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What if everyone but you understood why people acted the way they do? What if everyone had a silent language that you just couldn't understand? The truth is, there is a silent language that most people speak but are hardly aware of it. For the average person it could be that only ten percent of their daily communication is verbal, the rest is eye contact and body language!
There are a number of conditions that cause people to have a hard time understanding nonverbal communication. These include, but are not limited to Asperger's Syndrome and High Functioning Autism. Beyond having difficulty communicating, it can lead to confusing social signals because some of this communication is signaling social status.
What if you didn't understand ninety percent of the conversation? What if your loved ones didn't know you were communicating ninety percent of the time?
It turns out that if a person with a Nonverbal Learning Disability (or NLD) can be greatly helped to learn to better communicate if those around them are aware of their disability
I wrote a book for my son who we suspect, like me, has mild High Functioning Autism. He has found it useful and his teacher read the book to his class last year. We have found it very helpful as a tool to explain both to our son and others what nonverbal communication is.
While this is intended as a children's book, there is a lot of meaning in the pages. I'll write some example questions to ask a child about some of the situations that will bring out some of the ideas.
This book is available on Lulu.com
There are a number of conditions that cause people to have a hard time understanding nonverbal communication. These include, but are not limited to Asperger's Syndrome and High Functioning Autism. Beyond having difficulty communicating, it can lead to confusing social signals because some of this communication is signaling social status.
What if you didn't understand ninety percent of the conversation? What if your loved ones didn't know you were communicating ninety percent of the time?
It turns out that if a person with a Nonverbal Learning Disability (or NLD) can be greatly helped to learn to better communicate if those around them are aware of their disability
I wrote a book for my son who we suspect, like me, has mild High Functioning Autism. He has found it useful and his teacher read the book to his class last year. We have found it very helpful as a tool to explain both to our son and others what nonverbal communication is.
While this is intended as a children's book, there is a lot of meaning in the pages. I'll write some example questions to ask a child about some of the situations that will bring out some of the ideas.
This book is available on Lulu.com
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The story will be told in the pictures, but I'll try to add some thoughts that are brought up in them here in the text. You may want to do a simple read through first just to get the feel.
The subject of the story, Bubs has feelings like any child this may not always be apparent, especially in teen years because NLD people may tend to have a "Poker Face" most of the time. Remember the lack of communication can go both ways, both in comprehending and expressing. While being bored isn't an emotion, it's subtle feelings that are most often not well expressed by people with NLD. If you're not sure what they're feeling, ask. Also don't be offended by a person with NLD who asks you how you're feeling.
The subject of the story, Bubs has feelings like any child this may not always be apparent, especially in teen years because NLD people may tend to have a "Poker Face" most of the time. Remember the lack of communication can go both ways, both in comprehending and expressing. While being bored isn't an emotion, it's subtle feelings that are most often not well expressed by people with NLD. If you're not sure what they're feeling, ask. Also don't be offended by a person with NLD who asks you how you're feeling.
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Have you been over to Wrong Planet? The forums there can be very useful. They have one for parenting issues.
Or possibly to stimulate another sense to drown out one already over stimmed? I seem to partake (tis mild now, since I am in my 50's,) but could have used discussions like this when I was younger....heck just having an internet would have helped LOL. I seemed "motivated" by frustration mostly......and a need to "quiet" the "storm in my head" when that happened.
As for WrongPlanet, yes, I have been a member there for awhile now....I have so little time to spend On Line of late, I haven't been there for some time now....thanks for reminding me. I also moderate a site on FB for Asperger's and those that want to know more about it.
The young person I am concerned about, however will benefit from her Mom knowing about the site, so I will pass that on to her.
She now has a copy of the PDF from here too. Thanks again.
Oh, this may amuse you, it's not terribly useful but I was pondering what autism is and came to this conclusion. Then I ran into some evidence that I might be on to something.
Thank you for deciding to include the whole text as you did!
For this I'ble (since it is nominally a "how to" :-), you might want to add some more high-level analysis and discussion of each issue presented in the steps. While those issues may seem obvious, we have members with an extremely broad range of life experience (in age and in social connections), and this can be a teachable moment for both "sides" of the communication bridge.
It would be great for your book to be accessible to people with non-learning disabilities, but with visual impairments or blindness. If it's also for sale in a downloadable format, such as PDF, please make sure the text is annotated so that it can be read by a screen reader. The graphics can also be annotated (tagged) with textual descriptions.
This is not the way most people produce PDF (it requires additional work with a professional PDF production system, such as Adobe Illustrator), but it can be extremely beneficial. It also seems most appropriate that a product designed to break down barriers should not include barriers of its own.
As for the higher level analysis I was debating how to do that or more accurately if I should. I'll put some in.
For annotating the images, you don't necessarily "explain" them, but rather describe them, as though you were telling someone on the phone about them. For example, an "audio description" of your cover might be, "Bubs The Robot. Bubs using a tool to building a plant stand out of pipes."
There are professionals who do audio description for videos, and there are good tutorials/discussions on the Web (I just searched on "how to create an audio description" and got several great hits. The philosophy would be the same as for doing PDF image tagging.