At Spectrum, we feel very strongly that it is essential to understand a child or young person’s individual communication style and to support them with this in a positive and neuro-affirmative way. We agree with the Autistic Author and Advocate, Pete Wharmby (https://www.facebook.com/Petewharmbyauthor) that Autistic communication is different, not deficient and that non-autistic people should be more accommodating and understanding in their approach when communicating with an Autistic person. As Pete describes below, there are a number of things non-autistic people can do to ‘bridge the communication gap between autistic and non-autistic people’:
Pete recommends the following:
“1. Alter your expectations around paralinguistics - eye contact, facial expressions, body language. Autistic people use these things differently, so be open minded and remember not everyone is the same.
2. Be extremely clear and unambiguous with instructions. Don't leave key things out, or leave things open to interpretation. If you want something done, say it. If there's a detail you expect, say it. Actually, ideally you'd put it in writing too so we can re-read.
3. Avoid using unnecessary turns of phrase and idioms that might blur or obstruct meaning. Autistic people can be great users of metaphor and idiom, but it's hard when we come across them in the wild and are expected to quickly (and accurately) decode them.
4. Allow for clarifying questions. We're not being pedantic or difficult - we're simply trying to understand and we're often terrified (and traumatised) by getting it wrong before.
5. Forgive us if we play the small-talk-game wrong. It doesn't tend to come naturally as it's not really part of our toolkit, so be reasonable and don't freak out if we over share or otherwise get small talk wrong.
There's so much more to say about this, but these 5 things would be a great start!”
Pete’s Facebook page contains a wealth of helpful information from an Autistic perspective: https://www.facebook.com/Petewharmbyauthor
We also highly recommend Pete’s book ‘Untypical’ which is a call to arms to ‘re-make the world’ showing us ‘what steps we should all be taking for the autistic people in our lives’
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