Our experience with communication
- [Narrator] Using alternative augmentative communication, AAC.
- [Automatic Voice] When I was younger, it was even more challenging than now, as I could not talk very much. It was one or two words at most. I sometimes used pictures until I learned facilitated communication in the first grade that I could start to express myself. Then in middle school, my SLP helped me to become more verbal. It was possible for me to speak some basic sentences and could read books out loud with a clear voice.
- [Narrator] Authenticity.
- [Person 1] I want to just be able to have my autistic way of like speaking and moving and doing everything that's just easier and more comfortable. And if I have to try and like really monitor myself and really like try to control exactly the way I'm speaking, and it's like, I'm not even really capable of that to like, I can pull it off for maybe a couple minutes, but like people, it's like they just think, that based on the way that I'm talking, that I'm not actually that perceptive or that I like don't know what's going on or don't know how to interact,
- [Narrator] Translation and masking.
- I have certain levels of translation of my communication that I'm mostly doing, whether it's verbal or nonverbal, to be more in sync with other people or be able to meet people where they're at or that kind of thing. People assume that there's one real self or something, and I don't think it's as simple as that.
- [Narrator] Being misunderstood by non-autistics.
- [Person 2] And to me it's like, you know, with the children, you know, I'm easier to connect with than an adult because adult may think that, you know, and sometimes they call me a freak. I been called that many times. It doesn't hurt my, it doesn't hurt me sooner. It does not hurt me, literally, because I dealt with that.
- [Person 3] You've grown a thick skin maybe, right?
- [Person 2] Not just a thick skin, but thick and protective skin. But I don't use that as, you know, they're trying just purposely trying to get under my skin or trying to be mean to me. It's just they don't understand.
- [Narrator] Asking for clarification.
- [Person 4] Sometimes I have challenges because I don't always get the support and the direction I need at work to understand the aspects of work. But I do pretty well of asking for clarification. I ask like, what needs to be done next? Like I try to interact as much as I can to understand what to do at work.
- People assume we’re not intelligent or we’re incapable of learning based on how we communicate.
- We often change the way we communicate to be more in-sync with others.
- People don’t show tolerance for things they don’t understand.