Question to those who don't speak

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Thanks for ur nice compliment superboyian that made my smile heheh. I love reading what carly has to say, i think shes so cool, i wish she was a member of wp, she would be very beneficial i think. Videos like thsoe though def show that there is more to a person inside them then what u see, and its so true, anyways thanks for posting that!

That's amazing Age, when I read your posts before I wondered if someone else was typing for you. But what you describe, like the connection from your brain to your mouth being lost, that's exactly what sometimes used to happen to me. I'm 40, hasn't happened for about six, seven years that I notice, I don't know how I grew out of it.

But that's exactly how it feels. The words would be there in my mind but I just used to kind of forget to speak.

I didn't have a general language delay as a baby though, I used to talk oddly but fluently, with perfect grammar, like a book. The silent thing only started after I had a bad trauma as a teenager.

You don't appear rude at all. Thanks for chiming in! I am learning so much!

Wow -- this was an amazing clip! Thank you for posting it!

I have times when I can't talk and can only let out grunts. They are typically stressful moments. There has been whole days when I have fallen silent and have had to write to tell what I was thinking. Frustration and stress are the two main triggers for it.

Hmm. I barely say anything in an unfamiliar place (i.e. everywhere but my home ). The environment is unfamiliar and always changing, these people do not know me or my rules, they don't know anything. And when they try to talk to me, I can't process any of it quickly enough and about time I try to someone has already spoke for me.

But a lot of times I couldn't express it right anyway. Apparently I use too "obscure" of references. Also I can't find the words for it and I get so frustrated. This happens not only expected of verbal conversations... but chat and IM as well. I can't put it into words and it's frustrating.

Also, with verbal communication I can not see the words. When I type, I can see them appear right before me. When I'm expected to speak the words are not and cannot just visually appear. But I wish they could. If I could see subtitles and make my own appear IRL it would be a Godsend.

I am partially/functionally mute and use a NEO yet I am high-functioning with dual Dx of Asperger's; these two are not incongruent. I know some sign but I truly prefer to write. I can speak, and do, but this feels foreign - always. To communicate is not equivalent to speaking, necessarily, but instead that there is a listener. To self-communicate is meaningful to me and perhaps in ways than to another. I guess my video states this way of being.

Seems speech engram is not innately inside of my self but I can (somewhat) emulate. But still, to communicate with another can be hard since thought, the very shape and space of thought - images, are not really translate-able.

Thank you for posting Carly's video.

Last edited by LabPet on 22 Dec 2009, 10:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The first time I acquired a typewriter in my early twenties was a pivotal moment for me, but I still had a lot of trouble knowing how to effectively use it because of all the trauma contained within my mind which really cluttered and complicated matters in the worst way. When I acquired a word processor is when it really opened up my ability to communicate and it has helped me as well to some extent over the years to improve my language or verbal communication skills but only to an extent. When I first began to write with a word processor, I would literally sweat and shake and it was actually physically painful for me. Seeing the words in front of me was almost a secondary trauma too in how much it overwhelmed my senses both physically and mentally. I have since gotten over that, and I am VERY grateful for the word processor.

Thank you for writing that - hard to be misinterpreted, yes. But worse to be ignored. If all right, can we ask a question of you? Are you able to see numbers? At times, I *almost* feel sad for neurotypicals since apparently they cannot. Maybe why math is fluidic for me, but speculative. BTW: Ironic you mentioned above, because I do like to paint.

heheh thanks, nah its all me typing. im sorry about ur bad trauma as a teenager, ive had many of those things happen to me as well, prob added into how my autism is now as an adult. i'm glad to hear your able to communicate ur thoughts better, and i hope ur better now and that trauma that happened wasnt horrible.



omgosh i feel the same way with words, when im typing its easier for me to see words pop up, rather then speaking its so hard to figure out what is being siad or what i am saying, i wouldnt mind a subtitles either hehehe. For me though also online many many words have no meaning behind them, all i see is the letters, so its like look at all the individual bricks on a brick wall, to me their jus bricks, but to the world, they see its a brick wall not jus a pile of bricks it actually is soemthing that makes up soemthing like if i could put two and two together that these words mean soemthing, i could see and be able to communicate prob like everybody else, but i can't its so weird. Anyways totally agree with what ur saying...

I almost never lose the ability to speak... on the very few occasions that I do, it's not like I'm trying but nothing comes out; it's more like the idea of speaking just doesn't occur to me. I've never heard of anyone else who experiences it this way; maybe it has to do with the fact that I learned to speak on time, rather than delayed.

I wonder if there are others without a speech delay who occasionally have trouble accessing speech? Is this autism-related at all; or might it be simply selective mutism, or stress-related?

I don't think NTs are necessarily always able to speak. Sometimes when they are under the effect of extreme emotion, they become incapable of it. I wonder if this effect is at all related to what happens when an autistic person who has learned speech is unable to access it?

Reading and writing, on the other hand, have been available 100% of the time since I first learned them. Written language is a great deal more uncomplicated than speech. And you can even use it to prompt speech when you're not feeling up to speaking; you just write the words in your head and then read them off. Maybe that only works for some people, but works for me.

I understand that. Sometimes I have to read something many times or read out loud and very slow or the words are just syllables and leak right out my ear after I read them and I can't put together the sentences.

Callista, I didn't have speech delay but I do have trouble sometimes. It's usually either that I know the thing but forget the word, (I know that happens to everyone, but I mean like "camera" or "burrito".. things that should be easy, I forget many times a day) or that it is just so much easier not to speak because I have a really hard time getting the tone of my voice right, which is just as important as getting the right word, really. (To me it is, because I really don't like to give the wrong impression of what I'm thinking, and my friends don't know it's not my intention.) Or else it just catches in my throat like when someone says hi when I'm passing them on the street and I open my mouth but it just doesn't come out in time.

And when I am really upset like shocked and sad, that's when I just don't talk at all. I don't know if I could. I just don't want to. But I guess if you just don't want to with every fiber of your brain, that's the same as not being able to, because it's not like one part of your brain could ever coax the other part into talking (or doing anything..) if both parts are against the idea.

Anyway, Callista, you are bringing up an interesting thread of conversation. I want to know why speech delay doesn't always happen in people who have trouble with speech.

I can speak very well, articulation and enunciation, if a little slow (go-go speech therapy).

I just have no social speech, nor do I talk in a one-sided way about my interest (I don't share stuff...), so people often mistake me for being mute. Sure, I do lose the ability to talk via the so-called shutdown (people and noise make it), but I"m still verbal overall.

I don't think I've seen someone really describe it how I do on the 'net (no social speech in addition to not sharing information), except in textbooks, like the passive or aloof forms of social interaction (but even aloof HFA adults can go off on a one-sided dialogue).

I think the lack of desire to share information makes me mute (what else is there if someone isn't social after all?).

When I was nonverbal, I can't remember it at all; I only started remembering things when I started gaining speech.

When you can't effectively use language to communicate, saying words is completely useless or meaningless. I was very traumatized by this phenomenon because of what I was going through while not being able to utter a word for my own sake as a means to get help for myself and no one else in my family were willing or able to either. It has basically made me the perfect victim all my life. I try to tell someone even now, here, today and no one really gets it. That's why that first typewriter was such a big deal to me but I didn't even really understand why because what I was dealing with was all I'd ever known. I just knew that this was important but I still felt stuck with how to get the words to work for me or make any sense. Not until the word processor came along did it really work. Because what I needed to say was very complicated and it would take an effort to work it out. It's easy for me now as I've been typing for quite a number of years now. But verbally in everyday situations where there's no script or expected set of circumstances it is still a huge handicap for me and people don't understand or know how to take me. This makes me feel like crying but I won't and makes me want to scream but I can't do that either. Is there any wonder that I hate life and people. I FRIKKEN HATE THEM!! !! They have all abandoned me all my life and never understood a damn thing and I'm just sick of it. Yes, I hate 'em all! I don't care anymore like I used to. It's good for me to hate because it at least feels less like being a victim.

I'm sorry I guess I just need to rant. I still don't give a F--K though. I'm pissed at all that happened to me. I even tried to tell a teacher but all I could do was lean forward into her desk, my face red with embarrassment for standing up in front of the whole class with my dishevelled self, my eyes big so she would hopefully notice that I wanted to say something, and when I couldn't answer when she asked what she could do for me, she simply told me to take my seat. I died that day like so many days before and after and yet I still live. God is cruel and is all I'm left to think.

I'm happy to answer questions from an NT POV.

Hmmm. I don't know what you mean by able to see numbers. I guess I can't. How do you experience seeing numbers?

My husband, who has AS, does this all the time. I"ll say, "Aren't you going to answer me?" and he'll say, "I didn't know I was supposed to."

As for NTs not being able to speak at times of high emotions, I would have to disagree. It's that they can't speak. It's just that talking makes them more emotional. It's very different than what I hear being described here. It's a coping mechanism.