUT (OTHERWISE, WE’D’VE DONE THAT ALREADY). IN FACT, THE MOMENT YOU’RE GONE, WE’LL TALK ABOUT YOU SOME MORE!”
• You just had a serious disagreement with a customer or your boss. Or maybe even several co-workers, or a co-worker who’s popular, or anyone in public.

Forewarned is forearmed!

The post Job Red Alert! appeared first on Wrong Planet.

First, we are not stupid. We also are not trying to be difficult when we say we don’t understand you. We don’t have a disease, and the vast majority of us would refuse a “cure,” if one were discovered, for such a development would be seen by many of us, myself included, as an attempt to commit genocide. Like other groups of people, we want to stay alive, as individuals, and as a culture.

We are, however, different from most people. Our brains are hard-wired in ways that are not typical, with the result that we do not think in the same manner as others. These differences give us certain advantages which we value, but the trade-off comes in the form of problems involving communication with non-Aspies. You can see this in fiction, to get used to the way we think, simply by watching (or reading) Star Trek stories which feature Vulcans, or the android named Data. The difficulties those characters have, when trying to communicate with the humans they encounter, are very much like what happens when Aspies and non-Aspies attempt communication. Why is this the case? The answer is simple:  Star Trek was written that way.

Here are some specific questions, and phrases, which many Aspies find particularly baffling. In each case, I will attempt to explain why this is so.

1. “Who do you think you are?” — Ask an Aspie this question, and you’re likely to simply be given his or her name, in response. Apparently, this offends some people, but please don’t ask me why, for I don’t understand it myself. If a person were to ask me this question, my first guess would be that the questioner simply forgot my name, and needs a reminder. The meaning of volume, voice tone, and body language are mysteries to us. Sometimes we can figure out these mysteries, but it doesn’t happen automatically — we have to reason our way through it, and that takes time, especially for nuances of communication which are based on emotions.

2. “What do you think you’re doing?” — My likely response to this question would be an honest one:  “I’m trying to understand what you’re saying, but it doesn’t seem to be working very well.” However, that’s an answer from an Aspie in his fifth decade of trying to understand other people, so I’ve had a lot of practice. An Aspie teenager, in school, might simply say, “I’m walking to class,” “I’m taking notes,” or something like that, and then get in trouble for “backtalk,” as it is called — when the student was simply answering the question, without intending any disrespect whatsoever. Whatever answer this confusing question gets, from one of us, that answer will be both literal, and honest. It is not in our nature to lie, but it is definitely in our nature to think, listen, speak, read, and write literally, and logically.

3. “Do that again!” / “Say that again!” — If we have done or said something which you don’t like, and you actually don’t want to witness a rerun, why would you demand one? We think, speak, and interpret what we hear in terms of the actual words which are spoken. There’s nothing wrong with thinking literally, and, frankly, it puzzles us why so many of you think in other ways, so much of the time. If you ask for, or demand, a repeat performance of something you didn’t like, from one of us, you’re quite likely to get one — and then you’ll get angrier, we’ll get even more confused, and absolutely nothing of value will have been accomplished. If, on the other hand, you refrain from using “x” to mean “not x” (since it doesn’t), and simply tell us exactly what you mean, communication will become much easier, for all concerned.

4. “Don’t get technical with me!” — As far as I can tell, this means that the speaker wants us to refrain from choosing our words with precision, but I could be wrong, for this is the most baffling item on this list, so far. Clarity of language is desirable, for it facilitates communication, and sometimes, technical terms are needed for this purpose. I don’t know what to suggest as a substitute for this phrase, since I don’t understand it, but I can assure you that using it, with an Aspie, is a complete waste of your time.

5. “What’s wrong with you?” — This is another baffling question. If asked very loudly, the most likely answers Aspies will give are “I have a headache,” or perhaps “Sudden-onset tinnitus,” with the cause, in each case, being simple:  from our point of view, the questioner is trying to deafen us, by yelling things which make no sense (at any volume). Do you like being shouted at, from close range? No? Well then, this is one way that we aren’t so different from non-Aspies, for we don’t like it either. Also:  it’s quite likely that we don’t see anything wrong with us at all, for, in this situation, we are not the ones shouting nonsense-questions, so you might even get this response:  “Nothing. What’s wrong withyou?” In such a situation, that isn’t backtalk — it’s a perfectly legitimate question, and we are not responsible for any emotion-laden, irrational response the non-Aspie questioner might display.

6. “I need this done yesterday!” — Many of us can explain, in detail, why time travel into the past is not permitted by the laws of physics, as they are currently understood. Those who request, or demand, reverse-time-travel, from an Aspie, should not be surprised to hear such an explanation. Ask us to flap our arms and fly, and the response will likely be similar.

I could give more examples, but I think the point has been made. We aren’t all alike, so the examples of hypothetical responses I gave, above, will vary from one Aspie to another. What isn’t likely to vary, though, is the confusion each of us experiences when things are said to us which make no sense, if interpreted literally. That’s the key to communicating with us:  when we hear something, we automatically use logic, and rational thought, to attempt to understand the literal meaning of what has been said to us. For many of us, that is the only meaning we can understand.

In my case (and probably in the cases of at least some other Aspies), this goes a little further: rational, literal, and logical interpretations of language are the only ones I want to understand. This is a self-protection mechanism, for the idea of losing even part of my ability to think clearly, and rationally, is extremely frightening to me. To pour a lot of effort into trying to think in non-Aspie ways, I fear, could damage my mind — if, that is, I was successful in the attempt. I don’t want to risk turning into a person who considers “x” and “not x” to be interchangeable, for one doesn’t equal negative one. To change, in this way, would effectively kill the person I am. It wouldn’t stop my heart from beating, of course, but some things are even worse than physical death. If such a change ever happened, I would look the same, and would have the same legal name, but I would no longer be RobertLovesPi. It makes perfect sense for me to be absolutely unwilling to risk something so dangerous.

In addition to the central importance of the fact that we think in literal terms, while others often don’t, Aspies have some other difficulties (or the rest of the world does, depending on your point of view). I attempted to describe these difficulties, which involve coping with the emotionalism and irrationality of numerous other people, in the examples of confusing phrases and questions given above. Emotionalism and irrationality are, to us, severe impediments to understanding anything, and we live our lives in a state of near-constant bombardment from both, since Aspies are outnumbered by non-Aspies by a huge margin. On this planet, to borrow a book title from Robert Heinlein, I live my life as a “stranger in a strange land.” I know that many other Aspies see life in a similar way, for that idea is embedded in the name of the largest online community created by and for Aspies, as well as others on the autism spectrum:  www.wrongplanet.net. If you are curious about how other Aspies view the things I have described above, or if you are, yourself, an Aspie in need of an temporary escape from social interaction with non-Aspies, you can find a great many of us at that website. (Also, if you want to find me there, just search for me, using the name of this blog — my not-at-all-secret identity, all over the Internet.)

[Note: this was originally posted on my personal blog, http://www.robertlovespi.wordpress.com, on 24 August 2014. The target audience for this post is non-Aspies, but those with Asperger’s may find it interesting as well. Other posts on the same blog, related to Asperger’s, may be found at https://robertlovespi.wordpress.com/category/aspergers/. Most of the rest of my blog is devoted to my special interest — esoteric topics in geometry, especially polyhedra.]

The post Six phrases and questions likely to confuse people with Asperger’s. appeared first on Wrong Planet.