April 18, 2024 • 61 mins
On the second episode of "Now You Know One Autistic!", autistic individual, Moshe, and his partner, Leah, delve deep into the intricate aspect of "communication". They navigate through the minefield of simple and complex conversations, decoding of nonverbal cues and the potent difference between casual hearing and active listening. The episode illuminates the relevance of communication in every environment, particularly in neurodiverse relationships.
Diving into their personal experiences, Moshe and Leah ingeniously teach the alteration of understanding the 'What' to comprehending the 'Why' in communication. This episode will be a beacon of light for anyone on the spectrum, those in a supportive role, and all curious listeners yearning to understand the autistic community even more.
Narrating a sincere account of Moshe's struggles with verbal and non-verbal communication, the episode guides listeners on the autistic perspective of establishing relationships. Opening dialogues, it seeks to raise awareness and confront stereotypes about autism head-on. Moshe highlights the potential of autistics in expressing through non-verbal communication when verbalization seems challenging.
Abstract concepts like 'stimming' and more are thrown into the mix as Moshe and Leah delve deeper into the world of autism. The episode concludes with Moshe taking a deeper dive into common developmental delays observed in autistics and the significance of awareness. Overflowing with personal wisdom, listener-friendly knowledge resources, and inspiring anecdotes, this episode is a window into the world of autism.
Offering an open platform for challenging dialogues and societal standards, this episode is an invitation for everyone who wishes to understand and empathize with the world of autism better. Tune in now and join us on this journey of learning, empathy, and acceptance.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Music.
(00:10):
Hi, I'm Moshe and I'm autistic. I'm Leah and I'm boring.
Welcome to Now You Know One Autistic, a podcast about neurodiversity in couples,
marriage, meltdowns, and making it all work.
The opinions expressed in this podcast reflect the experience of one couple and one autistic.
Nothing that you hear in this podcast should be taken as a medical opinion.
(00:32):
And unless otherwise stated, no one is an accredited specialist in any of the
many fields that comprise the autism spectrum.
But as someone who is on the autism spectrum, I feel that my experiences will
be very valuable to many of you, whether you're on the spectrum,
a support person like Leah, or just a curious bystander.
If you think that you or someone you care about may be autistic,
(00:54):
consult your family doctor.
Music.
Hey masha hi leah so today we're starting episode two which is going to be i
think at least three episodes worth but maybe not back to back so we can give
(01:14):
the listeners a little bit of a break from this topic for sure what topic do
you think we're going to be doing today so last week was
an introduction to who we are.
And we sort of discussed a bit about what brought us together and what brought us to do this podcast.
And today, we're going to basically get into the, I guess you could call it
(01:37):
the meat, what is going to be a topic, but it's also going to be sort of sprinkled
liberally throughout all the episodes that we do going forward forever, probably.
But it's going to be about communication. So, you would say we're going to be
communicating about communication then?
We're going to be communicating about communication. Okay.
(01:58):
We should probably start with the definition of what communication is.
I think a lot of people out there might think they know what communication is,
but do they? It's really hard to say.
Communication is one of those things you don't often think about because it
sort of forms the basis or the background noise, we'll call it,
(02:19):
of just regular social interactions.
But when it comes to people who are neurodivergent and people who are autistic.
It's not so simple is it yes but
as you know me i'm a huge nerd and of course i did some research and
even i was blown away by some of the definitions of communication it's
not only what i thought so communication can be identified as a message it can
(02:42):
be identified as a means of communication so like a cell phone that's communications
um but we're really only interested in one of the definitions when it comes
to what we're talking about and i will We'll read it verbatim because it's a very good one.
So this is from Miriam Webster, and it is the successful conveying or sharing of ideas and feelings.
(03:03):
That's a very good and concise definition. Right. So the key word here is successful.
Success, yes. Can we just establish that we haven't always been successful in
conveying or sharing our ideas and feelings?
Not at all. We've never not had an issue. And in fact, kind of skipping ahead
(03:25):
a little bit, communication is an ongoing thing.
It's going to be an ongoing thing in any relationship, but especially when you
have the kind of relationship that we have, and especially when you have the
kind of relationship that anybody who has the kind of relationship that we have
is going to have, you're looking at...
Neurodiversity versus neurotypical. You're looking at autistic versus,
(03:51):
we'll say non-autistic.
We're looking at... One of the terms is holistic. I don't think that one's offensive.
I guess we could call it, I don't know. I'll put it to the listeners.
Do you feel that holistic is a more socially acceptable term than neurotypical?
So I'll do what I do for Moshe and Avram. I'm going to give you three choices.
(04:13):
Your choices are neurotypical, allistic, or non-autistic.
Which one do you think we should use?
Well, personally, I have always used neurotypical just because it is a fairly
accurate way, at least in my own opinion.
And of course, it's just the opinion of one autistic that it better describes
(04:38):
the differences. Because if you say allistic, it could be a word.
It could be a word referring to anything. Allistic means nothing to me.
But when you create the contrast between neurodivergent and neurotypical,
then you are creating that divide between this is the typical experience.
(05:01):
And again, typical according to who.
But it's the typical, quote unquote, experience for, we'll say,
the majority of the population.
And then you have the people like me and like other neurodivergents who are
a little bit off the path,
maybe a little, maybe a lot, but it's not what you would look at or listen to
(05:22):
and think that that's about right.
You go, I don't know about that way of doing things. So I'd like to pose it
to the audience, really.
Message us, post on the forums or whatever it is that you do.
You can tell that I don't do the technical part of this.
But let us know what you think and we'll try to incorporate it.
(05:45):
And I just want to say for the record, because we are doing our first episode
today on the topic of communication, that I really, or Leah and I both really
appreciate all the communication that has been sent our way since the first episode.
The response has been phenomenal.
There's been a lot of feedback and a lot of people who have reached out to me
(06:06):
personally, who have been very excited for the next episode and to see where the podcast goes.
They've said that it's a really great topic. And you'll often see me, if you're on Facebook,
going to a lot of these groups that deal with autism and stuff and sort of giving
the podcast's feedback on behalf of Leigh and I, or she might do it, or I might do it.
(06:29):
It's really been a great response. And I'm so happy.
And please, please, please comment, message, whatever podcasting app you're using.
Rate us. If you like the podcast, say five stars, you did a great job or one
star, you guys are terrible. It doesn't really matter.
Any feedback is better than no feedback. And if you want to send us a private
(06:53):
message, we have an email address.
I didn't mention it in the last episode, but I don't know. It slipped my mind.
Contact us now, you know, one autistic.com and it's all one word,
no spaces, no underscores.
Boards just contact us at now you
know one autistic duck that is simple for our
(07:14):
listeners and that's a very good idea so let's get
into what would be again we like to use the word typical versus non-typical
a typical communicative interaction so the way communication will work typically
is that there is a sender so the person has something that they want to convey to the other person.
(07:35):
So for example, I would be the sender. Now there's a message.
Let's give an example of a message that I have a lot. Moshe,
you left something on the floor. Can you please pick that up?
And then there's a recipient who would be Moshe in this case.
And in order for him to receive that message, a lot of things have to happen.
(07:56):
One, he has to be engaged in listening. Two, he has to process the things I've said.
Three, he has to be in the mood to hear if he's He's in a bad mood.
He's like, give me a minute. I'm busy.
Any of those things can go wrong at any time. And that is true between neurotypicals
as well, between two autistics as well, or between, you know,
(08:18):
an allistic and an autistic person.
That's typically how an interaction would go.
And you hope that by the time the sender gets the message to the recipient that
it goes well and it's handled in a respectful and productive manner. Mm-hmm.
So it's three parts, but it is one of the most complicated aspects of any relationship,
(08:41):
between one autistic and one non-autistic or one holistic.
Sounds so simple, right? It does sound simple. You have three steps,
step one, step two, and step three.
And the amount of work that has to go into, you know, how the sender is saying what they're saying.
Is the sender making sure that the recipient is even listening?
(09:03):
How many times have we come to the end of a half an hour argument?
And the answer is, I just couldn't receive the message you were giving me with
the words you used, you needed to use these words.
The message is very important. The sender and how they present it is very important.
The recipient and whether they are receiving it.
(09:25):
And this actually allows us to get into another topic, which I don't know that
we actually discussed in preparation for the episode.
And that is a very important thing when we're talking about these three steps.
And that is the difference between hearing and listening.
Because a lot of, I mean, let's be honest here, a lot of people,
(09:46):
but also in particular neurodivergence or whatever you want to call them,
autistics, we'll say in this case, because I'm autistic, so that's how I relate.
Autistics always express that there's going to be a difference between hearing
someone and listening someone. Hearing is passive.
Listening is active. It's the difference between speaking and talking.
(10:07):
Hearing means you basically have sounds enter your ears. What your mind does
with them is really up in the air.
If you are in a room and there is a sound, for example, if the air conditioning
is on, I'm hearing it because it's on.
But if there's something wrong with it, I'm not really listening.
(10:28):
And you'll go, do you hear something's wrong with the air conditioning? I go, I don't know.
Well, can you hear it? Oh, yeah, I can hear it. But I'm not listening for it.
Right. That'll typically go the other way, actually.
You'll hear something and be like, something is off. And I don't notice it because of your ADHD.
It's a superpower, I guess. if you want to call it that we'll call it a superpower
but you know Moshe has another layer of things to deal with which honestly I
(10:54):
have to almost give him a medal for this because.
I can see from his perspective how difficult and impossible
it would be and there's this other layer of
hearing versus listening where I
gave the example of Moshe you left let's say your underwear on the
floor again pick him up and he'll go okay and
pick him up but if he doesn't go over and i'm so sorry and
(11:15):
i understand and i acknowledge that that's so frustrating for you i will
turn around and go do you understand how it made me feel that you left
your underwear on the floor again after we've talked about it and that is where
we we get off because i am you know what's neurotypical and a woman so i'm all
about the do you understand how that made me do you know what you did wrong
and that's got to be like just i give him a medal for dealing with that.
(11:39):
That is an interesting point because when we talk about hearing versus listening and we talk about,
Even between hearing and listening, there's subcategories between hearing,
what type of hearing you're using, and what type of listening you're doing.
Because you could, for example, say, Moshe, your underwear on the floor. I could hear you.
(12:04):
I'm listening to you. So I go, oh, okay, pick them up, put them away,
go back to doing what I was doing.
But what I'm not listening for is tone, demeanor, nonverbal body language,
intonation, because this is the sixth time that I've left my underwear on the
floor this week, and Leigh is getting a little bit upset.
(12:24):
So it's not just a matter of, oh, I'll do it, and then I'll forget again.
I have to be able to go, oh, you know what?
It sounds like you're getting a bit annoyed. I'm really sorry.
Have I been doing this a lot? Yes, you have, Moshe.
Okay, I'm really sorry. I'm going to make a greater effort to pick up my underwear.
That way you're acknowledging feelings.
And to be honest with you, I
(12:46):
totally know that the next day his underwear is going to be on the floor.
But just the fact that he cares is all I needed. And I can move on and pick
it up for the rest of the week.
And that's kind of a level two or three concept.
We'll get into the differences between understanding something and doing something
(13:06):
in a later episode, because it's actually a really big topic,
especially when it comes to autistics.
And just to quickly, quickly touch on it, because in fact, it's one of those
things you could make a whole episode about.
It really comes down to understanding the why of it. You can understand the
what of it. I want you to do this.
(13:27):
So we've established that I know what you want me to do, and so I do it.
But do I know why you want me to do it? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
Did you explain why you wanted me to do it? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
If no, maybe I need to clarify.
And when it comes to, and again, this is just a real surface level thing.
(13:47):
When it comes to the consistent change in behavior that you're trying to get,
and again, Again, I just want to note for the record that this is not like unique
to autistics. It can happen to anyone.
But autistics in particular are singled out because of the processing delay,
which is another topic that we won't get into in this episode.
(14:09):
But it's a really important thing.
You have to establish that if you know why you're doing a thing,
it's far easier to consistently do the behavior because then you start checking yourself.
I also want to establish that we're not indicating that any autistic or non-autistic
person should change or want to change.
(14:30):
It's if you want to change to be able to better communicate with your partner
or your children or your co-workers or anything.
But if you're happy with who you are, we're definitely not indicating that just
because you're differently processing or whatever that you should change.
Right. There's nothing wrong with being autistic. There's nothing wrong with
leaving your underwear on the floor.
(14:52):
If you're happy with leaving your underwear on the floor, there's nothing wrong
with leaving your underwear on your floor if you have a partner or a roommate
or someone who accepts that that's just something that you do.
But what we're talking about in this episode and throughout the podcast is if
you are a neurodivergent or in particular an autistic person,
and that goes hand in hand with ADHD,
(15:13):
which is, again, another really advanced topic, that you want to understand the why of it.
Because a lot of autistics, I know I was, were in a position where they were
like, I don't have a really easy time with friends.
I don't have a really easy time with partners. Nobody really wants to be around me.
I don't know why. And then you just go on with your life. Right.
(15:35):
So this concept, and I'm not exaggerating to two and a half years,
listen to the efficiency and ease of this topic, okay?
Moshe would do nothing unless he understood inside and out why it was necessary,
why he was doing it, why it had to be a thing.
He agreed with it in all aspects. And then it was been like a thorough going
(15:59):
over. And I would get very upset.
And one day I just looked at him and said, do you care about me?
And he said, yeah. I said, if you care about me, can you just do it?
And he said, that's a thing I can do. And I said, yeah, you don't have to understand everything.
If someone you love and trust, and you know won't ask you to do anything against
(16:20):
yourself, ask you to do something, sometimes you can just do it.
And trust in a relationship with an aversion to an autistic is also a very interesting concept.
But if you can establish a rapport with someone who is neurodivergent the way
that Leia has established a rapport with me, and that can come through months
(16:41):
or years of established work,
and a genuine, genuine interest in attempting to form the bonds with me that she wanted to,
then you really kind of armor yourself.
Because you can, in effect, out-logic the autistic, like me.
So, we can establish that I am doing this because you know that I care about
(17:06):
you. You can agree that I care about you.
So, you can agree that if I ask you to do something, it's not for selfish or incorrect reasons.
It's because I care about you. Can we agree on this? Yes.
Okay. So, can we establish that if I ask you to do something,
with very few exceptions, it's because it's important to me?
(17:30):
Can we establish that? Yes. Okay.
So, how about this? In instances where I ask you to do something and you don't
readily understand why you're doing it, and we can definitely discuss that at
a later time, but in the moment,
if I ask you to do something, the default,
even if you don't understand the why of it, is because I care about you and
(17:52):
I have your best interest in mind and I love you.
Can that be a thing that you just kind of fall back on so that you don't turn
every single request to pick up your underwear into like an interview.
And, and eventually, and there's a lot of yada, yada, yada to use the Seinfeld
term, which hopefully isn't copyrighted that we got to that point where now
(18:17):
Leo will ask me to do something.
And my default will either be, I understand why based on our history,
or I don't really know why she's asking me to do that, but I,
I love her and I care about her and I want to make her happy.
So that's going to be enough. And then I was probably have time later.
You'll ask me and probably explain it. And then that's okay. Right.
(18:37):
So let's move to some topic within this topic, obviously, the different ways
that somebody can communicate.
So the obvious one is spoken.
What does spoken communication look like? Often it looks like language.
Often it looks like words. Often it looks like a common language,
right? So I'm speaking English to you.
(18:58):
You understand English. You're speaking English to me. Right.
Where you get into difficulties with that is when people don't speak the same language,
for example and a thing
that people should know about autistics
versus non-autistics is that often even if you're speaking
the same language you're not speaking the same language words don't
(19:19):
evoke the same feelings for you necessarily you've
described a phenomenon to me where you will grab a
word that's adjacent to the word that you want to say because that's
what your brain is doing you or we
discover together that a lot of times you think in memories so
you will say something that's totally bonkers to me
like we're driving down the road and it's crashing
(19:41):
and like we're not even in a car but you're expressing a memory to me that conveys
the same feeling and i'm expected to understand that right right um so that's
where you get into the fact that That spoken is actually not necessarily as
simple as you think it is. Right.
The next is nonverbal. So what does nonverbal communication look like?
(20:04):
You're much a better expert at that than I am, actually.
From what I saw and what I know through many incarnations in my careers and
stuff, is that nonverbal generally will look like body language,
gestures, how we look, how we dress, how we carry ourselves.
It's what people see on the outside. It's what we want to project to others.
(20:24):
Right. So nonverbal communication is something that,
And again, I don't mean to use the extreme terms of like everyone or nobody or what have you.
But we'll say for the purposes of this, that quite a few autistics operate very much on nonverbal.
(20:48):
And we'll get into the whole concept of verbal versus nonverbal in a few minutes.
But essentially, an autistic person, and again, just my experience,
and if I'm wrong, please feel free to let me know your experience.
I'm happy to hear it. We're happy to hear it, I should say.
And we would love to hear everyone's experience. But nonverbal communication
(21:10):
for an autistic is the default.
Because even if you can't vocalize your feelings, which a lot of autistics do
struggle with, and again, I use the word a lot, not all, because obviously there's
a lot that are perfectly fine with it. That's okay too.
But you exist. And I use the word exist.
Now, for me, the word exist doesn't necessarily mean what the people might assume
(21:34):
that it means, which is another topic that maybe we can get into is,
does that word, what do you mean by that?
It may not mean what either you think it means, or it may not mean what I think
it means, but not trying to get too much off topic.
So, for example, something that I used to do a lot is stare because my mouth had trouble operating.
(21:59):
So, I tried to speak with my eyes. Now, the thing about the eyes are they don't
have the necessary air exchange to express words.
Your mouth is actually quite good at expressing words. That's kind of how it was made.
But your eyes can express feelings Feelings may be, but those can also be misinterpreted.
(22:19):
So, when I struggle with communication, when I struggle with vocalizing my feelings, when I struggle with...
Expressing myself in the way that I want to, then I rely on non-verbal cues.
My face, as Leia says, does a thing.
Your face has no poker face. My eyes do a thing, or my posture does a thing, or sometimes I'll sigh,
(22:44):
or I'll roll my eyes, or I'll act like really, like you can kind of sort of look at me.
I mean, you can't because this is an audio, this is no video component to the podcast,
but you could if you were able to look at me
and if you know me well you can kind
of see how i'm feeling and
(23:05):
the really interesting part about that is sometimes you
will know how i'm feeling more than i do yes but
if i can be honest with you that is
level 101 because those are
the non-verbal cues that i'm used to as an
neurotypical person so you will do this thing till this
day which i've now understood is not you being angry because
(23:26):
you look angry where you'll stand there and stare at
me with no look on your face and just look at me and that to me is an indication
that i meant to do something here i'm supposed to ask you what you want because
you can't verbalize what it is that you want right now but you used to look
angry again if you could see most like it's kind of an imposing figure there's
pictures of me like here and everywhere so i understand
(23:48):
now that that's my cue to ask you what you want all right so those are basics again.
Admirable cues but for me that's one of my gms look
really good at like advanced body language
with you over yes so the
kids call moshe abba abba means father in
(24:08):
hebrew and she will walk into a room where moshe
is doing nothing that i can see at all and
he'll be like abba has to pee and you'll be like yeah
i actually do have to pee and if i
have no idea what kind of interaction went into them
understanding each other or i'm sure we'll say the same to
me but i'm not doing well today to me he looks fine offering
(24:31):
is gonna you know have an accident later often's gonna fall
down but whatever and i'll be
like he looks fine to me so that is one on
two one on three the language that i don't even have
a kick up yes so while a
lot of autistics do struggle with communication to
certain extents and there are some commonalities like difficulty with social
(24:54):
cues and and and difficulty with expressing ideas and sometimes difficulty with
talking where we excel and again i say we not not to indicate that it's a universalist
thing but but where we tend to excel, we'll say, is on the non-verb.
Because one autistic can often look at another autistic and they just get a feeling about them.
(25:15):
And it could be something very minor, like...
Their face is doing the thing, as Leigh would say. Or they're just,
the words that they used, or the actions that they engaged in,
or just their demeanor, or they're stimming a little bit more than normal,
or stimming a little bit less than normal.
(25:36):
Or if you have a particular stim, and again, I'm using the word stimming,
I haven't defined it, and we will.
But for now, we're just going to assume that it has something to do with autistics.
And if you know what it means, then fantastic.
And if you don't, then we'll definitely define it. But if you are behaving in
a quote unquote autistic way, and again, this will actually come up not as an
(25:56):
offense because it's meant with the most love in our hearts.
But Leah will come to me and say, Avram's acting really autistic today.
Can you figure out what's wrong?
And again, I know what she means. And if I said, Leah, I'm sorry if I'm a bit
off, I'm feeling extra autistic today.
She'll know what i mean by that she'll go oh yeah yeah you
(26:18):
know i see it i see it and that that
comes with with exposure and experience and again it is not meant to be offensive
and if you feel that that's offensive then please let me know why because i'd
honestly i'd like to hear other people's experiences because as the podcast
interest is i'm one autistic and actually just
(26:40):
fanatically define stimming for patients. Okay, we're going to go right into it. It's really quick.
We're not going to linger on it. But stimming is essentially a sensory-seeking behavior.
Everybody has them, including your typical people, where you like to chew gum
or you would like to play with something with your fingers.
Autistics do it more, and they have more of a need to do it.
(27:01):
Rather than something they like
to do, they need it to regulate their interaction with the outside world.
And that's all I'm going to say for now. Okay.
So, back into nonverbal body language, it really comes down to the ability to
be able to carry yourself in such a way that people should,
(27:23):
in your own mind, which is a whole other topic, be able to look at you and based
on their knowledge of you, know what you need without you vocalizing it.
And that is that in an ideal situation that would go part and parcel with the
verbal communication, because as you know, the majority of communication is
nonverbal, but the words do matter,
(27:44):
obviously, because if you just walk into a room and stare at somebody,
they're not automatically going to know exactly what you need,
or the urgency that you need it, or anything like that.
But it's definitely a thing that that autistic people struggle with that i've
experienced and again not universal but it's it's my own experience and my own
journey that is that is work that is work to get to know anybody really if you just look at them and.
(28:09):
Figure out what they need, but that's any relationship I get.
I just want to say for the record, without mentioning names,
that one of my first exposures to what, I don't know, for lack of a better word, a mainstream autistic,
because, you know, there's some of us that look behind the curtains and some
of them that are more in the spotlight, but there's a particular,
we'll call them a somewhat famous autistic
(28:33):
that has some exposure and has been
involved in certain projects and what they
indicated which to me at one
point seemed like the height of autistic understanding is that their partner
would be able to look at them and based entirely on their non-verbal body language
(28:53):
say okay they're done for the day we're going to go now and and lay and i have
had many discussions about that very concept and whether
or not it's even healthy to feel that you need to manage an autistic in,
like, we'll call it the real world. Like another adult.
Your child is different, but another adult. Right.
(29:15):
So we're approaching about a half an hour into the podcast.
So I think what we'll do, we'll call this the halfway point,
perhaps, is we'll move on to the next topic.
This isn't the one. One, you're going to have to keep it, I think,
a little bit quick if we want to keep this to a reasonable length.
What we're going to be talking about is.
(29:36):
The terms non-verbal, non-speaking, and minimally verbal, and what they have
to do with the levels of autism that can be diagnosed via the ADOS and the DSM-5. Right.
So this is one of those topics that we inserted into this second episode because
it's one of those things that I briefly touched on in the first episode.
(30:00):
But it's an opportunity for me to essentially advocate for my community,
if they are indeed my community.
And that is the fact, and I'll say it again, because I did say it in the first
episode, but I really dislike the term non-verbal or its newer incarnations
like minimally verbal or non-speaking.
And that's not to say that there are autistics that do struggle with formulating words,
(30:28):
because if autism can be identified by one common trait, almost universally,
but I'm almost prepared to say universally,
it's development delays. lays.
If someone ever asks you what autism is, you'll get a laundry list of different things.
But the universal underlying factor is it is a developmental disability.
(30:52):
It is a disability. Speaking of which, I did a lot of research on this,
and we're going to post some interesting links if you want to read more about it yourself. Of course.
So my experience with the autistic community, even before I was diagnosed as
an adult, was mostly with children.
Because unfortunately, the majority of autistics that are diagnosed are diagnosed
(31:19):
as children, which is actually not unfortunate. It's actually very fortunate.
But where it becomes unfortunate is that a lot of.
A lot of autistics who weren't diagnosed as children struggle to be diagnosed
as adults, and that is in itself another topic.
But what I encountered is a wide variety of people who have autism or were diagnosed with autism.
(31:42):
And it seems to me, especially in my own experience,
but also just by going through the autism forums on Facebook and other websites
and reading what the parents are writing, that an awful lot of autistics nowadays
are non-verbal, apparent.
And to me, that struck me as strange.
(32:03):
Because one particular trait that seems to be, if you believe that these Facebook
groups are a sample, which they're absolutely not, it just seems like an awful
lot of children are non-verbal.
So I delved into it, and I looked into it, and I met a lot of autistics.
And I met an autistic many years ago when I was in my 20s.
(32:25):
And he was, according to his parents, nonverbal.
And their assessment of nonverbal was the fact that when he expressed himself,
he expressed himself in terms of video games.
His hyper-focus was video games. So when he wanted to leave a situation, he would say, game over.
When he was feeling very happy, he would say, power up.
(32:47):
And they were words. Those are actual words in English.
But the mom says, I'm sorry. He's nonverbal, and we don't always understand what he's trying to say.
So I was very young, and I was very naive, and I was very shy.
But what I was thinking was, well, are you listening to him?
Because I spent time with him. He was, I don't know, he must've been like eight
(33:08):
or nine years old. And I was.
I don't just hang around with, with, with autistic children.
I was this, the roommate of, of this person.
No, I was, I was a roommate of this person's friend.
And the friend was coming over for coffee with my roommate one day and they
brought their son and I'm a very friendly guy. So I was like, hi, how are you doing?
And she said, oh, he, he's nonverbal. I'm sorry.
(33:31):
And I said, he can't talk. He goes, no, he can't talk.
And then he started talking to me and it was mostly about video games.
And I'm like, he's, he's talking though. What people consider language is a
very interesting topic, which we can make a whole episode on as well.
So to summarize, and again, this is a very big deal for me.
What I've experienced is essentially when you say someone is nonverbal,
(33:54):
and again, acknowledging that nonverbal is a very sensitive topic for a lot
of parents, especially who struggle to talk to their children.
And a lot of these parents have very difficult times with it.
I'm an neurotypical parent, and I have no patience for that.
And that's okay, too. So my advice to these parents are your child,
(34:18):
unless they're mute, which I haven't encountered,
whether your child is talking in terms of video games, whether your child is
just using one or two words, whether your child is just making sounds,
whether or not you put them in speech therapy or occupational therapy or,
you know, you know khas v'sholam aba to
(34:38):
try and provoke a a language
development at some point they're not non-verbal
if they sit in a corner and don't make a sound they're non-verbal but most of
the time they are verbal or they talk in the sense that they have a language
that they understand yeah i need to inspire how i feel about this go ahead so
(34:59):
there are parents who learn their baby's fries rise to know what they want.
This crime means they're dirty. This crime means they want to be this way.
So that's a means of communication. That's not a recognized language.
There are parents who will teach baby's sign language to reduce frustration
on the baby's part before their mouth parts can actually make words.
(35:21):
When you're dealing with an autistic, just because they're older,
it is the same issue. Their mouth parts are having trouble making words.
But if you can learn what a newborn baby's crying means, if you can teach a
baby sign language so that they're less frustrated and cry less.
Then why on earth can't you learn what your child's noises, sounds.
(35:45):
Flackering, body language, any combination of those things mean?
Exactly. And what I encountered, and it actually does make me very frustrated,
because a lot of these nonverbal parents, parents of nonverbal autistics,
the kids are like two or three or four or one and a half.
And maybe they only recently got a diagnosis, And maybe they're still working
(36:08):
on trying to understand the kid, either through speech therapy or through just learning their cues.
But then you have these parents. And again, they're 25.
They're like, I'm sorry. They're like, Sam is 25 and nonverbal.
That's not, there's no excuse.
I have a 19 year old son. I read this. I forget which form I was in.
I read this, this, this post.
(36:28):
But this mom did. And she was reaching out to the, to the community.
And she wrote, my 19-year-old son always screams when he's in the back of the
car, and I don't know what to do.
So I responded to her quite innocently as, well, what's happening?
(36:50):
Why is he screaming? Again, why is he screaming?
Why is he making the noise that you want him to stop?
And she said i don't know
he's non-verbal and my thought was you
have been this child or this this this autistic's
mother for 19 years and you still don't understand what they're trying to tell
(37:13):
you and this is another thing that maybe people don't know about about autistics
even if they can't make words with their mouth and that does happen to you sometimes
when you're very stressed and also you can ask them questions i will be like
avram are you upset right now and he'll nod.
So I'm pretty sure if she looked in the back of the car and said,
are you screaming because insert word here, and she did that enough,
(37:35):
he would be able to communicate that to her.
And my first question would be, are you screaming because it's a really exciting
sensation and you're really happy? Because that's what I would assume.
Expression in autistics doesn't always necessarily match the way that they look
or sound. An autistic can appear to be very upset.
They're actually very happy. happy sometimes Avram will
squeal and scream and I still have to stop and
(37:58):
go is he crying or is it a happy sound it's hard
to tell sometimes but even even with you a grown
man sometimes you get so upset you're sitting on the couch and I'm like Masha
are you upset and you'll nod because your mouth isn't making words at that time
and that has to be okay yeah and so it's very talk to me about why you're upset
and you'll not you know you'll shake your head and say okay well I'm I'm going
(38:20):
to give you a log and then we'll talk about it. Okay.
Grown up. 43 year old. Yes.
So the whole concept of nonverbal is frustrating for me because by the logic of some of these people,
a mother will give birth to their baby and then immediately post on a forum.
(38:44):
My infant is nonverbal. I don't know what to do. I'm sorry.
I don't mean to. I just gave birth to a nonverbal. I don't know how to relate to them.
And I've had babies. You had babies.
I mean, I haven't actually physically had babies, but I cared for babies from
the moment that they were born until the present day or most recently.
(39:07):
And I looked at this newborn.
And I thought a lot of things, but I never for one minute thought,
oh, my goodness, my baby is nonverbal.
Because it's expected that you're not going to necessarily understand what your baby wants.
And you could say, and you could very rightly say, Moshe, Leah,
(39:28):
we're not talking about a baby here.
We're talking about a two-year-old, a three-year-old, a five-year-old,
a 10-year-old, a 12-year-old, a 19-year-old.
And and and i would respond to you okay a
new mother who has never had children before and is
holding this new baby doesn't go oh my
gosh my baby is non-verbal but maybe in
a few months or a couple of years you could
(39:50):
go up though he's hungry that's you see what he's doing
that that means he's hungry or no he has to go to the bathroom because he's
doing the thing with his whatever but you've been
this child's parent and you're going my child's non-verbal
i don't know know what to do okay so you know
what what are you doing to understand him right
but that's also an amazing thread you know all these miraculous stories where
(40:13):
autistics are non-verbal and all of a sudden 10 11 or 12 years old because you
know their parents gave them some sort of fiber supplement or whatever that
they started talking the reality is one of the number one signs or
symptoms of autism is developmental delay.
Right. That might have just been when they were able to start talking anyway. Exactly.
(40:37):
And we're not going to get into the science of it because the science is boring
for me. Not for Leah. Leah loves the science.
But when you get an autism diagnosis, it's not just a piece of paper that says autism positive.
There's like a whole series of things. Some might call it a spectrum.
But one of the things that they look at is all the different areas.
(41:00):
He's here on this. He's there on this. He's delayed in this. He's fine on this.
He's normal and walking. talking but in talking he's there and
we're going to get into it because it's actually a really fascinating topic as
you wouldn't even care part of autumn's diagnosis was
they actually manipulated his joints and they're like yeah yeah he's
loose and i went what does that mean apparently that's a thing it is we went
(41:22):
to a neurologist for you the other day and what did she do she said get up and
walk for me back and forth he took two steps she went yeah sit back down i i
was told the other day that i had an autistic walk i'd never before told i had
an autistic walk but now Now I know what an autistic walk is.
I've always known what it was. I just never knew it was an autistic walk.
But the delay, a lot of people look at delays and they think that delays are universal.
(41:45):
And that is a problem. Because if you have a baby, getting back to the concept
of an infant, if you have a baby, the pediatrician or the doctor or whatever,
pardon me, will hand you like a chart.
You can get the chart online that says by this age, they should be doing this.
By this age, they should be doing that. By this age, they should weigh this.
By this age, they should be meeting this milestone.
(42:07):
And a lot of the time, they will meet these milestones, and then they'll still
be autistic. And a lot of times, they won't.
And they won't be autistic. And sometimes they won't, and then they are.
And it becomes very varied.
But you'll end up talking to these parents, and they'll go, he seems so normal. I don't understand.
So, other hit a lot of the milestones that seem to matter to society in general.
(42:31):
And that was why they had a big problem.
Explaining to everyone, including, you know, professionals that we think there's
something wrong here, but we are definitely getting off the topic of communication at this point.
Now we're talking about diagnostic, but we should rein it back in.
Right. So let's talk about non-speaking.
Right. How do you feel about non-speaking? So the definition I found for non-speaking,
(42:54):
and again, you can definitely write it and correct us if we're wrong,
is defined as somebody who has a vocabulary of 30 words or less that they use.
Right. Like, and that goes along with a level three diagnosis of autism,
which we can discuss what that is. I'm con three.
You got a level three autistic in your house. Watch it. Yes.
(43:15):
So I had the bird. Anyway, my opinion for that is, is really my,
my, my opinion of the concept of nonverbal or non-speaking because by whose standards?
Standards maybe maybe somebody just
likes to say a few things he knows
a lot of words he just chooses not to use most of them the average person i
(43:39):
don't actually know because i never did the research they know x number of words
hundreds and hundreds of words but maybe they only use a few words and they're
they're labeled as autistic because of that but by whose standards are they
minimally, you know, do they have that minimal whatever?
But it's funny because that's actually a tactic to teach someone a new language
(44:01):
is you provide them with the top, you know, 60 or 100 words that occur over
and over and over in that language and they memorize them.
Right. So if you're effectively communicating with 30 words, what's the difference?
Exactly. And it really also depends. And this is why we went into diagnostics,
maybe a little bit too in depth, but it's going to be a topic eventually. So we'll touch on it now.
(44:23):
That when you have a child like me, my metrics were that I was advanced in comprehension,
in speaking, and in reading.
But I was very delayed in mobility.
I still struggle sometimes to walk, and I walked as a baby very late.
(44:44):
So, when I was using big words, like I said in the the first,
like, filthy, then you go, oh, wow, he's really smart.
No, I mean, he is, because I'm very smart. But I was very advanced in that.
And I like using big words.
Somebody might not use the word filthy. They might use very minimal words, dirty.
(45:06):
And that doesn't necessarily mean that they are minimally, you know, talking.
It just could mean that they are able to summarize their thoughts That's in fewer words.
Again, that brings us back to the original, you know what I mean?
That the messenger is saying the message and the person is receiving it.
So if you're receiving the message with the word filthy or the word dirty,
does it really matter? Exactly.
(45:28):
I tend to be a walking thesaurus sometimes. But just because you use basic words
to express yourself, it doesn't mean that your ability to talk is minimum.
Them like if i knew 30 recipes wouldn't that be enough to
feed us for the rest of eternity right but yes but
what i would i then look at you and go well her her cooking ability
(45:49):
is very minimal she only does 30 things with with
like exactly no she's an amazing cook she just knows that those 30 things are
are enough to get by it so why would you need to know everything i could know
thousands of different words does it really matter if i'm making my my point
really right so So yeah, that kind of irks me that way.
(46:10):
I think that the whole level three autistic and ADOS thing is more of a biomostics discussion.
So let's leave it for another episode, I think. Sure.
Do we want to make any last points about this whole minimally verbal,
nonverbal, verbal situation?
I think if I can just make one final point and then move on to the final point,
(46:33):
the concept concept of nonverbal, which, as I mentioned, is a very sensitive
subject for a lot of parents of autistic children.
And believe you me, Leigh and I are going to be devoting probably multiple episodes
just to autistic children.
So, for right now, we're focusing more or less on our relationship as a married
(46:58):
couple and on autistic adults, because I am an autistic adult.
And if we have the opportunity to talk to Avram at some point,
which I hope we will, then you can get that perspective.
He told us he will. Great. Because.
The point that I'm trying to make, and so we can move on to the next topic,
is the idea of nonverbal is very cult, especially when you're very young.
(47:24):
Because even though autistics are delayed in many ways, when they're already
so small and they're relatively fresh to the world, we'll say,
their own ability is going to be limited.
And for a new mom or new dad or a new parent, we'll say, to look at this child
who is now three, four, five, six,
(47:45):
seven, eight, nine, 10 years old, who really can only use a few words or no words at all.
It's very frustrating. And when we talk about our own feelings about it,
it's not to diminish your own feelings of how you feel about it.
And it's not to say that you're wrong, or you're doing a bad job,
(48:06):
or you're not doing the best you can.
It's simply to express us in an overall sense
are our feelings about how everybody
with almost very few exceptions is
able to communicate somehow so saying
that someone is non-verbal reads like
they're non-communicative it's one of those labels that's
(48:28):
maybe more harmful than you know so maybe a
better word is a better term
we'll say than non-verbal or minimally verbal or
non-speaking or non-talking or whatever is differently communicative it's a
long mouthful of a word but it's much more expressive of what's going on than
(48:49):
just saying he's non-verbal anyway right actually this brings to me another
topic within the subtopic but we have to discuss it very quickly what about
going Going non-verbal.
Do you know what I mean about going non-verbal? So, for example,
we had a friend who was very verbal, if you want to say it that way.
When he gets sick, he ceases to speak for maybe a week at a time.
(49:13):
Yes. That is a thing that seems to happen to a lot of autistics.
The question is, do we be afraid of it? Is it permanent?
What's going on there? so unfortunately we
have very little time to to to discuss you know non non topics related to the
(49:34):
idea of communication and this is definitely related to communication but i
have a lot of opinions on this which which i want to share in a future episode
but for now what i will say is,
Being autistic is a constant ordering of thoughts and feelings and expressions
and experiences and stimulation.
(49:56):
And a lot of that is hard work. And when you are ill or when you are upset or
when you are in some way not in control of all of the inner mechanics of what's going on in you,
a lot of things kind of let go.
And if you think of an autistic like a
(50:18):
person standing in a field holding a bunch of balloons and one
balloon says talking one balloon says cleaning and
one balloon says you know learning then you
can't always hold all those balloons sometimes the talking balloon
floats away and until you
can get it back you're trying so hard to
hold on to the rest of the balloons that you lose one of the other ones and
(50:40):
it's it's called i believe regression and it's
a lot of the time it's completely temporary but it does happen
and it's simply a result of the
functionality of the neurodivergent or the autistic
being reduced because of
other external factors because i have heard the fear that it's permanent um
(51:00):
from my own mother actually she would be concerned that if avram wasn't being
himself she would say oh my goodness i hope he starts to talk again and i would
say with all confidence because i know our son that absolutely he will but it
is a concern so So that's something.
Again, right into us. Tell us if it's a concern for you.
We can bring it up in a future episode. And it has to do a lot of the time as
well with different kinds of traumas.
(51:21):
But we can definitely get into it in a later episode, but we have to move on.
But for now, please tell us your experiences. And if you have any experience
with neurodivergence and autistics becoming non-verbal activity.
Anyway. All right. So now this is one actually for the neurotypicals more,
because we're going to discuss communication styles. And these are for everyone.
(51:42):
We're going to see where the pitfalls could be in between two differently functional people.
But there are four main communication status. We're going to put up a really
good graphic that's found actually about that.
The first is passive. So passive means that you don't speak up.
You're very shy. You're afraid of people judging you. You keep all of your feelings.
And that absolutely leads to nobody knowing you or knowing what you want ever.
(52:05):
Then you have aggressive. So you bring yourself across with anger and judgment,
inflexibility. and that can cause a very hostile environment in terms of your
communication with other people.
Then there's the passive-aggressive.
You hold on to those negative feelings, but you don't necessarily verbalize
them, but it will affect or your emotions will affect future communication and
(52:30):
that will often lead to confusion and resentment on both parties.
The last is assertive, which seems to be the healthiest one.
It's confident but respectful of the other person's feelings and it opens you
up to honest and healthy conversation.
So in terms of communication styles, I've already identified that I'm assertive.
What do you think your communication style is?
(52:52):
I've often been sort of vacillating between passive and passive-aggressive.
Spurts of aggressive. Assertive is definitely something that I have often struggled with.
And that is a lot to do with my past experiences, which we may or may not get
into in a later episode, because it doesn't necessarily have to do with neurodivergency
(53:15):
or autism, and it's mostly just a personal thing.
But what we can discuss about it is that autistics tend to be,
and again, one autistic, one experience, but they tend to be very suggestible.
And And when you are in a situation where you are suggestible,
like I am, and I'll admit it, then you can sometimes get pigeonholed into a communication style.
(53:40):
Because autistics, and again, just my experience, but autistics often are very,
to use the Freudian term, in-focused.
When they want something, they tell you what they want. When they're uncomfortable,
they say they're uncomfortable.
When they're unhappy, they say they're unhappy. and they express themselves in these overt ways.
(54:00):
The people in my life often called me histrionic or drama queen or whatever,
but they express themselves in these overt ways and they scream and they cry
when they stub their toe or they're very unhappy.
So they descend into this Shakespearean level of melancholy that causes them
to just give up the will to live or whatever.
But the fact is when we experience emotions, they're often very extreme.
(54:25):
And people who are around us that don't necessarily know how to deal with it,
they'll punch them down.
No, just stop acting that way. Stop screaming. Stop acting up.
Stop. Just stop. Just stop. Calm down.
And oftentimes, a lot of autistics will take that to mean not that they should
temper themselves, but that they should just shut down completely.
(54:47):
So my experience, and again, this is harder than the experience,
is that you should approach in the action like that of curiosity.
What happened? What's wrong? wrong, how can we calm this down?
So yes, I actually do have a question for you. So do you think you could be
in a successful relationship with another aggressive communicator or another
passive aggressive communicator?
(55:07):
Or do you think it's necessary to have sort of an open and honest assertive
communicator? Well, the two?
Optimize our understanding of each other, for example? So, autistics,
and again, I use the general term, but my own experience is my own experience.
And again, if your experience is different, let me know.
But autistics in general function better with clear instructions.
(55:30):
One of the things that always really bothered me about being in Israel is that
Israelis are very general.
They'll say it's over there, or it's right there, or it's over here.
And they don't give specifics. They go, where's the bathroom?
They'll go, it's over there. Where? They'll just sort of wave in a general vicinity.
And if a statistic doesn't have clear instructions, they don't necessarily know what to do.
(55:53):
So, being with somebody who doesn't give clear instructions,
or being with someone who gives unclear instructions, like, for example, passive aggressive.
Geez it would be real nice so someone could do the dishes moshe yeah you're right and then walk away.
Or gosh i'm always having to tidy up your mess is passive-aggressive because
(56:18):
it doesn't give clear instructions the person feels that they're being clear
and the really sad thing is sometimes autistics do that too because their version
of communicating doesn't always fit into these these categories.
But that's where I think you will say something, wow, thanks full,
it would be nice if someone did the dishes and I'll say, Moshe,
would you like me to do the dishes?
(56:40):
Right. You could just say so. Right. And that's not meant to be, you know, bad Moshe.
It's meant to help communication, which is the topic that we're in.
And it works with kids and it works with adults. And it really comes down to clear instructions.
What do you want? What do you need?
Tell me what it is that you're looking for. And often that interaction will
(57:03):
end with me throwing you a towel and was doing the dishes.
Exactly. And crisis averted, where some people could fight over that for all night.
So, assertive communication, which is, as Leah said, the key or the most ideal
form of communication is expressing your needs in a way that is…,
(57:23):
Sort of considerate of the other person. That is considerate of the other person, but clear.
Because a lot of the time I've said to Leah, I don't want to come across as mean.
And she'll say, well, do you want
it to be done? Then tell them that you want it to be done and mean it.
Don't just say do the dishes when there's
like one dish in the sink for the sake of doing
(57:46):
it or just aggressive communicators are often bullies almost always bullies
because they don't have any rhyme or reason for their for their emphasis we'll
say they just want it and they want it done now or they need it done now or
they're very expressive but without any grounding someone who unfortunately
Unfortunately, I forgot,
told me a better definition of assertive that I can't actually recall right now.
(58:10):
But what I think that I would like to put out into the podcasting universe is
if you have a really good definition of the different communication styles.
Assertive, passive, passive, aggressive, and aggressive, then let us know.
And in particular, if someone is assertive, what does that mean to you?
What is the difference between aggressive and assertive?
(58:33):
Okay, I can be honest. as being a woman i've been called the b
word more than once right because a woman is
not allowed to be aggressive sort of they can
be assertive because but then they're they're
labeled whatever yeah yeah right so we are coming definitely to the end of the
along talking you probably want to listen to at this point we have more topics
(58:57):
even that we intended to do in this episode i'll just touch on them real quick,
because they're very interesting.
So the double empathy problem, you can Google that and put that up,
but we're going to discuss it and how it leads to misunderstandings.
How long does effective communication take? That's a very personal talk with Moshe and I.
There's no ideal for that. And we're just going to discuss how long effective
communication takes for us.
(59:18):
And eye contact. So why eye contact is difficult for autistics?
Should we insist on eye contact? Is it a thing?
When is eye contact appropriate? And some of the science behind why eye contact is difficult.
Right. So we'll sign off now to avoid making the episode any longer than it needs to be.
(59:40):
But I will say that communication is going to be an ongoing thing for us in terms of topics.
But it's also an ongoing thing for any relationship.
And in particular, even though we're doing episodes or podcasts about communications,
it's still a work in progress for Leigh and I. So if you're having communication issues.
(01:00:02):
Feel free to let us know, but don't feel down on yourself because it's going
to continue to evolve if you want it to.
Absolutely. So write in, let us know. Even if you want some advice from a couple
of non-professionals, we might even feature your story.
For sure. Might be helpful to people. Also, don't forget on whatever podcasting
(01:00:24):
app you're using, download, rate, share.
We hope that you really enjoy what we have to offer and we're excited to give you more.
That's our show for today now you know it just
a little bit better so something you may not know about some autistics is that
we often struggle with ending social interactions so leia all right i'll take
(01:00:48):
care of it thank you for listening to now you know one autistic see you next week.
Music.
Music.
(00:10):
Hi, I'm Moshe and I'm autistic. I'm Leah and I'm boring.
Welcome to Now You Know One Autistic, a podcast about neurodiversity in couples,
marriage, meltdowns, and making it all work.
The opinions expressed in this podcast reflect the experience of one couple and one autistic.
Nothing that you hear in this podcast should be taken as a medical opinion.
(00:32):
And unless otherwise stated, no one is an accredited specialist in any of the
many fields that comprise the autism spectrum.
But as someone who is on the autism spectrum, I feel that my experiences will
be very valuable to many of you, whether you're on the spectrum,
a support person like Leah, or just a curious bystander.
If you think that you or someone you care about may be autistic,
(00:54):
consult your family doctor.
Music.
Hey masha hi leah so today we're starting episode two which is going to be i
think at least three episodes worth but maybe not back to back so we can give
(01:14):
the listeners a little bit of a break from this topic for sure what topic do
you think we're going to be doing today so last week was
an introduction to who we are.
And we sort of discussed a bit about what brought us together and what brought us to do this podcast.
And today, we're going to basically get into the, I guess you could call it
(01:37):
the meat, what is going to be a topic, but it's also going to be sort of sprinkled
liberally throughout all the episodes that we do going forward forever, probably.
But it's going to be about communication. So, you would say we're going to be
communicating about communication then?
We're going to be communicating about communication. Okay.
(01:58):
We should probably start with the definition of what communication is.
I think a lot of people out there might think they know what communication is,
but do they? It's really hard to say.
Communication is one of those things you don't often think about because it
sort of forms the basis or the background noise, we'll call it,
(02:19):
of just regular social interactions.
But when it comes to people who are neurodivergent and people who are autistic.
It's not so simple is it yes but
as you know me i'm a huge nerd and of course i did some research and
even i was blown away by some of the definitions of communication it's
not only what i thought so communication can be identified as a message it can
(02:42):
be identified as a means of communication so like a cell phone that's communications
um but we're really only interested in one of the definitions when it comes
to what we're talking about and i will We'll read it verbatim because it's a very good one.
So this is from Miriam Webster, and it is the successful conveying or sharing of ideas and feelings.
(03:03):
That's a very good and concise definition. Right. So the key word here is successful.
Success, yes. Can we just establish that we haven't always been successful in
conveying or sharing our ideas and feelings?
Not at all. We've never not had an issue. And in fact, kind of skipping ahead
(03:25):
a little bit, communication is an ongoing thing.
It's going to be an ongoing thing in any relationship, but especially when you
have the kind of relationship that we have, and especially when you have the
kind of relationship that anybody who has the kind of relationship that we have
is going to have, you're looking at...
Neurodiversity versus neurotypical. You're looking at autistic versus,
(03:51):
we'll say non-autistic.
We're looking at... One of the terms is holistic. I don't think that one's offensive.
I guess we could call it, I don't know. I'll put it to the listeners.
Do you feel that holistic is a more socially acceptable term than neurotypical?
So I'll do what I do for Moshe and Avram. I'm going to give you three choices.
(04:13):
Your choices are neurotypical, allistic, or non-autistic.
Which one do you think we should use?
Well, personally, I have always used neurotypical just because it is a fairly
accurate way, at least in my own opinion.
And of course, it's just the opinion of one autistic that it better describes
(04:38):
the differences. Because if you say allistic, it could be a word.
It could be a word referring to anything. Allistic means nothing to me.
But when you create the contrast between neurodivergent and neurotypical,
then you are creating that divide between this is the typical experience.
(05:01):
And again, typical according to who.
But it's the typical, quote unquote, experience for, we'll say,
the majority of the population.
And then you have the people like me and like other neurodivergents who are
a little bit off the path,
maybe a little, maybe a lot, but it's not what you would look at or listen to
(05:22):
and think that that's about right.
You go, I don't know about that way of doing things. So I'd like to pose it
to the audience, really.
Message us, post on the forums or whatever it is that you do.
You can tell that I don't do the technical part of this.
But let us know what you think and we'll try to incorporate it.
(05:45):
And I just want to say for the record, because we are doing our first episode
today on the topic of communication, that I really, or Leah and I both really
appreciate all the communication that has been sent our way since the first episode.
The response has been phenomenal.
There's been a lot of feedback and a lot of people who have reached out to me
(06:06):
personally, who have been very excited for the next episode and to see where the podcast goes.
They've said that it's a really great topic. And you'll often see me, if you're on Facebook,
going to a lot of these groups that deal with autism and stuff and sort of giving
the podcast's feedback on behalf of Leigh and I, or she might do it, or I might do it.
(06:29):
It's really been a great response. And I'm so happy.
And please, please, please comment, message, whatever podcasting app you're using.
Rate us. If you like the podcast, say five stars, you did a great job or one
star, you guys are terrible. It doesn't really matter.
Any feedback is better than no feedback. And if you want to send us a private
(06:53):
message, we have an email address.
I didn't mention it in the last episode, but I don't know. It slipped my mind.
Contact us now, you know, one autistic.com and it's all one word,
no spaces, no underscores.
Boards just contact us at now you
know one autistic duck that is simple for our
(07:14):
listeners and that's a very good idea so let's get
into what would be again we like to use the word typical versus non-typical
a typical communicative interaction so the way communication will work typically
is that there is a sender so the person has something that they want to convey to the other person.
(07:35):
So for example, I would be the sender. Now there's a message.
Let's give an example of a message that I have a lot. Moshe,
you left something on the floor. Can you please pick that up?
And then there's a recipient who would be Moshe in this case.
And in order for him to receive that message, a lot of things have to happen.
(07:56):
One, he has to be engaged in listening. Two, he has to process the things I've said.
Three, he has to be in the mood to hear if he's He's in a bad mood.
He's like, give me a minute. I'm busy.
Any of those things can go wrong at any time. And that is true between neurotypicals
as well, between two autistics as well, or between, you know,
(08:18):
an allistic and an autistic person.
That's typically how an interaction would go.
And you hope that by the time the sender gets the message to the recipient that
it goes well and it's handled in a respectful and productive manner. Mm-hmm.
So it's three parts, but it is one of the most complicated aspects of any relationship,
(08:41):
between one autistic and one non-autistic or one holistic.
Sounds so simple, right? It does sound simple. You have three steps,
step one, step two, and step three.
And the amount of work that has to go into, you know, how the sender is saying what they're saying.
Is the sender making sure that the recipient is even listening?
(09:03):
How many times have we come to the end of a half an hour argument?
And the answer is, I just couldn't receive the message you were giving me with
the words you used, you needed to use these words.
The message is very important. The sender and how they present it is very important.
The recipient and whether they are receiving it.
(09:25):
And this actually allows us to get into another topic, which I don't know that
we actually discussed in preparation for the episode.
And that is a very important thing when we're talking about these three steps.
And that is the difference between hearing and listening.
Because a lot of, I mean, let's be honest here, a lot of people,
(09:46):
but also in particular neurodivergence or whatever you want to call them,
autistics, we'll say in this case, because I'm autistic, so that's how I relate.
Autistics always express that there's going to be a difference between hearing
someone and listening someone. Hearing is passive.
Listening is active. It's the difference between speaking and talking.
(10:07):
Hearing means you basically have sounds enter your ears. What your mind does
with them is really up in the air.
If you are in a room and there is a sound, for example, if the air conditioning
is on, I'm hearing it because it's on.
But if there's something wrong with it, I'm not really listening.
(10:28):
And you'll go, do you hear something's wrong with the air conditioning? I go, I don't know.
Well, can you hear it? Oh, yeah, I can hear it. But I'm not listening for it.
Right. That'll typically go the other way, actually.
You'll hear something and be like, something is off. And I don't notice it because of your ADHD.
It's a superpower, I guess. if you want to call it that we'll call it a superpower
but you know Moshe has another layer of things to deal with which honestly I
(10:54):
have to almost give him a medal for this because.
I can see from his perspective how difficult and impossible
it would be and there's this other layer of
hearing versus listening where I
gave the example of Moshe you left let's say your underwear on the
floor again pick him up and he'll go okay and
pick him up but if he doesn't go over and i'm so sorry and
(11:15):
i understand and i acknowledge that that's so frustrating for you i will
turn around and go do you understand how it made me feel that you left
your underwear on the floor again after we've talked about it and that is where
we we get off because i am you know what's neurotypical and a woman so i'm all
about the do you understand how that made me do you know what you did wrong
and that's got to be like just i give him a medal for dealing with that.
(11:39):
That is an interesting point because when we talk about hearing versus listening and we talk about,
Even between hearing and listening, there's subcategories between hearing,
what type of hearing you're using, and what type of listening you're doing.
Because you could, for example, say, Moshe, your underwear on the floor. I could hear you.
(12:04):
I'm listening to you. So I go, oh, okay, pick them up, put them away,
go back to doing what I was doing.
But what I'm not listening for is tone, demeanor, nonverbal body language,
intonation, because this is the sixth time that I've left my underwear on the
floor this week, and Leigh is getting a little bit upset.
(12:24):
So it's not just a matter of, oh, I'll do it, and then I'll forget again.
I have to be able to go, oh, you know what?
It sounds like you're getting a bit annoyed. I'm really sorry.
Have I been doing this a lot? Yes, you have, Moshe.
Okay, I'm really sorry. I'm going to make a greater effort to pick up my underwear.
That way you're acknowledging feelings.
And to be honest with you, I
(12:46):
totally know that the next day his underwear is going to be on the floor.
But just the fact that he cares is all I needed. And I can move on and pick
it up for the rest of the week.
And that's kind of a level two or three concept.
We'll get into the differences between understanding something and doing something
(13:06):
in a later episode, because it's actually a really big topic,
especially when it comes to autistics.
And just to quickly, quickly touch on it, because in fact, it's one of those
things you could make a whole episode about.
It really comes down to understanding the why of it. You can understand the
what of it. I want you to do this.
(13:27):
So we've established that I know what you want me to do, and so I do it.
But do I know why you want me to do it? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
Did you explain why you wanted me to do it? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
If no, maybe I need to clarify.
And when it comes to, and again, this is just a real surface level thing.
(13:47):
When it comes to the consistent change in behavior that you're trying to get,
and again, Again, I just want to note for the record that this is not like unique
to autistics. It can happen to anyone.
But autistics in particular are singled out because of the processing delay,
which is another topic that we won't get into in this episode.
(14:09):
But it's a really important thing.
You have to establish that if you know why you're doing a thing,
it's far easier to consistently do the behavior because then you start checking yourself.
I also want to establish that we're not indicating that any autistic or non-autistic
person should change or want to change.
(14:30):
It's if you want to change to be able to better communicate with your partner
or your children or your co-workers or anything.
But if you're happy with who you are, we're definitely not indicating that just
because you're differently processing or whatever that you should change.
Right. There's nothing wrong with being autistic. There's nothing wrong with
leaving your underwear on the floor.
(14:52):
If you're happy with leaving your underwear on the floor, there's nothing wrong
with leaving your underwear on your floor if you have a partner or a roommate
or someone who accepts that that's just something that you do.
But what we're talking about in this episode and throughout the podcast is if
you are a neurodivergent or in particular an autistic person,
and that goes hand in hand with ADHD,
(15:13):
which is, again, another really advanced topic, that you want to understand the why of it.
Because a lot of autistics, I know I was, were in a position where they were
like, I don't have a really easy time with friends.
I don't have a really easy time with partners. Nobody really wants to be around me.
I don't know why. And then you just go on with your life. Right.
(15:35):
So this concept, and I'm not exaggerating to two and a half years,
listen to the efficiency and ease of this topic, okay?
Moshe would do nothing unless he understood inside and out why it was necessary,
why he was doing it, why it had to be a thing.
He agreed with it in all aspects. And then it was been like a thorough going
(15:59):
over. And I would get very upset.
And one day I just looked at him and said, do you care about me?
And he said, yeah. I said, if you care about me, can you just do it?
And he said, that's a thing I can do. And I said, yeah, you don't have to understand everything.
If someone you love and trust, and you know won't ask you to do anything against
(16:20):
yourself, ask you to do something, sometimes you can just do it.
And trust in a relationship with an aversion to an autistic is also a very interesting concept.
But if you can establish a rapport with someone who is neurodivergent the way
that Leia has established a rapport with me, and that can come through months
(16:41):
or years of established work,
and a genuine, genuine interest in attempting to form the bonds with me that she wanted to,
then you really kind of armor yourself.
Because you can, in effect, out-logic the autistic, like me.
So, we can establish that I am doing this because you know that I care about
(17:06):
you. You can agree that I care about you.
So, you can agree that if I ask you to do something, it's not for selfish or incorrect reasons.
It's because I care about you. Can we agree on this? Yes.
Okay. So, can we establish that if I ask you to do something,
with very few exceptions, it's because it's important to me?
(17:30):
Can we establish that? Yes. Okay.
So, how about this? In instances where I ask you to do something and you don't
readily understand why you're doing it, and we can definitely discuss that at
a later time, but in the moment,
if I ask you to do something, the default,
even if you don't understand the why of it, is because I care about you and
(17:52):
I have your best interest in mind and I love you.
Can that be a thing that you just kind of fall back on so that you don't turn
every single request to pick up your underwear into like an interview.
And, and eventually, and there's a lot of yada, yada, yada to use the Seinfeld
term, which hopefully isn't copyrighted that we got to that point where now
(18:17):
Leo will ask me to do something.
And my default will either be, I understand why based on our history,
or I don't really know why she's asking me to do that, but I,
I love her and I care about her and I want to make her happy.
So that's going to be enough. And then I was probably have time later.
You'll ask me and probably explain it. And then that's okay. Right.
(18:37):
So let's move to some topic within this topic, obviously, the different ways
that somebody can communicate.
So the obvious one is spoken.
What does spoken communication look like? Often it looks like language.
Often it looks like words. Often it looks like a common language,
right? So I'm speaking English to you.
(18:58):
You understand English. You're speaking English to me. Right.
Where you get into difficulties with that is when people don't speak the same language,
for example and a thing
that people should know about autistics
versus non-autistics is that often even if you're speaking
the same language you're not speaking the same language words don't
(19:19):
evoke the same feelings for you necessarily you've
described a phenomenon to me where you will grab a
word that's adjacent to the word that you want to say because that's
what your brain is doing you or we
discover together that a lot of times you think in memories so
you will say something that's totally bonkers to me
like we're driving down the road and it's crashing
(19:41):
and like we're not even in a car but you're expressing a memory to me that conveys
the same feeling and i'm expected to understand that right right um so that's
where you get into the fact that That spoken is actually not necessarily as
simple as you think it is. Right.
The next is nonverbal. So what does nonverbal communication look like?
(20:04):
You're much a better expert at that than I am, actually.
From what I saw and what I know through many incarnations in my careers and
stuff, is that nonverbal generally will look like body language,
gestures, how we look, how we dress, how we carry ourselves.
It's what people see on the outside. It's what we want to project to others.
(20:24):
Right. So nonverbal communication is something that,
And again, I don't mean to use the extreme terms of like everyone or nobody or what have you.
But we'll say for the purposes of this, that quite a few autistics operate very much on nonverbal.
(20:48):
And we'll get into the whole concept of verbal versus nonverbal in a few minutes.
But essentially, an autistic person, and again, just my experience,
and if I'm wrong, please feel free to let me know your experience.
I'm happy to hear it. We're happy to hear it, I should say.
And we would love to hear everyone's experience. But nonverbal communication
(21:10):
for an autistic is the default.
Because even if you can't vocalize your feelings, which a lot of autistics do
struggle with, and again, I use the word a lot, not all, because obviously there's
a lot that are perfectly fine with it. That's okay too.
But you exist. And I use the word exist.
Now, for me, the word exist doesn't necessarily mean what the people might assume
(21:34):
that it means, which is another topic that maybe we can get into is,
does that word, what do you mean by that?
It may not mean what either you think it means, or it may not mean what I think
it means, but not trying to get too much off topic.
So, for example, something that I used to do a lot is stare because my mouth had trouble operating.
(21:59):
So, I tried to speak with my eyes. Now, the thing about the eyes are they don't
have the necessary air exchange to express words.
Your mouth is actually quite good at expressing words. That's kind of how it was made.
But your eyes can express feelings Feelings may be, but those can also be misinterpreted.
(22:19):
So, when I struggle with communication, when I struggle with vocalizing my feelings, when I struggle with...
Expressing myself in the way that I want to, then I rely on non-verbal cues.
My face, as Leia says, does a thing.
Your face has no poker face. My eyes do a thing, or my posture does a thing, or sometimes I'll sigh,
(22:44):
or I'll roll my eyes, or I'll act like really, like you can kind of sort of look at me.
I mean, you can't because this is an audio, this is no video component to the podcast,
but you could if you were able to look at me
and if you know me well you can kind
of see how i'm feeling and
(23:05):
the really interesting part about that is sometimes you
will know how i'm feeling more than i do yes but
if i can be honest with you that is
level 101 because those are
the non-verbal cues that i'm used to as an
neurotypical person so you will do this thing till this
day which i've now understood is not you being angry because
(23:26):
you look angry where you'll stand there and stare at
me with no look on your face and just look at me and that to me is an indication
that i meant to do something here i'm supposed to ask you what you want because
you can't verbalize what it is that you want right now but you used to look
angry again if you could see most like it's kind of an imposing figure there's
pictures of me like here and everywhere so i understand
(23:48):
now that that's my cue to ask you what you want all right so those are basics again.
Admirable cues but for me that's one of my gms look
really good at like advanced body language
with you over yes so the
kids call moshe abba abba means father in
(24:08):
hebrew and she will walk into a room where moshe
is doing nothing that i can see at all and
he'll be like abba has to pee and you'll be like yeah
i actually do have to pee and if i
have no idea what kind of interaction went into them
understanding each other or i'm sure we'll say the same to
me but i'm not doing well today to me he looks fine offering
(24:31):
is gonna you know have an accident later often's gonna fall
down but whatever and i'll be
like he looks fine to me so that is one on
two one on three the language that i don't even have
a kick up yes so while a
lot of autistics do struggle with communication to
certain extents and there are some commonalities like difficulty with social
(24:54):
cues and and and difficulty with expressing ideas and sometimes difficulty with
talking where we excel and again i say we not not to indicate that it's a universalist
thing but but where we tend to excel, we'll say, is on the non-verb.
Because one autistic can often look at another autistic and they just get a feeling about them.
(25:15):
And it could be something very minor, like...
Their face is doing the thing, as Leigh would say. Or they're just,
the words that they used, or the actions that they engaged in,
or just their demeanor, or they're stimming a little bit more than normal,
or stimming a little bit less than normal.
(25:36):
Or if you have a particular stim, and again, I'm using the word stimming,
I haven't defined it, and we will.
But for now, we're just going to assume that it has something to do with autistics.
And if you know what it means, then fantastic.
And if you don't, then we'll definitely define it. But if you are behaving in
a quote unquote autistic way, and again, this will actually come up not as an
(25:56):
offense because it's meant with the most love in our hearts.
But Leah will come to me and say, Avram's acting really autistic today.
Can you figure out what's wrong?
And again, I know what she means. And if I said, Leah, I'm sorry if I'm a bit
off, I'm feeling extra autistic today.
She'll know what i mean by that she'll go oh yeah yeah you
(26:18):
know i see it i see it and that that
comes with with exposure and experience and again it is not meant to be offensive
and if you feel that that's offensive then please let me know why because i'd
honestly i'd like to hear other people's experiences because as the podcast
interest is i'm one autistic and actually just
(26:40):
fanatically define stimming for patients. Okay, we're going to go right into it. It's really quick.
We're not going to linger on it. But stimming is essentially a sensory-seeking behavior.
Everybody has them, including your typical people, where you like to chew gum
or you would like to play with something with your fingers.
Autistics do it more, and they have more of a need to do it.
(27:01):
Rather than something they like
to do, they need it to regulate their interaction with the outside world.
And that's all I'm going to say for now. Okay.
So, back into nonverbal body language, it really comes down to the ability to
be able to carry yourself in such a way that people should,
(27:23):
in your own mind, which is a whole other topic, be able to look at you and based
on their knowledge of you, know what you need without you vocalizing it.
And that is that in an ideal situation that would go part and parcel with the
verbal communication, because as you know, the majority of communication is
nonverbal, but the words do matter,
(27:44):
obviously, because if you just walk into a room and stare at somebody,
they're not automatically going to know exactly what you need,
or the urgency that you need it, or anything like that.
But it's definitely a thing that that autistic people struggle with that i've
experienced and again not universal but it's it's my own experience and my own
journey that is that is work that is work to get to know anybody really if you just look at them and.
(28:09):
Figure out what they need, but that's any relationship I get.
I just want to say for the record, without mentioning names,
that one of my first exposures to what, I don't know, for lack of a better word, a mainstream autistic,
because, you know, there's some of us that look behind the curtains and some
of them that are more in the spotlight, but there's a particular,
we'll call them a somewhat famous autistic
(28:33):
that has some exposure and has been
involved in certain projects and what they
indicated which to me at one
point seemed like the height of autistic understanding is that their partner
would be able to look at them and based entirely on their non-verbal body language
(28:53):
say okay they're done for the day we're going to go now and and lay and i have
had many discussions about that very concept and whether
or not it's even healthy to feel that you need to manage an autistic in,
like, we'll call it the real world. Like another adult.
Your child is different, but another adult. Right.
(29:15):
So we're approaching about a half an hour into the podcast.
So I think what we'll do, we'll call this the halfway point,
perhaps, is we'll move on to the next topic.
This isn't the one. One, you're going to have to keep it, I think,
a little bit quick if we want to keep this to a reasonable length.
What we're going to be talking about is.
(29:36):
The terms non-verbal, non-speaking, and minimally verbal, and what they have
to do with the levels of autism that can be diagnosed via the ADOS and the DSM-5. Right.
So this is one of those topics that we inserted into this second episode because
it's one of those things that I briefly touched on in the first episode.
(30:00):
But it's an opportunity for me to essentially advocate for my community,
if they are indeed my community.
And that is the fact, and I'll say it again, because I did say it in the first
episode, but I really dislike the term non-verbal or its newer incarnations
like minimally verbal or non-speaking.
And that's not to say that there are autistics that do struggle with formulating words,
(30:28):
because if autism can be identified by one common trait, almost universally,
but I'm almost prepared to say universally,
it's development delays. lays.
If someone ever asks you what autism is, you'll get a laundry list of different things.
But the universal underlying factor is it is a developmental disability.
(30:52):
It is a disability. Speaking of which, I did a lot of research on this,
and we're going to post some interesting links if you want to read more about it yourself. Of course.
So my experience with the autistic community, even before I was diagnosed as
an adult, was mostly with children.
Because unfortunately, the majority of autistics that are diagnosed are diagnosed
(31:19):
as children, which is actually not unfortunate. It's actually very fortunate.
But where it becomes unfortunate is that a lot of.
A lot of autistics who weren't diagnosed as children struggle to be diagnosed
as adults, and that is in itself another topic.
But what I encountered is a wide variety of people who have autism or were diagnosed with autism.
(31:42):
And it seems to me, especially in my own experience,
but also just by going through the autism forums on Facebook and other websites
and reading what the parents are writing, that an awful lot of autistics nowadays
are non-verbal, apparent.
And to me, that struck me as strange.
(32:03):
Because one particular trait that seems to be, if you believe that these Facebook
groups are a sample, which they're absolutely not, it just seems like an awful
lot of children are non-verbal.
So I delved into it, and I looked into it, and I met a lot of autistics.
And I met an autistic many years ago when I was in my 20s.
(32:25):
And he was, according to his parents, nonverbal.
And their assessment of nonverbal was the fact that when he expressed himself,
he expressed himself in terms of video games.
His hyper-focus was video games. So when he wanted to leave a situation, he would say, game over.
When he was feeling very happy, he would say, power up.
(32:47):
And they were words. Those are actual words in English.
But the mom says, I'm sorry. He's nonverbal, and we don't always understand what he's trying to say.
So I was very young, and I was very naive, and I was very shy.
But what I was thinking was, well, are you listening to him?
Because I spent time with him. He was, I don't know, he must've been like eight
(33:08):
or nine years old. And I was.
I don't just hang around with, with, with autistic children.
I was this, the roommate of, of this person.
No, I was, I was a roommate of this person's friend.
And the friend was coming over for coffee with my roommate one day and they
brought their son and I'm a very friendly guy. So I was like, hi, how are you doing?
And she said, oh, he, he's nonverbal. I'm sorry.
(33:31):
And I said, he can't talk. He goes, no, he can't talk.
And then he started talking to me and it was mostly about video games.
And I'm like, he's, he's talking though. What people consider language is a
very interesting topic, which we can make a whole episode on as well.
So to summarize, and again, this is a very big deal for me.
What I've experienced is essentially when you say someone is nonverbal,
(33:54):
and again, acknowledging that nonverbal is a very sensitive topic for a lot
of parents, especially who struggle to talk to their children.
And a lot of these parents have very difficult times with it.
I'm an neurotypical parent, and I have no patience for that.
And that's okay, too. So my advice to these parents are your child,
(34:18):
unless they're mute, which I haven't encountered,
whether your child is talking in terms of video games, whether your child is
just using one or two words, whether your child is just making sounds,
whether or not you put them in speech therapy or occupational therapy or,
you know, you know khas v'sholam aba to
(34:38):
try and provoke a a language
development at some point they're not non-verbal
if they sit in a corner and don't make a sound they're non-verbal but most of
the time they are verbal or they talk in the sense that they have a language
that they understand yeah i need to inspire how i feel about this go ahead so
(34:59):
there are parents who learn their baby's fries rise to know what they want.
This crime means they're dirty. This crime means they want to be this way.
So that's a means of communication. That's not a recognized language.
There are parents who will teach baby's sign language to reduce frustration
on the baby's part before their mouth parts can actually make words.
(35:21):
When you're dealing with an autistic, just because they're older,
it is the same issue. Their mouth parts are having trouble making words.
But if you can learn what a newborn baby's crying means, if you can teach a
baby sign language so that they're less frustrated and cry less.
Then why on earth can't you learn what your child's noises, sounds.
(35:45):
Flackering, body language, any combination of those things mean?
Exactly. And what I encountered, and it actually does make me very frustrated,
because a lot of these nonverbal parents, parents of nonverbal autistics,
the kids are like two or three or four or one and a half.
And maybe they only recently got a diagnosis, And maybe they're still working
(36:08):
on trying to understand the kid, either through speech therapy or through just learning their cues.
But then you have these parents. And again, they're 25.
They're like, I'm sorry. They're like, Sam is 25 and nonverbal.
That's not, there's no excuse.
I have a 19 year old son. I read this. I forget which form I was in.
I read this, this, this post.
(36:28):
But this mom did. And she was reaching out to the, to the community.
And she wrote, my 19-year-old son always screams when he's in the back of the
car, and I don't know what to do.
So I responded to her quite innocently as, well, what's happening?
(36:50):
Why is he screaming? Again, why is he screaming?
Why is he making the noise that you want him to stop?
And she said i don't know
he's non-verbal and my thought was you
have been this child or this this this autistic's
mother for 19 years and you still don't understand what they're trying to tell
(37:13):
you and this is another thing that maybe people don't know about about autistics
even if they can't make words with their mouth and that does happen to you sometimes
when you're very stressed and also you can ask them questions i will be like
avram are you upset right now and he'll nod.
So I'm pretty sure if she looked in the back of the car and said,
are you screaming because insert word here, and she did that enough,
(37:35):
he would be able to communicate that to her.
And my first question would be, are you screaming because it's a really exciting
sensation and you're really happy? Because that's what I would assume.
Expression in autistics doesn't always necessarily match the way that they look
or sound. An autistic can appear to be very upset.
They're actually very happy. happy sometimes Avram will
squeal and scream and I still have to stop and
(37:58):
go is he crying or is it a happy sound it's hard
to tell sometimes but even even with you a grown
man sometimes you get so upset you're sitting on the couch and I'm like Masha
are you upset and you'll nod because your mouth isn't making words at that time
and that has to be okay yeah and so it's very talk to me about why you're upset
and you'll not you know you'll shake your head and say okay well I'm I'm going
(38:20):
to give you a log and then we'll talk about it. Okay.
Grown up. 43 year old. Yes.
So the whole concept of nonverbal is frustrating for me because by the logic of some of these people,
a mother will give birth to their baby and then immediately post on a forum.
(38:44):
My infant is nonverbal. I don't know what to do. I'm sorry.
I don't mean to. I just gave birth to a nonverbal. I don't know how to relate to them.
And I've had babies. You had babies.
I mean, I haven't actually physically had babies, but I cared for babies from
the moment that they were born until the present day or most recently.
(39:07):
And I looked at this newborn.
And I thought a lot of things, but I never for one minute thought,
oh, my goodness, my baby is nonverbal.
Because it's expected that you're not going to necessarily understand what your baby wants.
And you could say, and you could very rightly say, Moshe, Leah,
(39:28):
we're not talking about a baby here.
We're talking about a two-year-old, a three-year-old, a five-year-old,
a 10-year-old, a 12-year-old, a 19-year-old.
And and and i would respond to you okay a
new mother who has never had children before and is
holding this new baby doesn't go oh my
gosh my baby is non-verbal but maybe in
a few months or a couple of years you could
(39:50):
go up though he's hungry that's you see what he's doing
that that means he's hungry or no he has to go to the bathroom because he's
doing the thing with his whatever but you've been
this child's parent and you're going my child's non-verbal
i don't know know what to do okay so you know
what what are you doing to understand him right
but that's also an amazing thread you know all these miraculous stories where
(40:13):
autistics are non-verbal and all of a sudden 10 11 or 12 years old because you
know their parents gave them some sort of fiber supplement or whatever that
they started talking the reality is one of the number one signs or
symptoms of autism is developmental delay.
Right. That might have just been when they were able to start talking anyway. Exactly.
(40:37):
And we're not going to get into the science of it because the science is boring
for me. Not for Leah. Leah loves the science.
But when you get an autism diagnosis, it's not just a piece of paper that says autism positive.
There's like a whole series of things. Some might call it a spectrum.
But one of the things that they look at is all the different areas.
(41:00):
He's here on this. He's there on this. He's delayed in this. He's fine on this.
He's normal and walking. talking but in talking he's there and
we're going to get into it because it's actually a really fascinating topic as
you wouldn't even care part of autumn's diagnosis was
they actually manipulated his joints and they're like yeah yeah he's
loose and i went what does that mean apparently that's a thing it is we went
(41:22):
to a neurologist for you the other day and what did she do she said get up and
walk for me back and forth he took two steps she went yeah sit back down i i
was told the other day that i had an autistic walk i'd never before told i had
an autistic walk but now Now I know what an autistic walk is.
I've always known what it was. I just never knew it was an autistic walk.
But the delay, a lot of people look at delays and they think that delays are universal.
(41:45):
And that is a problem. Because if you have a baby, getting back to the concept
of an infant, if you have a baby, the pediatrician or the doctor or whatever,
pardon me, will hand you like a chart.
You can get the chart online that says by this age, they should be doing this.
By this age, they should be doing that. By this age, they should weigh this.
By this age, they should be meeting this milestone.
(42:07):
And a lot of the time, they will meet these milestones, and then they'll still
be autistic. And a lot of times, they won't.
And they won't be autistic. And sometimes they won't, and then they are.
And it becomes very varied.
But you'll end up talking to these parents, and they'll go, he seems so normal. I don't understand.
So, other hit a lot of the milestones that seem to matter to society in general.
(42:31):
And that was why they had a big problem.
Explaining to everyone, including, you know, professionals that we think there's
something wrong here, but we are definitely getting off the topic of communication at this point.
Now we're talking about diagnostic, but we should rein it back in.
Right. So let's talk about non-speaking.
Right. How do you feel about non-speaking? So the definition I found for non-speaking,
(42:54):
and again, you can definitely write it and correct us if we're wrong,
is defined as somebody who has a vocabulary of 30 words or less that they use.
Right. Like, and that goes along with a level three diagnosis of autism,
which we can discuss what that is. I'm con three.
You got a level three autistic in your house. Watch it. Yes.
(43:15):
So I had the bird. Anyway, my opinion for that is, is really my,
my, my opinion of the concept of nonverbal or non-speaking because by whose standards?
Standards maybe maybe somebody just
likes to say a few things he knows
a lot of words he just chooses not to use most of them the average person i
(43:39):
don't actually know because i never did the research they know x number of words
hundreds and hundreds of words but maybe they only use a few words and they're
they're labeled as autistic because of that but by whose standards are they
minimally, you know, do they have that minimal whatever?
But it's funny because that's actually a tactic to teach someone a new language
(44:01):
is you provide them with the top, you know, 60 or 100 words that occur over
and over and over in that language and they memorize them.
Right. So if you're effectively communicating with 30 words, what's the difference?
Exactly. And it really also depends. And this is why we went into diagnostics,
maybe a little bit too in depth, but it's going to be a topic eventually. So we'll touch on it now.
(44:23):
That when you have a child like me, my metrics were that I was advanced in comprehension,
in speaking, and in reading.
But I was very delayed in mobility.
I still struggle sometimes to walk, and I walked as a baby very late.
(44:44):
So, when I was using big words, like I said in the the first,
like, filthy, then you go, oh, wow, he's really smart.
No, I mean, he is, because I'm very smart. But I was very advanced in that.
And I like using big words.
Somebody might not use the word filthy. They might use very minimal words, dirty.
(45:06):
And that doesn't necessarily mean that they are minimally, you know, talking.
It just could mean that they are able to summarize their thoughts That's in fewer words.
Again, that brings us back to the original, you know what I mean?
That the messenger is saying the message and the person is receiving it.
So if you're receiving the message with the word filthy or the word dirty,
does it really matter? Exactly.
(45:28):
I tend to be a walking thesaurus sometimes. But just because you use basic words
to express yourself, it doesn't mean that your ability to talk is minimum.
Them like if i knew 30 recipes wouldn't that be enough to
feed us for the rest of eternity right but yes but
what i would i then look at you and go well her her cooking ability
(45:49):
is very minimal she only does 30 things with with
like exactly no she's an amazing cook she just knows that those 30 things are
are enough to get by it so why would you need to know everything i could know
thousands of different words does it really matter if i'm making my my point
really right so So yeah, that kind of irks me that way.
(46:10):
I think that the whole level three autistic and ADOS thing is more of a biomostics discussion.
So let's leave it for another episode, I think. Sure.
Do we want to make any last points about this whole minimally verbal,
nonverbal, verbal situation?
I think if I can just make one final point and then move on to the final point,
(46:33):
the concept concept of nonverbal, which, as I mentioned, is a very sensitive
subject for a lot of parents of autistic children.
And believe you me, Leigh and I are going to be devoting probably multiple episodes
just to autistic children.
So, for right now, we're focusing more or less on our relationship as a married
(46:58):
couple and on autistic adults, because I am an autistic adult.
And if we have the opportunity to talk to Avram at some point,
which I hope we will, then you can get that perspective.
He told us he will. Great. Because.
The point that I'm trying to make, and so we can move on to the next topic,
is the idea of nonverbal is very cult, especially when you're very young.
(47:24):
Because even though autistics are delayed in many ways, when they're already
so small and they're relatively fresh to the world, we'll say,
their own ability is going to be limited.
And for a new mom or new dad or a new parent, we'll say, to look at this child
who is now three, four, five, six,
(47:45):
seven, eight, nine, 10 years old, who really can only use a few words or no words at all.
It's very frustrating. And when we talk about our own feelings about it,
it's not to diminish your own feelings of how you feel about it.
And it's not to say that you're wrong, or you're doing a bad job,
(48:06):
or you're not doing the best you can.
It's simply to express us in an overall sense
are our feelings about how everybody
with almost very few exceptions is
able to communicate somehow so saying
that someone is non-verbal reads like
they're non-communicative it's one of those labels that's
(48:28):
maybe more harmful than you know so maybe a
better word is a better term
we'll say than non-verbal or minimally verbal or
non-speaking or non-talking or whatever is differently communicative it's a
long mouthful of a word but it's much more expressive of what's going on than
(48:49):
just saying he's non-verbal anyway right actually this brings to me another
topic within the subtopic but we have to discuss it very quickly what about
going Going non-verbal.
Do you know what I mean about going non-verbal? So, for example,
we had a friend who was very verbal, if you want to say it that way.
When he gets sick, he ceases to speak for maybe a week at a time.
(49:13):
Yes. That is a thing that seems to happen to a lot of autistics.
The question is, do we be afraid of it? Is it permanent?
What's going on there? so unfortunately we
have very little time to to to discuss you know non non topics related to the
(49:34):
idea of communication and this is definitely related to communication but i
have a lot of opinions on this which which i want to share in a future episode
but for now what i will say is,
Being autistic is a constant ordering of thoughts and feelings and expressions
and experiences and stimulation.
(49:56):
And a lot of that is hard work. And when you are ill or when you are upset or
when you are in some way not in control of all of the inner mechanics of what's going on in you,
a lot of things kind of let go.
And if you think of an autistic like a
(50:18):
person standing in a field holding a bunch of balloons and one
balloon says talking one balloon says cleaning and
one balloon says you know learning then you
can't always hold all those balloons sometimes the talking balloon
floats away and until you
can get it back you're trying so hard to
hold on to the rest of the balloons that you lose one of the other ones and
(50:40):
it's it's called i believe regression and it's
a lot of the time it's completely temporary but it does happen
and it's simply a result of the
functionality of the neurodivergent or the autistic
being reduced because of
other external factors because i have heard the fear that it's permanent um
(51:00):
from my own mother actually she would be concerned that if avram wasn't being
himself she would say oh my goodness i hope he starts to talk again and i would
say with all confidence because i know our son that absolutely he will but it
is a concern so So that's something.
Again, right into us. Tell us if it's a concern for you.
We can bring it up in a future episode. And it has to do a lot of the time as
well with different kinds of traumas.
(51:21):
But we can definitely get into it in a later episode, but we have to move on.
But for now, please tell us your experiences. And if you have any experience
with neurodivergence and autistics becoming non-verbal activity.
Anyway. All right. So now this is one actually for the neurotypicals more,
because we're going to discuss communication styles. And these are for everyone.
(51:42):
We're going to see where the pitfalls could be in between two differently functional people.
But there are four main communication status. We're going to put up a really
good graphic that's found actually about that.
The first is passive. So passive means that you don't speak up.
You're very shy. You're afraid of people judging you. You keep all of your feelings.
And that absolutely leads to nobody knowing you or knowing what you want ever.
(52:05):
Then you have aggressive. So you bring yourself across with anger and judgment,
inflexibility. and that can cause a very hostile environment in terms of your
communication with other people.
Then there's the passive-aggressive.
You hold on to those negative feelings, but you don't necessarily verbalize
them, but it will affect or your emotions will affect future communication and
(52:30):
that will often lead to confusion and resentment on both parties.
The last is assertive, which seems to be the healthiest one.
It's confident but respectful of the other person's feelings and it opens you
up to honest and healthy conversation.
So in terms of communication styles, I've already identified that I'm assertive.
What do you think your communication style is?
(52:52):
I've often been sort of vacillating between passive and passive-aggressive.
Spurts of aggressive. Assertive is definitely something that I have often struggled with.
And that is a lot to do with my past experiences, which we may or may not get
into in a later episode, because it doesn't necessarily have to do with neurodivergency
(53:15):
or autism, and it's mostly just a personal thing.
But what we can discuss about it is that autistics tend to be,
and again, one autistic, one experience, but they tend to be very suggestible.
And And when you are in a situation where you are suggestible,
like I am, and I'll admit it, then you can sometimes get pigeonholed into a communication style.
(53:40):
Because autistics, and again, just my experience, but autistics often are very,
to use the Freudian term, in-focused.
When they want something, they tell you what they want. When they're uncomfortable,
they say they're uncomfortable.
When they're unhappy, they say they're unhappy. and they express themselves in these overt ways.
(54:00):
The people in my life often called me histrionic or drama queen or whatever,
but they express themselves in these overt ways and they scream and they cry
when they stub their toe or they're very unhappy.
So they descend into this Shakespearean level of melancholy that causes them
to just give up the will to live or whatever.
But the fact is when we experience emotions, they're often very extreme.
(54:25):
And people who are around us that don't necessarily know how to deal with it,
they'll punch them down.
No, just stop acting that way. Stop screaming. Stop acting up.
Stop. Just stop. Just stop. Calm down.
And oftentimes, a lot of autistics will take that to mean not that they should
temper themselves, but that they should just shut down completely.
(54:47):
So my experience, and again, this is harder than the experience,
is that you should approach in the action like that of curiosity.
What happened? What's wrong? wrong, how can we calm this down?
So yes, I actually do have a question for you. So do you think you could be
in a successful relationship with another aggressive communicator or another
passive aggressive communicator?
(55:07):
Or do you think it's necessary to have sort of an open and honest assertive
communicator? Well, the two?
Optimize our understanding of each other, for example? So, autistics,
and again, I use the general term, but my own experience is my own experience.
And again, if your experience is different, let me know.
But autistics in general function better with clear instructions.
(55:30):
One of the things that always really bothered me about being in Israel is that
Israelis are very general.
They'll say it's over there, or it's right there, or it's over here.
And they don't give specifics. They go, where's the bathroom?
They'll go, it's over there. Where? They'll just sort of wave in a general vicinity.
And if a statistic doesn't have clear instructions, they don't necessarily know what to do.
(55:53):
So, being with somebody who doesn't give clear instructions,
or being with someone who gives unclear instructions, like, for example, passive aggressive.
Geez it would be real nice so someone could do the dishes moshe yeah you're right and then walk away.
Or gosh i'm always having to tidy up your mess is passive-aggressive because
(56:18):
it doesn't give clear instructions the person feels that they're being clear
and the really sad thing is sometimes autistics do that too because their version
of communicating doesn't always fit into these these categories.
But that's where I think you will say something, wow, thanks full,
it would be nice if someone did the dishes and I'll say, Moshe,
would you like me to do the dishes?
(56:40):
Right. You could just say so. Right. And that's not meant to be, you know, bad Moshe.
It's meant to help communication, which is the topic that we're in.
And it works with kids and it works with adults. And it really comes down to clear instructions.
What do you want? What do you need?
Tell me what it is that you're looking for. And often that interaction will
(57:03):
end with me throwing you a towel and was doing the dishes.
Exactly. And crisis averted, where some people could fight over that for all night.
So, assertive communication, which is, as Leah said, the key or the most ideal
form of communication is expressing your needs in a way that is…,
(57:23):
Sort of considerate of the other person. That is considerate of the other person, but clear.
Because a lot of the time I've said to Leah, I don't want to come across as mean.
And she'll say, well, do you want
it to be done? Then tell them that you want it to be done and mean it.
Don't just say do the dishes when there's
like one dish in the sink for the sake of doing
(57:46):
it or just aggressive communicators are often bullies almost always bullies
because they don't have any rhyme or reason for their for their emphasis we'll
say they just want it and they want it done now or they need it done now or
they're very expressive but without any grounding someone who unfortunately
Unfortunately, I forgot,
told me a better definition of assertive that I can't actually recall right now.
(58:10):
But what I think that I would like to put out into the podcasting universe is
if you have a really good definition of the different communication styles.
Assertive, passive, passive, aggressive, and aggressive, then let us know.
And in particular, if someone is assertive, what does that mean to you?
What is the difference between aggressive and assertive?
(58:33):
Okay, I can be honest. as being a woman i've been called the b
word more than once right because a woman is
not allowed to be aggressive sort of they can
be assertive because but then they're they're
labeled whatever yeah yeah right so we are coming definitely to the end of the
along talking you probably want to listen to at this point we have more topics
(58:57):
even that we intended to do in this episode i'll just touch on them real quick,
because they're very interesting.
So the double empathy problem, you can Google that and put that up,
but we're going to discuss it and how it leads to misunderstandings.
How long does effective communication take? That's a very personal talk with Moshe and I.
There's no ideal for that. And we're just going to discuss how long effective
communication takes for us.
(59:18):
And eye contact. So why eye contact is difficult for autistics?
Should we insist on eye contact? Is it a thing?
When is eye contact appropriate? And some of the science behind why eye contact is difficult.
Right. So we'll sign off now to avoid making the episode any longer than it needs to be.
(59:40):
But I will say that communication is going to be an ongoing thing for us in terms of topics.
But it's also an ongoing thing for any relationship.
And in particular, even though we're doing episodes or podcasts about communications,
it's still a work in progress for Leigh and I. So if you're having communication issues.
(01:00:02):
Feel free to let us know, but don't feel down on yourself because it's going
to continue to evolve if you want it to.
Absolutely. So write in, let us know. Even if you want some advice from a couple
of non-professionals, we might even feature your story.
For sure. Might be helpful to people. Also, don't forget on whatever podcasting
(01:00:24):
app you're using, download, rate, share.
We hope that you really enjoy what we have to offer and we're excited to give you more.
That's our show for today now you know it just
a little bit better so something you may not know about some autistics is that
we often struggle with ending social interactions so leia all right i'll take
(01:00:48):
care of it thank you for listening to now you know one autistic see you next week.
Music.
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