oral communication

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I have read that people with Asperger's find it difficult to communicate orally, but find it easy to communicate in writing. Is this so? Is the reason known?
I can explain myself fairly well in writing, but I can't with the spoken word. It may have been easier to speak when I was younger. It puts me at quite a disadvantage.
Please help me to understand this.
Also, I have read that the amino acids L-arginine and L-citrulline help some who are on the autistic spectrum. Has anyone tried them? What results in others have you read about or heard?

From what I remember, it's harder for Aspies to communicate verbally becaues it takes longer to process the information you receive, and in a conversation that is quite a disadvantage. Breaks to think about an answer is rarely given, because NT's(Neurotypicals) have a tendancy to fill up the empty space rather quickly. I find that the topic of a group conversation has often changed when I finally have formulated my answer in my mind, therefore I rarly contribute to those kind of conversations. 1-on-1 conversations where I'm given 5-15 seconds to think of a respons is much easier for me, I'm glad my wife has realized this. It's not always appropriate to pause that long before given an answer though, I have learned this the hard way.

One example would be; "Does these pants make me look fat?", the correct answer is only correct if given fast, if the right words are said too slow, it spells disaster.

Yes, it is easier for many of us to write rather than engage in oral communication. When we write, we have more time to formulate our side of the conversation, and reading other's writings gives us more time to process the input, too.

For as long as I can remember back, I've always preferred writing to speaking. When I'm most upset at a complicated situation, I get my feelings out in a letter and usually give it to the person that I'm upset with. Most of the time this gets my heavily criticized by the person, because they think that I'm too "chicken" to say it to their face. They have no idea how badly I'd love to, but simply can not.

I get made fun of for my notable long letters that I give to people when they have wronged me.

Hahaha. This reminds me of one time when I was about 3 years old and really mad at my mom for some reason. I didn't know how to communicate it to her. I didn't know how to write anything other than alphabet letters so I found a pencil and wrote some letters onto the closest thing I could find- a paper plate. I just hoped that it said something to get the message across, or maybe I would make her mad by writing on the plate.

I was even more angry when she was happy about it when she found it, "Good job, Honey! You spelled the word 'the'! Your first word!..."


I met my fiance through typed IM's and e-mails over the Internet. I never would have been able to open up to the extent I did otherwise. I just can't do conversations well enough to keep up with the NT Jones'.

I find it easier to communicate in writing because I like to put thought into what I'm going to say. My brain also processes things really slowly. When I communicate with people sometimes I get nervous and talk really fast and trip over my words. I appear less intelligent than I actually am because I'm either too nervous or I forget what I was going to say from my brain processing things too slow, me blanking out or me forgetting what I want to say.

Writing gives you all the time you need to think of what you should be saying. Speech has to be done quickly, on the spot. Writing requires only simple movements of a pen or typing on a keyboard; speech requires some rather complex and subtle movements. Speech is probably simply harder for many of us than writing.

Talking with friends and family I find easy but with others it's tough.
What I find real hard is explaining how to do the things I am good at such as repairs, building something, etc.
I usually have to show them how to do it.

YES!

I can talk to people fine, but if I need to talk to something serious or personal it's really hard for me to TALK about it. I can focus my thoughts better when I type them out and it gives me time to think about what I want to say.

When I told my mom I'm pretty sure I have AS, I told her in an email. The first thing I wrote in the email was why I was telling her by email. She said in her response that she knew that I found it hard to TALK about some stuff and she understood why I was emailing her. So she already knew that about me.

If possible, I try to text people instead of calling them because it's a lot easier for me.

Interesting, the way society is going, everyone will type their thoughts. This gives me an edge so I'm all for it.

yes. I have this dificutly. the reports have words for this. I can not rember what they are.

Dear other planet members,
It is my perception that highly educated aspies are very isolated. The company, hospital, research lab they are working in is not an environment where any understanding of the aspie life can be asked for. This generates particular problems related to isolation because in the highly competitive world we are functioning any place for sublevel social functioning is not possible. So have been stated that I am very interested in the stories of the researchers, docters, lawyers, PhD's, etc feeling the need to share some experiences and hopefully some tricks to survive could help another aspie.

Cheers Sperry, nickname, MD Anaesthetist Emergency Physician in daily life

I've said "yes" before, haha.

I never win with that unless the person just has low self-esteem and the pants really don't make her look fat in any way. Then I can rattle off the "no" quick enough. But usually I forget what they're "really" asking and I take a few moments to analyze the situation, ask the person to turn around so I see all angles, etc. before giving my response.

^^ Exactly this ^^

I also use letters/emails to contribute to discussions after the fact because I could t say what I wanted to say at the appropriate time. People don't usually like this either - apparently I only have something useful to contribute if I can speak it.

Oddly when I write a letter to say thank you to someone because I can't say it, they are usually really happy and pleased that I took the time to write it down "because that is so rare these days".

I'd just say "I plead the 5th amendment!"