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Mw99
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 13, 2007
Posts: 925
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 Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:07 am Post subject: What exactly are nonverbal communication skills? |
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They say aspies lack them. I personally don't know if I lack them because I'm not sure I know what's understood by nonverbal communition skills. Is it like making facial gestures to reveal my internal emotional state?
Someone please clarify. |
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Reodor_Felgen
Counting down till Castro bites the dust
Joined: Sep 29, 2007
Age: 19
Posts: 1498
Location: Norway
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| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:11 am Post subject: |
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Eye-contact
Hand gestures
Posture
Facial expressions
etc.
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"The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it."--H. L. Mencken |
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n4mwd
Phoenix
Joined: Jun 08, 2008
Posts: 659
Location: Palm Beach, FL
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| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:35 am Post subject: |
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| Its what the guy above me said, and its very important to master or at least try to master. If you look at someone the wrong way, they might take it as an insult. For example, if you don't maintain good eye contact, depending on the situation, you could be branded as dishonest, shifty or the other person may assume you think they are too ugly to look at. |
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Jamie06
Phoenix
Joined: Jun 11, 2006
Age: 20
Posts: 933
Location: Crawley, West Sussex, UK
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| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 11:38 am Post subject: |
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| Body language in otherwords. |
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Greentea
Bull in China Shop par Excellence!
Joined: Jun 15, 2007
Posts: 2230
Location: Middle East
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| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 12:44 pm Post subject: |
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Non-verbal communication is transmitting, understanding and responding in any way that is not with (written/oral) words.
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"It is the wounded oyster that mends its shell with pearl" - Ralph Waldo Emerson |
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mysterious_misfit
Deinonychus
Joined: Apr 25, 2008
Age: 26
Posts: 389
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| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 1:10 pm Post subject: |
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Using your face to express emotions.
Using your voice to express emotions and specify the meaning of your words.
The way you move your body to express your emotions.
Using appropriate gestures with your hands and head.
Using silence appropriately - taking too long to answer someone (even a split second) is considered rude or dishonest.
Simply not using the right nonverbal body language, tone of voice, or facial expressions is also considered a sign of dishonesty, or oddness.
Also it is the ability to correctly interpret and respond to the above in other people.
It's very complicated and I've heard that 90% of human communication is nonverbal. It puts Aspies at a severe disadvantage. |
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anbuend
Oak-Type Autie
Joined: Jul 06, 2004
Posts: 3200
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| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 2:15 pm Post subject: |
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In the context of autism, it seems to mean something like:
* Sending out typical signals in terms of motion, tone of voice, body language, etc., in response to various emotional and social situations.
* Understanding those same signals.
But there are a few things to remember with autistic people:
* Some of us can read those signals, but only if we aren't handling language (production or comprehension) at the time.
* Some of us can read those signals because we never developed much receptive language to get in the way of noticing them
* Some of us can read those signals if they are sort of... involuntary instinctive movements like at the animal level. But then we can have trouble reading the layer of more deliberate signals.
* Some of us can read other autistic people -- usually other autistic people who resemble us in some way, in terms of subgroup -- extremely well, even if we can't read non-autistic people very well at all.
* Some of us can send the signals but not receive them, some the opposite, some both at various times
Etc.
So there's a lot of variation in terms of this.
I don't like when they say someone lacks nonverbal communication, just because they lack or appear to lack conventional nonverbal communication, or because something like language is interfering with processing it.
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stochastic
Blue Jay
Joined: Jun 11, 2008
Posts: 85
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| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 4:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Using silence appropriately - taking too long to answer someone (even a split second) is considered rude or dishonest. |
This is certainly not universally true. It depends on the question and circumstance. If someone asks you a question like, how old are you, and you stop to think then it would seem dishonest but if they asked, what is your first memory it would be expected that you may have to think.
So I would say, taking too long to answer someone (even a split second) CAN be considered rude or dishonest. |
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anbuend
Oak-Type Autie
Joined: Jul 06, 2004
Posts: 3200
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| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 5:01 pm Post subject: |
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And in some cultures, it's rude to talk a lot to fill silences.
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"We may seem in the gutter from up there where you are but maybe you don't know we still see the same stars." -Donna Williams |
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earthmonkey
Velociraptor
Joined: Jun 06, 2005
Age: 18
Posts: 414
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| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 7:08 pm Post subject: |
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| anbuend wrote: | In the context of autism, it seems to mean something like:
* Sending out typical signals in terms of motion, tone of voice, body language, etc., in response to various emotional and social situations.
* Understanding those same signals.
But there are a few things to remember with autistic people:
* Some of us can read those signals, but only if we aren't handling language (production or comprehension) at the time.
* Some of us can read those signals because we never developed much receptive language to get in the way of noticing them
* Some of us can read those signals if they are sort of... involuntary instinctive movements like at the animal level. But then we can have trouble reading the layer of more deliberate signals.
* Some of us can read other autistic people -- usually other autistic people who resemble us in some way, in terms of subgroup -- extremely well, even if we can't read non-autistic people very well at all.
* Some of us can send the signals but not receive them, some the opposite, some both at various times
Etc.
So there's a lot of variation in terms of this.
I don't like when they say someone lacks nonverbal communication, just because they lack or appear to lack conventional nonverbal communication, or because something like language is interfering with processing it. |
Yeah, I can usually read body language (both NT and AS), but unless I've rehearsed something a lot, I usually won't give the expected signals. Also, if the body language of the other person is solely through eyes, I usually miss it not because I can't understand it, but because I rarely look at the eyes anyway.
But I still notice things about people's eyes, usually if they're hinted at by other movements (like if someone turns their head down or to the side, I usually start to notice what's going on with their eyes even if I wasn't initially looking at them).
When I am understanding what's spoken, I can usually read more obvious body language, but miss on more subtle things. Also what I notice a lot of the time, is that someone will be saying something and their body language tells me that there's another layer, such as a dispute between two of my mutual friends, but because I don't know what that is, then I start missing out on info from what's said and the body language (much like coming into a movie half-way through).
When I can send the right signals, I like to imagine that I'm looking at myself from a different position in the room, like if there's a camera opposite me, or overhead, and then I imagine what the camera would be seeing if I give the expressions and gestures I want to give, and then mimic that.
But for me nonverbal communication like this comes more naturally to me than speech. Which makes me wonder how I learned to read eye expressions (I've never been formally trained) when I rarely look at people's eyes... the funny thing is that observing NT people's perceptions and the following actions of the person being read almost invariably hold up my interpretations of them.
But as far as me giving the expected body language, that would require much self-monitoring, and doing things that are counter to what's natural to me, and really is a waste of energy for me compared to thinks like speech.
I put most of my energy towards speaking and understanding what's spoken, partially motivated by how in school from a very young age, when I couldn't respond with speech, I would have all kinds of assumptions spoken about me, and be physically and mentally manipulated by them, and this was before I could type well, and long before I had a portable typing device.
If speech was available to me, it was much easier to correct assumptions made about my body language, than it was for me to use body language to correct assumptions made about my speech. And this was long before anyone knew I was autistic, so they mostly took my inability to speak as "playing dumb" since they knew I could speak at other times and also did well academically.
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"Public transportation is for jerks and lesbians." --Homer Simpson
"why is it bad for me to discuss why I need the lights off above my desk but it is ok for you to tell me you had a camera shoved up your a#$?" --an aspie coming out |
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