The Dialogue of Autism #5 - Emotional Approach

Hi all,

For those of you who are new, this post is part of a series of discussion focusing on how to connect more effectively with individuals diagnosed with Autism.  Installment #5 of this series continues to focus on the emotional approach.  

In addition to having a calm demeanor, patience is the next aspect of having a positive emotional approach toward people with Autism.  What I mean by patience in this case is giving the person with Autism enough time to respond to verbal or nonverbal interaction.  Because people with Autism often process information at a much slower rate, they are not often able to come up with an appropriate response within the time frame that is expected.  Instead, they are forced to either not respond or blurt out an impulsive response that has not been thought through and, as a result, the response is often inappropriate, rude or short sighted.  Giving the person with Autism the time they need to think things through can help elicit a more appropriate response and reduce the person’s anxiety.  Whereas in a typical conversation a response time of 1-2 seconds for a simple question or statement and up to 5 seconds for something more complex can be expected, in my practice I have found response times for people with Autism to be about 5 -10 seconds for simple responses and up to 30 seconds for complex responses.  Many times during sessions when my clients are asked why they are so hesitant to interact with others, their typical response is that they did not know what to say in that situation or how to respond to others.  In many cases, however, they do know what to say, but do not have enough time to think of it.  Allowing the person with an Autism those few extra seconds to respond may seem uncomfortable at first, but the person with Autism typically does not mind the silence because it gives them the time and space to think.  The extra time to think is typically appreciated and often leads to greater interaction.

While greater patience in conversations can be helpful, the person with Autism may still have difficulty thinking of an appropriate response.  The person with Autism can be prepared by providing a few ‘catch phrases’ to get started, but once the conversation gets going they have to generate appropriate statements and questions on their own to keep the conversation going.  If the topic is related to the person’s knowledge/interests they can typically pull from their existing knowledge base and respond pretty quickly (sometimes with too much information).  However, if that knowledge based is not there, then it takes a while for the person with Autism to piece together different bits of knowledge and come up with a response.  In my practice I’ll often teach clients specific statements and questions to request more time to think like “Can you give me a minute?” or “I’m not sure, let me get back to you on that.”  Another way to give the person more time to think is to have them respond “Can you tell me more about that?” That way the person with Autism can think of how to respond while the other person is giving more detail.  Encourage the person with an ASC to tell the people they are closest to that they need more time to think and respond than others.