LennytheWicked
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 Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 9:56 am Post subject: Giving Lists Impairs Communication? |
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I've noticed that every time we ask my little brother an open-ended question, he won't answer at all unless he's given a list. In the past, he's had ABA, OT, Speech Therapy, and every time anyone asked him anything he had a list. I tried having conversations with him by writing or typing, but he mostly repeats open-ended questions and I'm worried that we've inadvertently taught him that writing and typing is for repetition and verbalization is for yes or no questions.
I tried asking my mom about this, but she won't let me work with him on open-ended questions so we can say, "What's wrong?" and get an answer, or, "What do you want to eat/do," and get an answer. I also want to work with him on answering questions via typing instead of just regurgitating everything like his teachers have trained him to do, but I'm not sure how to go about doing it. I know he's not stupid, he built this crazy marble track thing without using the instructions [and made it look like the one on the box].
So first question:
Has anyone else noticed this, or done this, even?
Second question:
Any ideas as to how I can work with him discreetly? |
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Tuttle
Not a bird, a turtle.
Joined: Mar 27, 2006
Age: 24
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Location: Massachusetts
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| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 11:37 am Post subject: |
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I didn't have therapies like that growing up (I had speech therapy, but didn't have any lists in it).
I still, at age 22, have major difficulties answering open ended questions if I don't have a precise answer. If someone asks me what I want to eat, the question can overwhelm me, and cause me to not respond at all, because I'm trying to figure out what an answer could be. If I'm giving a list of options, then I can select out of that what options sound good, and then we can work on limiting the list down, but just coming up with an answer doesn't work well for me.
"What's wrong?" is an even harder question to answer, unless I feel comfortable saying "I don't know". Often I really don't know what's wrong.
Knowing what I want, knowing what's going on, is actually difficult. Verbalizing these thoughts, is also difficult. If someone asks me how I feel I might literally not respond for over an hour (and then be upset about not having responded, not answering the initial question). |
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YellowBanana
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Location: mostly, in my head.
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| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 11:48 am Post subject: |
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| Tuttle wrote: | I still, at age 22, have major difficulties answering open ended questions if I don't have a precise answer. If someone asks me what I want to eat, the question can overwhelm me, and cause me to not respond at all, because I'm trying to figure out what an answer could be. If I'm giving a list of options, then I can select out of that what options sound good, and then we can work on limiting the list down, but just coming up with an answer doesn't work well for me.
"What's wrong?" is an even harder question to answer, unless I feel comfortable saying "I don't know". Often I really don't know what's wrong.
Knowing what I want, knowing what's going on, is actually difficult. Verbalizing these thoughts, is also difficult. If someone asks me how I feel I might literally not respond for over an hour (and then be upset about not having responded, not answering the initial question). |
I'm 38 and have great difficulty with open ended questions as well - it feels overwhelming because there is too much choice of answer and I often lose the power of speech at the point. If can still speak, if someone asks me what I want to eat (for example) I may well say "nothing" just because it's easier than trying to figure out a)what I want and b) how to say it. So in that circumstance I usually go hungry.
I have a friend who has figured this out and although he still asks things like "what do you want to eat?", if I say nothing he'll say "are you sure?" to which I usually respond either yes or no. If I say no (I'm not sure that I want nothing to eat) then he gives me a choice from which I can choose - or just puts something down in front of me to eat! (I am not a picky eater - I eat anything).
I also struggle with "What's wrong?" for the same reason as Tuttle. I often don't really know, and even if I do, I'm not sure how to explain it.
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Female. Dx ASD in 2011 @ Age 38. Also Dx EDD/BPD |
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jat
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Location: Pennsylvania
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| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 12:05 pm Post subject: |
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| I'm a mom, but this all makes so much sense to me. There are still lots of times when I use "multiple choice" options when I ask my son (18 y.o. Aspie) questions that would otherwise be open ended. The last choice is usually "none of the above," just in case I'm on the wrong track. It's worked pretty well, since he was pretty young - well before he was diagnosed. I also, sometimes, feel overwhelmed by open-ended questions - it's hard to know what the questioner really means, and what options are really available. |
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btbnnyr
Rabbit In Cat's Clothing
Joined: May 19, 2011
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Location: Lost Angleles Carmen Santiago
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| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 12:41 pm Post subject: |
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Q: What's wrong?
A: Nothing.
Q: What do you want to eat?
A: I don't know.
Q: Do you want to eat pizza, potstickers, or spaghetti?
A: I don't know.
Q: Do you want to eat pizza?
A: ...I don't know.
Q: Do you want to eat potstickers?
A: ...I don't know.
Q: Do you want to eat spaghetti?
A: ...OK. |
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jat
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Joined: Mar 30, 2008
Posts: 566
Location: Pennsylvania
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| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 12:54 pm Post subject: |
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| btbnnyr wrote: | Q: What's wrong?
A: Nothing.
Q: What do you want to eat?
A: I don't know.
Q: Do you want to eat pizza, potstickers, or spaghetti?
A: I don't know.
Q: Do you want to eat pizza?
A: ...I don't know.
Q: Do you want to eat potstickers?
A: ...I don't know.
Q: Do you want to eat spaghetti?
A: ...OK. |
btbnnyr, would the question work any better if it were framed: Do you want a) pizza; ... b) potstickers; ... c) spaghetti; ... or d) none of the above? |
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Sora
away away
Joined: Sep 16, 2006
Age: 25
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| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 1:04 pm Post subject: |
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I have this difficulty (which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me sometimes) but I think it is extremely important to work towards the goal of being able to A) answer to open-ended question or B) become able to modify lists from which those questions are answered regularly and independently (and mentally). Other people just can't read your mind so if you ever need to answer something that's not on your standard X-months-old or X-years-old list, it could be tough to notify others of acute issues.
I went around not knowing that I had severe breathing issues as a result of an allergy and nobody ever asked me "Do you have trouble breathing?" so I could not tell. I didn't know how to describe what happened without being "handed" the words by someone else in form of a question.
In that context, I think rather than trying to work on answers to questions such as "What's wrong?" it's better to start with simpler and more specific questions pertaining certain main topics such as health "Are you hurt?" or "Do your arms hurt?", "Does your stomach hurt?" and emotional well-being. Even if an autistic person can "only" manage to somewhat reliably answer a question pertaining a stomach ache, headache or a distant/mild emotion then that's already quite great when comparing it to the scenario that the same person might otherwise be unable to ever answer these questions.
| btbnnyr wrote: | Q: What's wrong?
A: Nothing.
Q: What do you want to eat?
A: I don't know.
Q: Do you want to eat pizza, potstickers, or spaghetti?
A: I don't know.
Q: Do you want to eat pizza?
A: ...I don't know.
Q: Do you want to eat potstickers?
A: ...I don't know.
Q: Do you want to eat spaghetti?
A: ...OK. |
That's exactly how it goes here too with food. (Edit: with the difference that I will say no to certain things that I am sure I don't want to eat because they wouldn't taste right at that moment.) Reading it makes me get a better idea of what it might be like for the one asking me and why they get annoyed sometimes.
_________________
Autism + ADHD
++++ no spell check when posting from my IPAD ++++
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The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. Terry Pratchett |
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LennytheWicked
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Posts: 516
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| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 1:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Tuttle wrote: | I didn't have therapies like that growing up (I had speech therapy, but didn't have any lists in it).
I still, at age 22, have major difficulties answering open ended questions if I don't have a precise answer. If someone asks me what I want to eat, the question can overwhelm me, and cause me to not respond at all, because I'm trying to figure out what an answer could be. If I'm giving a list of options, then I can select out of that what options sound good, and then we can work on limiting the list down, but just coming up with an answer doesn't work well for me.
"What's wrong?" is an even harder question to answer, unless I feel comfortable saying "I don't know". Often I really don't know what's wrong.
Knowing what I want, knowing what's going on, is actually difficult. Verbalizing these thoughts, is also difficult. If someone asks me how I feel I might literally not respond for over an hour (and then be upset about not having responded, not answering the initial question). |
You know what, thank you very much for this. I hadn't thought about it this way, because I personally prefer open-ended questions, probably because I like to talk and have options. [E.G. Instead of "do you support this," something like "what is your opinion on this?"] Now that I think about it, with more "obvious" questions like "What do you want to eat" I always have to think through a million things I could eat before I have an answer and it takes a while. It might be more of a problem with things I haven't premeditated.
He sometimes starts screaming and I'm not sure what's wrong, and I assume that something hurts and I have to list through everything that could hurt, and he'll tell me "No" to everything. I know he has issues with his teeth, and I think he gets migraines like I do but I can't know for sure unless he can tell me.
I'd still like to be able to talk to him through nonverbal mediums, even if I do have to give a list. |
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LennytheWicked
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Posts: 516
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| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 1:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Sora wrote: | I have this difficulty (which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me sometimes) but I think it is extremely important to work towards the goal of being able to A) answer to open-ended question or B) become able to modify lists from which those questions are answered regularly and independently (and mentally). Other people just can't read your mind so if you ever need to answer something that's not on your standard X-months-old or X-years-old list, it could be tough to notify others of acute issues.
I went around not knowing that I had severe breathing issues as a result of an allergy and nobody ever asked me "Do you have trouble breathing?" so I could not tell. I didn't know how to describe what happened without being "handed" the words by someone else in form of a question.
In that context, I think rather than trying to work on answers to questions such as "What's wrong?" it's better to start with simpler and more specific questions pertaining certain main topics such as health "Are you hurt?" or "Do your arms hurt?", "Does your stomach hurt?" and emotional well-being. Even if an autistic person can "only" manage to somewhat reliably answer a question pertaining a stomach ache, headache or a distant/mild emotion then that's already quite great when comparing it to the scenario that the same person might otherwise be unable to ever answer these questions. |
After reading Tuttle's I realize it might be easier for him to process lists than open-ended questions, and currently we do ask "Are you hurt, can you point to where it hurts, do your teeth/head/stomach/etc hurt?"
I would like, however, to have conversations with him about science and building things and such, since he seems interested in some of those. I want to try it with typing, but if I say something he just makes a transcript of whatever I say, and if I type something he retypes it. I've tried having him draw stuff, except he just shades in the paper [makes it blue or gray or whatever] and sits down. |
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btbnnyr
Rabbit In Cat's Clothing
Joined: May 19, 2011
Posts: 3111
Location: Lost Angleles Carmen Santiago
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| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 1:51 pm Post subject: |
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| jat wrote: | | btbnnyr wrote: | Q: What's wrong?
A: Nothing.
Q: What do you want to eat?
A: I don't know.
Q: Do you want to eat pizza, potstickers, or spaghetti?
A: I don't know.
Q: Do you want to eat pizza?
A: ...I don't know.
Q: Do you want to eat potstickers?
A: ...I don't know.
Q: Do you want to eat spaghetti?
A: ...OK. |
btbnnyr, would the question work any better if it were framed: Do you want a) pizza; ... b) potstickers; ... c) spaghetti; ... or d) none of the above? |
A multiple choice list would probably work bester in writing. In speaking, it is probably bester to make statements instead of ask questions.
S: We are going to eat pizza for dinner.
R: Gross!
S: We are going to eat potstickers for dinner.
R: Nasty!
S: We are going to eat spaghetti for dinner.
R: OK.
When I was little, I never answered questions, not even yes/no questions, so iMother stopped asking questions and started making statements instead. When she made statements about what to eat, I strongly rejected what I didn't want to eat, but accepted in a lukewarm manner what I did want to eat. iMother figured out that lukewarm "OK" for me was the same as enthusiastic "Yes" for someone else, and she was right about that.
Now, we talk about food like this:
Me: What do you want to eat for dinner?
iMother: Potstickers.
Me: OK.
OP, maybe you could try making statements instead of asking questions. You could try making statements that are wrong on purpose, and maybe your brother will correct you in response. This might open the channels of communication by giving him a reason to respond. I talked late, and once I started to talk, a lot of my talking was correcting my parents on facts that they got wrong, which gave me a reason to respond. |
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LennytheWicked
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Posts: 516
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| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 2:04 pm Post subject: |
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| btbnnyr wrote: | | OP, maybe you could try making statements instead of asking questions. You could try making statements that are wrong on purpose, and maybe your brother will correct you in response. This might open the channels of communication by giving him a reason to respond. I talked late, and once I started to talk, a lot of my talking was correcting my parents on facts that they got wrong, which gave me a reason to respond. |
I don't think that will work with Sam. He doesn't talk, and he has a lisp, rhotacism, and whatever else those fancy words for speech impediments are called. He really just speaks echolalically or doesn't say anything at all. |
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btbnnyr
Rabbit In Cat's Clothing
Joined: May 19, 2011
Posts: 3111
Location: Lost Angleles Carmen Santiago
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| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 3:03 pm Post subject: |
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| LennytheWicked wrote: | | btbnnyr wrote: | | OP, maybe you could try making statements instead of asking questions. You could try making statements that are wrong on purpose, and maybe your brother will correct you in response. This might open the channels of communication by giving him a reason to respond. I talked late, and once I started to talk, a lot of my talking was correcting my parents on facts that they got wrong, which gave me a reason to respond. |
I don't think that will work with Sam. He doesn't talk, and he has a lisp, rhotacism, and whatever else those fancy words for speech impediments are called. He really just speaks echolalically or doesn't say anything at all. |
I meant through writing, not speaking. How old is your brother, and does he know how to make a sentence in writing like "I like cake"? I learned to write before I learned to speak, but no one tried to have a conversation with me through writing, so I didn't have any conversations until late childhood. |
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LennytheWicked
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Posts: 516
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| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 5:33 pm Post subject: |
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| btbnnyr wrote: | | LennytheWicked wrote: | | btbnnyr wrote: | | OP, maybe you could try making statements instead of asking questions. You could try making statements that are wrong on purpose, and maybe your brother will correct you in response. This might open the channels of communication by giving him a reason to respond. I talked late, and once I started to talk, a lot of my talking was correcting my parents on facts that they got wrong, which gave me a reason to respond. |
I don't think that will work with Sam. He doesn't talk, and he has a lisp, rhotacism, and whatever else those fancy words for speech impediments are called. He really just speaks echolalically or doesn't say anything at all. |
I meant through writing, not speaking. How old is your brother, and does he know how to make a sentence in writing like "I like cake"? I learned to write before I learned to speak, but no one tried to have a conversation with me through writing, so I didn't have any conversations until late childhood. |
He rewrites statements. I've tried getting him to write out stuff on his own, but he just wrote the alphabet if I didn't prompt him, or repeated what I said if I did.
Example:
"Sam, write some things you like."
Sam wrote "some things you like." |
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btbnnyr
Rabbit In Cat's Clothing
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| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 6:08 pm Post subject: |
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In the eggsample, he understood you and wrote what you told him to write, or he didn't understand you and rewrote some of your words, I don't know which. If you wrote "Sam likes cars", does he write "Sam likes cars" or "likes cars" or "cars" or nothing? If you wrote "Does Sam like cars?", does he write "yes" or "no"? He might not know how to put words together into sentences yet.
Last edited by btbnnyr on Fri Mar 30, 2012 6:54 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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LennytheWicked
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Posts: 516
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| Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2012 6:53 pm Post subject: |
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| btbnnyr wrote: | | In the exsample, he understood you and wrote what you told him to write, or he didn't understand you and rewrote some of your words, I don't know which. If you wrote "Sam likes cars", does he write "Sam likes cars" or "likes cars" or "cars" or nothing? If you wrote "Does Sam like cars?", does he write "yes" or "no"? |
"Sam, write some things you like," rather than, "Sam, write 'some things you like.'"
If I wrote "Sam likes cars" he wrote "Sam likes cars." If I wrote "Sam hates cars" he wrote "Sam hates cars." If I wrote "Does Sam like cars?" he wrote "Does Sam like cars?"
I believe this is because his teachers have only ever taught him to copy what the above sentence is, and we are guilty of that as well. Also, he's a bit of a literalist. [Saying pr writing oxymorons around him makes him giggle profusely.] |
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