Today, I'm guest posting over at Special Needs.Com.
My article is called Emotional Communication and it deals with the way that the communication methods and communication needs of people with aspergers syndrome differ from those of neurotypical people.
It's worth a read, so please check it out.
4 comments:
Thats a lovely post. I think its fair to say there isnt a NT or Aspergers 'specific' way of communicating emotions, many many people on the spectrum or not struggle to identify their emotions, often confusing anger, fear and love. Its all very personal and individual.
I tried to leave a comment directly after the post, but it wouldn't let me log in with facebook, so I'm leaving it here instead.
I loved reading your post on emotion. I have never doubted my daughter, Emma didn't feel emotions intensely. I never bought the whole she-isn't expressing-empathy-therefore-she-doesn't-feel crap. I find the theories suggestion this insulting. And dismissive of her emotional (I believe deeply, intensely emotional) life. Recently I learned of Henry Markram's Instense World Theory for Autism. If you haven't read his interview or heard his TED talks, do, he's fantastic. His belief is that on the contrary autists feel in extreme, often so intensely it's overwhelming. When I read his views I felt I was finally reading something that reflected what I've seen with my daughter.
by the way, I loved your whole thing about NT asking - how are you - and then not really wanting to hear the honest answer. I often want to say - "Oh thank you for asking, take a seat, this may take a few minutes to answer."
Holy crap! This happens to me all the time! I answer a question and the person spends the next half hour trying to 'help' me. I get more & more annoyed as they refuse to move on. "Have you tried this?" "Why don't you just..." After 41 years, it's slowly beginning to occur to me that people don't always want an honest answer to their questions. Thanks for the Eureka! moment.
This article was so relevant to me and my husband. In our case, I'm the Aspie and he's the NT...and everything seems to go in reverse. When I'm upset and need to be alone, he often interprets that I'm angry with him or worse, he feels hurt that I don't want to be around him. And I really dislike flowers...they are pretty, but they die and are really expensive. Love to me is when his actions show caring and understanding. Honestly, I much prefer for him to do a load of laundry or take care of dinner to a bunch of roses. Those are the things that make my heart feel warm and make me feel like he cares.
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