Mastering Communication as an Adult With High-Functioning ASD
Communication can be a struggle for people who have Autism Spectrum Disorder, and as someone who grew up with this disorder, both of my parents and I realized at a fairly young age that I possessed some severe social deficits.
For more than a decade (6 years-of-age — 17 years of age), my family and I didn’t understand why it was so natural for me to avert my eye contact when people were talking to me, give one-word answers to pretty much every question that people would ask me (even family members), walk into a room or walk right past people without saying “Hello” or “Good morning,” and just generally not understand how to appropriately use facial expressions and voice inflections in response to various social cues.
I can recall one time many years ago that I’ll probably never forget when I randomly saw a high school acquaintance of mine just a couple of years after graduation. We were both clarinet players in middle school and high school band for 6 years, so as you can imagine, we were far from strangers. When I saw this person for the first time after years, she was so bubbly and excited to see me — just like I had remembered her from school. She greeted me with a warm “Hey, how have you been? You look great!” and immediately wrapped her arms around me with a big, rocking back-and-forth hug, and told me about all of the exciting updates in her life; she had just gotten a job that she really liked, and she was engaged to be married. And how did I respond? Very lackluster, with a monotone voice and a neutral facial expression: “Oh, cool.” “Nice to see you.”
Now, I genuinely did not have any ill intent towards this girl whatsoever; she had always been lovely to me, and I can honestly say I was just utilizing my most natural communication style, but can you imagine how my reaction must’ve made her feel, especially after she had tried to be nice to me and show concern about my life after all those years?
Now that I’m on the other side of my social and communication issues, I feel like crying when I think about how small and unimportant she probably felt after that surprise interaction and how I had fumbled an opportunity to rekindle a prior relationship, and if you’re reading this article, you can probably relate to this story.
The good news is all hope is ASD does not mean you can’t effectively communicate and create lifelong relationships; if I can overcome the innate, often severe social awkwardness that comes with a developmental disorder, so can you! Here are some of my best tips for improving your communication skills, even with a diagnosis like ASD.
1. Think of Communication as a Another New Skill
According to the CDC, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disability caused by differences in the brain that makes it difficult to communicate, interact, and learn the way most people do.
Effectively, this means communication is not something that comes naturally to us, but that doesn’t mean all hope is lost; it just means that you will have to treat communication as something that needs to be learned and practiced.
Take it from me though, learning communication skills is like riding a bike; once you’ve got it down pat, it’s a skill that will stay with you for life. So try to approach learning communication as learning another new skill, like sewing, fixing a car, cooking, etc.
Need some help with overcoming your innate social awkwardness from an experienced awkward person like myself? Check out my article The Complete Guide to Social Aptitude for Awkward People.
2. Understand the Importance of Small Acts to Neurotypical People
For most people with ASD, the many nuances to communication are not really important to us; most of us just care about getting our message across in a literal and sometimes very direct/blunt manner. This means we struggle with understanding and displaying typical social cues that most neurotypical people expect in social interactions.
It’s time to put your own views about communication aside and understand that what is not important to you is pretty essential to almost everyone else.
In fact, in a peer-reviewed study testing whether neurotypical adults can identify social awkwardness in children with and without high-functioning autism, the adults were able to correctly identify which children had ASD by looking at brief 1 sec. - 3 sec. clips and still images of the children. That’s how crucial details like nonverbal and non-linguistic cues are to neurotypical people — so much so that they can identify almost immediately who does and who doesn’t have high-functioning autism.
Small things like acknowledging people with eye contact, a smile, and a simple greeting like “Good morning” when you enter the conference meeting room may not mean anything to you, but to others it means you value them enough just to notice they exist and to make them feel welcomed in your presence. Otherwise they can feel invisible or unimportant.
However, if you enter a conference room meeting a little late and the meeting has already started, you should save your greeting for when it’s your turn to speak otherwise you might be considered rude for interrupting.
It’s the the little aspects of communication like the previous example that are important to establishing comfort, respect, and mutual likeness between people.
3. Practice Communication With Your Family First
For most people, you’re immediate and extended family serves as a judgement-free environment where you can practice your social skills without the risk of being outcasted or ignored.
It can be beneficial for you to take every possible opportunity to socialize with family members and learn from them, meaning practice reading social cues like facial expressions and body language, adapting to behavior and situations, engaging in the ebb and flow of a conversation, dealing with conflict if it arises, and generally making people feel comfortable in your presence, which is really what interactions are all about.
So utilize those family gatherings like holiday dinners, graduation parties, summer BBQs and whatnot to practice your communication and socialization skills.
4. Be Observant of People’s Behavior
The best way to learn social skills is to observe how neurotypical, socially competent people interact with each other in the real world. This allows you to see and hear up close how communication is supposed to work, and how it’s not supposed to work.
You can observe things like how loud and soft people are talking, how people’s facial expressions and body language go with what they are saying, the appropriate distance to stand from someone in an interaction, how people exit a conversation, and more.
The best thing about this strategy is that you can do it anywhere; the grocery store, church, a family gathering, an office holiday party, a meeting at work, or anywhere that people are guaranteed to be interaction with each other.
Are you or someone you know struggling with communication and relationships because of ASD? Let me know; I love hearing stories from readers!
