Literal interpretation

2022-08-24T13:29:11Z

Vern:

Many (most?) autistic people have a much more '''literal''' manner of [[communication]] than [[Allism|allistic]] people. This manifests in both understanding of spoken or written words, and outward expression of language.

In understanding what someone says, the literal meaning of what was said is taken as the intended message rather than any [[Implication|implied]] or tacit message that was actually intended to be conveyed. This means we don't read between the lines or 'get' subtle hints that the person is trying to drop.

== Examples ==

* Not always getting the joke, confusion or taking seriously when someone is just kidding
* Not realising that a manager is subtly criticising your work or hinting that you should be doing something differently

== Being misunderstood by allistic people ==

In outward expression, the use of literal communication means we will tend to say exactly what we mean, without any [[Implication|implied]] message being intended. This can be seen by neurotypical people as being quite direct, blunt, or even rude, as they will infer a neurotypical underlying message intention to what was said.

== Being literal with other autistic people ==

Between fellow autistic people, literal communication can work very well, as both/all parties will be expressing/understanding on a compatible basis, and there is likely to be less ambiguity than might be present in an equivalent conversation between neurotypical people.

== Misunderstanding allistic people ==

Allistic people may attempt to manage situations in order to lower the barriers of personal engagement, often by saying things which are not technically true, but which they perceive to have low importance. E.G. a White Lie
An example of this would be an allistic person complimenting someone else's shoes, with the objective of beginning a larger conversation with a non-threatening topic. They may or may not have any strong opinion about the shoes. An autistic person is likely to miss the cue to socialize, and instead feel misled, manipulated, or lied to, if they learn or suspect that the compliment was not wholly genuine.

[[Category:Autistic communication]]

Auditory processing disorder

2022-08-24T13:19:43Z

Vern:

'''Auditory processing disorder''' is when, even if you can hear just fine, you often can't tell what people are saying, especially around background noise. The problem isn't with hearing the sounds, it's with translating those sounds into speech.

People often get frustrated with me asking them to repeat themselves, even though my hearing itself is just fine — to the point that even a TV at a low volume will still distract me from a conversation, and that I can only use a cooker's extractor fan or a vacuum cleaner if I can listen to music or field recordings on earphones while doing so, somewhat blocking it out.

It turns out this is a known thing. Quite separate from your ability to physically hear the sounds of speech, your brain then has to convert all that raw information into words. I can hear how many syllables people are saying, and what pitch they're saying them at. But after they've finished speaking, I often need to spend the next few seconds trying to work out from context which words they're most likely to have said... with varying amounts of success, especially if they throw a curveball into the conversation.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that auditory processing disorder, "the dyslexia of sound", was a thing — and a reasonably common trait for autistic people to have.

I'm not sure how auditory processing works, but if I had to guess, I'd imagine this is one of those things that autistic people have to do manually while [[Allism|allistic]] people have background processes and layers of abstraction that do all the work for them, automatically giving them the simplified end result. That sounds much easier to cope with!

{{Comment | Example: With Zoom VOIP calling, you can only hear one speaker at a time. The service does not broadcast multiple sound tracks simultaneously; you don't get the same experience of interrupting/ talking over people as you do in-person. I've heard NTs complain about this; for me it's a great feature. Thoughts? [[User:Vern|Vern]] ([[User talk:Vern|talk]]) 13:19, 24 August 2022 (UTC)}}

== Workarounds ==

I'm not sure if there are any useful workarounds here. When it comes to films and TV shows, subtitles aren't really an option for me, because I'll compulsively read and count all the text, missing all the cinematography along with pretty much the rest of the visuals. Perhaps others will have more luck than me there.

Lipreading people helps, although it's also less than ideal — quite understandably, autistic people don't always face me, and apparently allistic people think that looking at their mouth is an indication you're into them. No, I'm just trying to work out what you're saying.

[[Category:Information processing differences]]

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Literal interpretation

Auditory processing disorder