100 Results in Socialising

Unresponsiveness and lack of communication in ASD people

One of the reasons that having friends is hard for me is because I am not very communicative. My friends (before they understood my condition) would contact me but my responses would always be minimal and would not encourage further communication. For example, I might answer their question but then say nothing further. I'm sure many of you will be familiar with the following sorts of interaction:

What is empathy and do ASD people have a lack of empathy?

I think there is some misunderstanding of what empathy actually is, which I will explore in this article. There are various definitions of empathy but the one that I use and how I think about it is that it's being able to share the feelings of another person. A good way to visualise what empathy is is being in a crowd watching a football match when your team scores a goal - the whole crowd cheers because everyone is feeling the same thing and reacting in the same way. There is a common view that people on the autistic spectrum do not have empathy. Lots of autistic people think they have lots of empathy. I want this article to look at these views in more detail. I hope you see things in a more educated way after reading this article. :)

How to feel more connected with the world

Lots of people on the autistic spectrum feel very lonely and isolated. I have been thinking about one way that a person might be able to feel more connected to the world. There are other things people can do, but here is something I haven't talked about much before.

How do I know if someone will want to talk to me?

I sometimes want to interact with someone but I am unsure how to. There are lots of worries that go through my mind any time I am about to initiate an interaction with someone (be it a colleague or even a friend). 'Working' interactions By 'working' interactions I mean interactions with colleagues, peers or strangers rather than friends. These interactions are most difficult when face to face in a public setting and there are lots of other things going on (for example, we're in a shop, in the office, or in a doctor's waiting room). I cannot read a person's body language to be able to tell if they are going to hear what I say, if they are even going to recognise me (if it's someone I don't know/know well), or to work out whether they are busy or not and therefore do they even have time to speak to me, or will I just be disturbing them?

How to be more resilient

Resilience ('the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties') is an extremely helpful character trait for any human being to have. With the hypothesis that a person with an ASD has more difficulties than a neurotypical person, I would very much say that resilience may be an even more vital trait for us to possess. So how can we help autistic people become more resilient? Here are the 9 things you might need. I have recently come across something called Nine Things All Young People Need by Professor Michael Ungar. These are 9 things thought to make any person have resilience. I thought I would look at each of these things and highlight ones that are likely to be missing for a person who is autistic and give some ideas on how they could be achieved or adapted. The overall aim being - how can a person who is autistic best achieve these 9 things and hence become a more resilient person?

The 4 types of communicator

I've been reading a lot about communication (not specifically in regards to autism, just general communication) recently and through my research I discovered that there are considered to be 4 main types of communicator according to something called the VAK model. They are: Visual Auditory Feeling Auditory Digital Each type can be further broken down into 1) the choice of words somebody uses and 2) how they best understand information. Let's look in more detail about this.

10 ideas for being a friend to a person on the spectrum

Building a relationship with a person on the autistic spectrum can be a bit different to what neurotypical people might be used to. You may benefit from making some adjustments to the way you communicate and plan things. With some little adjustments and a more open mind, you can have a wonderfully enriching relationship. Here are 10 ideas and things to think about which may make your relationship blossom!

Ignorance is bliss

The phrase 'ignorance is bliss' is very pertinent to me. I have noticed that I very much try to 1) live in the moment and 2) focus only on one thing at a time. These two tactics enable me to feel control in the world as it makes me feel grounded and causes me not to overthink anything. I think there are at least three common reactions when a human being is faced with a task. They are:

Is apathy a symptom of an ASD?

This is an interesting topic of discussion! There's some thinking that people on the autistic spectrum lack emotions. I can say that for me this is true a lot of the time in terms of apathy. Apathy: lack of interest, enthusiasm or concern Apathy may be a symptom of an Autism Spectrum Disorder. If somebody has a different world view and experience to the majority of people (neurotypical people) around them, it means they are unlikely to share the same values and desires and have the same motivations. It does not mean that a person is necessarily lacking emotions, but rather that they may feel differently about things and may feel apathetic about the things that stir emotion in most other people.

Do females with ASD cope better than males?

I was once asked by a journalist whether I thought females with ASD "coped" better with their condition than males. My answer was no. I think some females cope differently and certainly many do not 'cope' at all. One interesting point that is relevant here is that, generally, males are diagnosed with ASD much younger than females. What is often the case is that lots of young boys are diagnosed, but lots of young girls are not. Indeed, I'd say 'most' females aren't diagnosed until adolescence and beyond (and it's very common for them to be diagnosed well into adulthood). If females are not diagnosed until adulthood then one conclusion you might come to is that it "means they must cope better."