228 Results in Strategies

To lead or to follow?

I am probably the perfect example of the classic stereotype of autism. I am very, very solitary - through choice and also because of my quite complex social difficulties. Any involvement with others generally makes me uncomfortable. This experience might be similar for neurotypical introverts so I think that neurotypical introverts will also find this article helpful. One major barrier to being this way is it makes it very hard to work with others in both leader (employer/manager/teacher) and follower (peer/classmate/colleague/team member) roles.

Can your base social energy level be increased?

In sports science, there's a theory known as supercompensation. It's a way of improving your base level of fitness. The way to do this, it proposes, is by putting yourself through more exercise just after you've recovered from your previous workout. The time of the next workout is absolutely critical - you have to do it after you've recovered but you can't have too long a gap. This blog article was inspired because the way I weight train is very much through supercompensation methods. My base level of fitness increases regularly. It made me wonder whether this idea could help someone increase their base level of social energy. Let's look at it in more detail:

Familiarity vs predictability

I've been thinking about what makes a situation easier for me. One aspect I talked about recently was how immediate a situation is. I debated whether doing something very soon is sometimes easier than planning it ahead of time. Something else I think makes a difference is how predictable and how familiar something is. Let's find out more.

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:

Sensitivity and reactivity

I've been pondering about sensitivity and reactivity, wondering what their link is, or are they the same thing? What are sensitivity and reactivity like in people with ASD?

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.

Planning in advance vs spontaneous activities

There is a big problem with planning in advance and agreeing to things ahead of time, and that problem is, that it allows anxiety to accumulate and often means that I end up panicking and cancelling. Let's have a look at this in more detail and consider in which sort of situations planning in advance might be helpful vs when it might not be.

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?

Improving productivity using routines and schedules

I had a brief conversation with someone recently and, like lots of things, it annoyed me (lots of things annoy me). The person was asking me what I was up to. When I listed what I was doing and the time I was doing it at (I said something like "I'm going home now because I'm going to be late for dinner, which I like to eat at 5pm"), she did a big grin and said, "It's all about schedules with you!!!" The reason this comment annoyed me was because it reminded me that lots of people play down a very serious matter. Note, this was all in my head, she hadn't given me any true reason to think that she was playing it down. However, I do know that many people I've come across in the past have made similar remarks to me and it always ends up with a bit of banter and teasing by them, because they think my "like" of schedules and routines is a bit of a laughing matter. I understand that people are trying to be friendly and affectionate with me, but I do sometimes wish that people took my "like" (which, if they took the time to find out more, they would realise is actually a 'need') of schedules and routines more seriously. Maybe I just wish that people took a bit more time to understand why schedules and routines are so important, so that they had more empathy, and then I wouldn't mind the teasing so much. But so many people view schedules and routines as very superficial, flexible things... "It's only a few minutes late, stop worrying!" or "Come on now, it's good for you to do things outside your comfort zone sometimes!"

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?