ASL and Mutism in Meltdowns / Shutdowns?

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If you're mute during a meltdown or shutdown, would being able to use sign language help? Is there anyone who's fluent enough to have tried it? I ask because my signing skills are limited and out of practice, but I might be more motivated to brush up if I thought it might help. I've heard interpreters and other people fluent in ASL say they can express difficult feelings better sometimes in sign than with speech when they're feeling too emotional to get the words out very well. I'd be more stressed, however, if I had trouble remembering the signs I needed to tell someone what was going on. I wonder if there's a sign for an ASD meltdown or shutdown.

Usually when I lose speech, I can communicate in ways that are not vocal and are instead dependent on movement. This will at times include using finger spelling (I don't remember any more than finger spelling).

Both in shutdowns and in non-shutdowns I've found knowing sign is incredibly helpful. SIgn is processed differently than spoken language to me always - much closer to written language. I actually first noticed this back when I first started learning it because it drastically helped my ability to spell without writing the word down repetitively first.

I don't know any sign language (I used to know some, but forgot what I did know out of disuse).

Since I do use hand gestures to answer people when I am mute, I suspect that ASL would be quite doable for me, if I relearned and if other people could understand it. Especially if as Tuttle says it is more akin to writing than speech - I rarely lose writing but I frequently lose speech.

Yeah. I actually know a little AUSLAN (I'm Aussie) and attempt to use it to communicate during a shutdown or meltdown. Except...no one I know actually can interpret what I'm saying. But signing helps me get my thoughts in order while I can't speak. Sometimes signing allows me to be able to say a few words.

I'm not particularly fluent in ASL, but I doubt it would help. ASL is actually harder for autistics than speech is (it requires a lot of perspective-taking), barring some issue that specifically affects speech such as severe auditory processing issues. Most of the time when I'm unable to speak due to overload/shutdown, I'm also unable to make large arm movements, because it kind of affects my whole body the same way. I can write, however, because that's a fairly small, simple movement, and I can write a bunch of stuff I don't want and then pick out the one thing I actually want to say and show it to someone.

This just is not true. I worked at a special needs center school for a while with some very low functioning autistic children. We used sign language extensively in many areas with disabled children of many sorts. Autistic children in particular who needed sign language to help communicate leaned on it more than others as they aged and gained more verbal skills. Some of our highest functioning autistic high schoolers would sign regularly in classes full of mostly downs and and otherwise delayed students who were fully verbal in their communication. Signing tends to be easier for everyone with communication difficulties because signs reflect the physical structure of feeling of the object or idea they represent better than words.

Fortunately its been awhile, but...
When I have shutdown completely, I am no longer actively thinking/moving. I just become part of the enviroment. There never is communication in this state for me. Total depersonlization.
Meltdowns? Well, if I can surpress the cursing/tantrums/posturing/ tics maybe. But it would take time. But better than the shut-down!

Sincerely,
Matthew

Okay, it seems like its worth responding again.

At least for me there are multiple levels of shutdowns.

There is when I can't move at all - at this point there's no hope of communication in any variety because I cannot move. I cannot walk, I cannot lift a finger. It's not worth attempting to communicate. When you can't communicate at all, of course ASL won't help. Nothing will help when you can't move at all.

There is when I cannot speak, but I have hope of communicating. This is when ASL is useful. I have used finger spelling, and used the little bit I've remembered outside of finger spelling as well. I often type. I can gesture. I might repeat myself and have reduced processing in some ways, but communication is possible.

ASL has helped me. I'm not sure how much it'd help other's but I'm sure its helped me, specifically because it processes more like writing than like speech.

I don't lose the ability to speak, but I lose a major portion of my ability to phrase things, and I can *never* find the words I want, even the easy one (to avoid hurting feelings, that is)

It likely would be very helpful.... Except that nobody I know understands it, so I'd be right back at square one ^_^

I do intend to learn it, however, so I guess I'll find out eventually :p

Interesting on the "perspective taking." I think I recall seeing an autistic person somewhere saying that they found ASL to be rather blunt/direct and more compatible with how they think than English, but I might be misremembering.

Could you elaborate on the perspective-taking aspect?

This weekend, I ran into an old friend who's an interpreter. She was with a deaf friend. I inquired as to a sign for Asperger's or autism, in case I ever need to simply tell someone who might know any sign (or be able to ask anyone what I'd said) that I'm on the spectrum (if I get diagnosed in a little over a week). This might include if I ever come in contact with police during a shutdown, for example. There are apparently three signs out there for autism (none specific to Asperger's that she mentioned), at least in this part of the country - the northeast. Regions may vary. Two have fallen out of favor. The newest makes reference to things being "kept inside" and involves a rather beautiful hand movement that starts with gathering the spread fingers of one hand together while swooping that hand over and ends by tucking the fingers into the other hand as it's held against the chest. It somehow expresses the "close, inwardly drawn" feelings about myself I so often have. I like it.

That friend, btw, knew me in my early to mid-twenties. I'd been worried how someone from back then might react to my news about getting assessed. She laughed and said she wasn't at all surprised, but it wasn't in a bad way. We talked a while, and I found out she was really supportive. I think not everyone would be that way, but it's nice that she was.

I've moved the following question to it's own thread, so please find and respond to it at "How Can Others Help You?".

If you're nonverbal or having verbal difficulty during a meltdown or shutdown and you either don't sign or you think nobody around you will understand if you do, what would be another person's best approach when they notice something's going on? In other words, what would you recommend that the general public learn to do in order to determine what the situation is?

First of all, I took first aid, so I know about making sure the scene is safe to go into before doing anything else and leaving if a situation becomes unsafe, so that a second "victim" isn't created. I think people need to know about meltdowns and shutdowns in addition to the standard things taught in first aid (recognizing shock, breathing difficulties, heart attack, heat stroke, etc.) I think people need to know that, as long as they're not in the direct path of a moving arm or object or something, which might cause unintentional contact, there probably isn't reason to fear in the case of most (though maybe not all) spectrumite's meltdowns and shutdowns, even though they might look scary or dramatic. Do others here concur?

To determine if a meltdown or shutdown is occurring in someone who can't respond easily, here's what I thought someone might say, *slowly and clearly* so as to maximize the chances of communicating effectively: "Nod 'yes' if you're on the autism spectrum." (Pause so that processing can occur and response can be generated.) "Nod 'yes' if you're having a meltdown." (Pause so that processing can occur and response can be generated.) "Nod 'yes' if you're having a shutdown." (Pause so that processing can occur and response can be generated.)

Granted, this will only work if just enough of a degree of ability to function remains, so that the responses can eventually come, and if the person on the spectrum knows that they are on it so that accurate responses can be given. The public would need to know that, too. Whenever that's the case, here's what this approach accomplishes: It establishes that the person having the meltdown or shutdown doesn't have to worry about explaining what's going on, because the person trying to help knows these terms well enough to make this approach, so that may alleviate some stress and maybe even a little bit of distrust. It makes it so that the person having the meltdown or shutdown doesn't have to come up with the right term, so the need to speak is eliminated. It prevents the need to think enough to process an either/or question, because it's a simple yes/no each time.

Thoughts?

Also, once they know, what do you think you'd need them to do (keep others away, help you find a quiet spot, or whatever)? And what would you find unsafe for you, that you wouldn't recommend they try (maybe helping you to find that quiet spot, because you're concerned that you'd be too unaware of your circumstances to be sure you weren't being led away into something dangerous, where you'd be particularly vulnerable)?