Julia's Journals

Non-verbal learning disorder/developmental visual-spatial disorder and similar disorders such as autism and sensory processing disorder, neurodiversity, life hacks, disability inclusion. Image by Max Judas with Timm Judas of Spectrum Hill Arts at spectrumhillarts.com. Image description: A brain in the profile of a woman's face sprouts into a lightbulb surrounded by butterflies.

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Literal Communication Part Two

My last post was about how autistic and similarly neurodivergent people can be very literal. 

Here are four tips for interacting with people who tend to be literal.

If you are interacting with someone who you think is rudely blunt, but you suspect they might just be very literal, try taking them more literally and see if what they are saying still sounds rude– it might not. Of course, if your feelings were still quite hurt, it is okay to let the speaker know.

Some people may need you to edit your speech to avoid non-literal language. However, if you are talking with me, you do not need to edit your speech to avoid non-literal language. Avoiding non-literal language is quite difficult, given how often people use it. You can always add a “so to speak” to the figurative language you just used to alert your listener that it was figurative. Also, if you use non-literal language and I ask you what you mean, I will appreciate explanations without any “are you stupid?” looks on your face. 

If you are in a small group of people at a larger party, and a new person comes along, please avoid testing them, to decide if they can be part of your group, by finding out if they can tell when you’re joking. I shouldn’t have to be able to read all of your jokes to be part of your group. 

Finally, if you are in a supervisory position over someone who tends to be literal, you might want to give direct instruction rather than saying, “It’s hot in here,” and expecting your employee to know that you want them to open a window. You can say, “Please,” if you would like to, but you might have to ask them to open the window. You might not always remember to ask the person directly, but if you notice yourself feeling annoyed that the person has not done something, that is a good time to ask yourself if you have directly asked them to do it.

To review, if you are interacting with someone who is literal, try taking them literally. Answer their questions. Welcome them into your group. Speak to them directly.

Julia

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Literal Communication Part One

Autistic and similarly neurodivergent brains can think very literally. My brain tends to emphasize words over body language, tone of voice, and context. This makes it difficult to understand non-literal language such as implied meaning, idioms, polite lies, rhetorical questions, and jokes.

As an example of implied meaning, when I was fourteen, I visited a school in a class with ten girls and two boys. The girls asked me, “What do you think of John and Dan?” (Names changed to protect the innocent.) I didn’t know what they were talking about, so I asked, “What about John and Dan? The girls said, “Exactly, they’re not that attractive.”

When I was fifteen, an English teacher said, “When you read poetry, you have to read between the lines.” This is an example of an idiom. I wondered what was in the blank spaces between the lines. This time, I had an instinct not to ask. I have since learned that reading between the lines means making inferences, educated guesses, about what the author is saying without actually saying it. This is something readers do often without even knowing it. I have learned many idioms since then.

Here is a polite lie I once heard: years ago, my grandfather, who had dementia, and his caregiver, stayed at my family’s house to avoid a bad hurricane. We were going to eat dinner while my grandfather’s caregiver was busy. She said, “You can go ahead and eat.” When my dad says that, he always means it literally because he doesn’t like to rush when he is in the middle of things. However, this time, when I started eating, my grandfather’s caregiver became very annoyed because she wanted me to know that she had told a polite lie. 

Here is a rhetorical question I once heard: I took a class in which we gave a lot of presentations. The teacher wanted us to give constructive criticism for each other’s presentations using the phrase, “Have you considered?” For example, “Have you considered using a larger font on your slides?” This would confuse me because I would forget that in this situation, “Have you considered?” is a rhetorical question, and I would start to answer the question. If someone said something like, “Have you considered covering such and such a topic?” I would start to say something like, “Yes, but the presentation is only supposed to be so long.” Then, I would suddenly remember that the question was rhetorical. I would feel embarrassed that I probably sounded defensive when I started to answer what was rhetorical.

As an example of a joke, once I was walking down some stairs in college, and a professor and her husband were walking up the stairs. I stopped on the landing to let them pass by me more easily. The professor said, “It’s okay, he’s not that big.” I was unsure of whether she thought that, by stopping on the landing, I was rudely implying that her husband was big. Luckily, I thought to run this by someone, and they said they thought the teacher was being facetious. The word facetious can have more than one connotation, but in this case, the person I consulted meant Dictionary.com’s definitions: “Not meant to be taken seriously or literally,” or “amusing, humorous.”

My next post will share ideas for how to make communication smoother if you are interacting with someone who is literal. 

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Autistic Communication is One Thing at a Time, Part Two: Eye Contact

My last post was about how autistic people and others who are similar tend to be better at doing one thing at a time, and that affects how we communicate.

Something I experience sometimes, that others experience much of the time, is that when I don’t look at someone’s face as much while I listen to them talking, it becomes easier to focus on what I am hearing them say. I mostly just experience this in groups of people where there is a lot more information to keep track of. Also, if I am in a big group, and I really turn my head to look right at each speaker whenever people switch whose turn it is, I feel like a bobble head (except that my head goes side to side instead of up and down). 

The Social Thinking method of teaching social skills teaches students that people tend to be thinking about what they are looking at, and that when someone is talking to you, you should look at them to show them that you are thinking about them. I agree that generally, people think about what they are looking at. For example, when someone is looking at a clock, they are most likely thinking about the time. However, if you are conversing with someone and they are looking down at the floor or the table they are sitting at, they are probably not thinking about the floor or the table. Floors and tables are not that interesting to most people.

A lot of non-autistic people, when they think about social skills, think, “Autistic people need to learn to pay attention and make eye contact.” A lot of autistic people online will say, “Do you want me to look at you, or do you want me to listen to you?”  

If you are the person who needs to look elsewhere to concentrate on what someone is saying, you can let them know. However, I am not sure if this is always practical in a group. I get tired of needing to explain myself to people so much, and I don’t always remember what I have said to whom. If you know someone who tends not to look right at you while you are talking, it could be because they are trying to focus on your words.

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Autistic Communication is One Thing at a Time: Part One

Autistic people and others who are similar tend to be better at doing one thing at a time, and that affects how we communicate.

For example, I worked in a yarn dyeing studio where I had to be exact while I did things with my hands. I tried to have a casual conversation with my supervisor while I twisted yarn, and my hands literally stopped twisting the yarn without me telling them to. If you have a coworker who you think is aloof, they may actually be focusing on their job because it is harder for them to socialize while getting their work done. If it is hard for you to socialize as much as your coworkers expect you to while you get your work done, you can let them know, and you can chat a little bit with them at the start of the work day or whenever it will not interfere with your work.

I have a slow processing speed, which means a slow pace, not a euphemism for not smart. I am becoming more comfortable with phone and in-person communication. However, I have had a tendency to prefer the type of communication, such as email,  in which I can use a chunk of time to process what someone wrote and to compose what I will say. Sometimes people call this second type of communication asynchronous communication. Some people who do not have slow processing speeds say that in-person communication is better than email because people can see facial expressions and read tone. I both agree that in-person communication has those advantages and hope that more people will remember that asynchronous communication has it's own advantage, which is the advantage of time. 

Some neurodivergent people spend a lot of time learning about one or two subjects, which may or may not be considered to be obscure subjects, and then they are much better at communicating about that subject than they are at communicating about other subjects. 

The last example, which also does not apply to me, is that some neurodivergent people take long conversational turns instead of switching speakers more often. I knew someone who would talk for several minutes. If you didn’t have that style yourself and you didn’t know him well, you might think he was being conversationally narcissistic. If you were to get to know him, you’d realize that once he finished talking for several minutes, he would expect you to do the same. Many people think that taking long conversational turns is inherently bad, but it isn’t – sometimes two people in the neurominority, who both have a long turn-taking communication style, will have a conversation with each other in which they both take long turns. The disadvantages are that many people have difficulty following what someone says in a long turn, and many people feel less connected to the other person when they don’t switch speakers more often.

Again, these examples involve the autistic person doing one thing at a time. 

Julia

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Level Up Your Language

Have you ever wondered how you can help autistic and other neurodivergent people feel better about themselves? The words you use can make a difference, so please read these three ways to level up your language.

Use the terms level one autism, level two autism, and level three autism instead of the terms mild autism, moderate autism, and severe autism.  (Some professionals describe autism as being in three categories– level one, level two, and level three). 

Once, a little girl asked me, “What does ‘mild’ mean?” and I said, “It means it’s not as bad as it could be.” I don’t like to scare myself by implying that autism is “bad,” so I use neutral terms like level one, level two, and level three.

Change the word deficit to difficulty or challenge. 

The word difficulty is similar but more positive. The words difficulty and challenge help me remember that in some situations, I take longer to learn a skill, but I can still learn it. 

Change the term suffer from nonverbal learning disorder to has nonverbal learning disorder.

I can have nonverbal learning disorder, also known as developmental visual-spatial disorder, and be in a good mood at the same time.

Change the term autistic neurology to autistic brain.

I’m not saying that the term autistic neurology is necessarily bad. However, I listened to a psychologist’s podcast about autism, and when she kept using the longer, fancier, and more clinical term neurology, I started to feel as if she was thinking of people as study subjects rather than regular people. I do use fancy words about neurodiversity, but usually I use them when a more casual alternative does not exist, so the word doesn’t feel as study-subjectish. 

Thanks,

Julia

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Teaching Tip: Think Aloud

Here is a teaching tip for teachers, parents, and anyone who teaches any skill to anyone. I learned, through my experiences as a person with non-verbal learning disorder/developmental visual-spatial disorder, that teachers help much more when they verbalize what they are doing while they demonstrate.

Once, I watched someone do something and asked her to teach me what she was doing. She said something like, “If you want to learn, just observe.” Only observing is not enough for every kind of student.

More recently, I read through a psychologist’s evaluation of my learning profile that he wrote when I was a kid, and it suggested that my parents use a strategy called “think aloud.” I typed “think aloud” into the search bar of YouTube, and I found an excellent video of someone verbalizing what she was doing while demonstrating a basketball throw. The next time you teach something, instead of only demonstrating it, please try to really teach it so your student will learn it well.

Here is the link to the YouTube video:

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Job Accommodation Network

The Job Accommodation Network is an assistance center that answers employers’ questions about how to accommodate employees with disabilities and comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Title One of the ADA is about employment. If you have any supervisory role with employees, they have information that you may need to know. 

They have a webinar three weeks from today, on Thursday, February 12th, at 2:00 pm, to show you how to use this resource. You can also sign up for the recording.

Below is the link to their website:

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Teaching Tip: Slow Down to Go Fast

Here is a teaching tip from me, as a person with nonverbal learning disorder (NLD or NVLD), also called developmental visual-spatial disorder (DVSD). NVLD means that my nonverbal skills, such as visual-spatial skills, are not as good as my verbal skills. When I took dance classes, it took me longer to memorize the dances. When I learn other multi-step skills that one learns by watching someone else, it takes me longer to learn those skills. I call these skills “visual-procedural skills.”

Often in the dance classes, the teachers would demonstrate too many steps at a time at too fast a speed for the steps to enter my memory. Then they would have us practice it over and over again, and they may have thought it was impossible to practice the dance that many times without memorizing it solidly. The catch is that I needed the teacher to show me the dance slowly and with fewer steps at a time, so the dance could enter my memory in the first place. 

Then, to keep the dance in my memory, I could have practiced it at home. The teacher could have spent about the same amount of time helping me practice the dance by teaching it more slowly in the first place, and then expecting me to practice it at home to keep the memory, and I would have been more ready for the performance.

If the teacher wanted to teach it slowly and then have us keep practicing it in class to practice the technique and expression, that is fine, as long as they do in fact teach it slower at first.

Sometimes, I felt the way someone might feel if a teacher had shown them a fast-forwarded video of a dance, many times, and then expected the student to be able to perform it because, well, they’ve seen the video many times, haven’t they? 

Of course, teachers of dance and other visual-procedural skills don’t always have enough class time to teach the dance at the speed that every student needs. Sometimes it might be more practical for the teacher to give the student an accommodation, such as a video that they can use to learn the dance at home. 

In that case, it will be helpful if the teacher gives the video to the student before they demonstrate the skill, so the student will not fall behind the other students. This kind of accommodation is called frontloading. It will also help if the teacher makes a verbal note of anything in the sequence of steps that they would like the student to do differently from the way it was shown on the video.

However, if you want to tailor your teaching for a live for a student with a challenged short-term visual memory, it may be more efficient in the end for you to teach the sequence of steps slowly enough for the student to get it into their memory in the first place. Slow down to go fast.

     Thanks,

                     Julia

P.S. I am curious to read comments from any folks who have learning disabilities other than NVLD about whether the principle of slowing down to go fast applies to students with other combinations of strengths and challenges. 

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Job Interview Tip for People Who Are Not Naturally Talkative:

Some job interviewees, who are not naturally talkative, might notice that the interviewers want longer answers to the questions they ask. This does not mean that there is anything “wrong” with the interviewee – every person has different preferences for how long they enjoy talking. However, it can be useful to give long enough answers to give the interviewer plenty of good information to base their hiring decision on. 

One way to do this is to tell true stories that back up your answers. For example, if the interviewer asks if you can handle a certain situation, you can say, “Yes,” and then explain what happened in a previous job or other life experience when you handled a similar situation well. The story will prove that you really can handle the situation and that you are not making up the “yes.” If, before the interview, you think about these times when you handled situations well, you can help yourself feel more confident for the interview.

Hopefully, this strategy can help you get the job you want!

     Cheers,

                    Julia

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What is Interoception?

Many people think we have five senses, but nowadays, occupational therapy practitioners say we have eight. One of the other three senses is called interoception. Interoception is the sense of how we feel inside our bodies.

Interoception tells us if we feel hungry or thirsty. It tells us if we need to pee or poop. It tells us if we feel nauseous.

A person with sensory processing challenges can be more sensitive to interoceptive information, less sensitive to interoceptive information, or have difficulty interpreting interoceptive information. A person who is more sensitive to interoceptive information might feel the need to use the bathroom a lot, and a person who is less sensitive to interoceptive information might not notice that they are hungry until they are very hungry.

To be able to read our own emotions, our brains need to interpret interoceptive information. For example, if we feel nervous, we might feel it in our stomachs, our chest, or our heart. If someone has difficulty recognizing their own emotions, the medical term for that is alexithymia. I have other posts on this blog about what it was like when I had more alexithymia and how I learned, and continue to learn, to recognize my own emotions.

Here is a link to a TEDtalk by Sarah Garfinkel about interoception: Link for TEDtalk

Here is a link to a YouTube channel by Kelly Mahler about interception: Link for Kelly Mahler's Youtube Channel

Cheers,

                   Julia

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Getting The Cleaning, Cooking, House Maintenance, and Organizing Done, Part 2: Knowing What Chores to do When and Remembering to do Them.

To keep a house (or car) clean and maintained, one must know what chores need to be done and when they need to be done. Then one must remember to do them when that time comes.

My mother does a lot of her chores based on an intuitive sense of time and noticing when something looks a tiny bit dirty, and therefore, she keeps the house clean. My brain doesn’t have as much of an intuitive sense of time, and, while I do notice clutter, I don’t notice dirt until something is very dirty. However, I clean on a schedule, and therefore, I also keep the house clean.

If you want to clean or do house maintenance on a schedule, you can Google search for one online. You might want to use those schedules for ideas to write your own schedule based on your own living space and your own cleaning standards and the standards of people you live with. Some people like to do more chores all at once on the weekend, and other people like to spread their chores throughout the week. Some people use calendars or paper planners to schedule their chores. Other people use apps on their computer and/or phone. 

As an example of an app, I use the Todoist app on my computer and phone. The Todoist app has tabs for projects in which you can schedule tasks and subtasks. The app also has a tab for your to-do list for each day. For each task and subtask, you can schedule it on a specific date, or you can type, “every day,” or “every Saturday,” or another day of the week. When you push the button that says the chore is done, the app will put the chore on the tab with your daily to-do list the next day or week. That way, you don’t have to write “mop kitchen floor” on your schedule every single Saturday. You only have to write it once. The app also has a tab called “upcoming” where you can see what tasks you have rescheduled for future days.

While I generally do certain chores on certain days of the week, the app and I allow for some flexibility. For example, I might do a Saturday chore a day early on a Friday to make the house look nice if a friend is coming over for dinner on Friday. Maybe I’ll decide I want move that chore from Saturday to Friday permanently. I can type in Todoist that I want to do the chore every Friday, and from then on, it will show up on Fridays instead of Saturdays.  If I had been using a paper planner, and I had written that chore on many Saturdays in a row, and decided to switch that chore to a Friday, I would have had to erase that chore from every Saturday and write it on every Friday.

One downside to this method is that if you type in a chore on a recurring schedule, you won’t have a record of how many times you did the chore. For example, I have a “project” in Todoist called “health.” I have a task called “exercise” where I have subtasks for physical therapy exercises and other kinds of health-related things that I want to remember to do. If, at the end of the day, I realize that I did not do the exercises, and I click the done button to reschedule them for the next day, the app does not know or record that I did not actually do the exercises that day. So, if for any reason you need a record of how often you remembered to do an activity that you want to turn into a habit, then you will need to use a different method, either in addition to or instead of the Todoist app.

I do not receive any money from to Todoist app to write this, and I use the free version. If you decide you want to try an app, you might want to try a few other free apps before you decide which works best for you. The best system is the one you will use every day.

Cheers,

Julia

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Getting The Cleaning, Cooking, House Maintenance, and Organizing Done, Part 1: Intro and Learning How.

Introduction:

Most people have times when they have difficulty getting chores done. People who are neurodivergent may have more difficulty getting chores done, and we can learn strategies that can help us.

Learning how:

To do a chore, one must first know how. This may seem like an obvious statement, but some brains benefit from more direct instruction than others when learning how to do chores and house maintenance skills.

Here are some ways you or someone you know can learn these skills:

An individualized education plan (IEP) in a high school up to age 22 (in the US)  if they qualify for it.

Technical high schools and adult education classes.

Speech and/or Occupational Therapy. Speech therapists may help with executive functioning skills such as planning and organizing. Occupational Therapists may help with executive functioning, motor coordination, and sensory processing. I have other posts about what executive functioning, sensory processing, and occupational therapy are. 

Ask someone if they are willing to teach you.

Hire someone to teach you.

Use books and internet sources such as YouTube and Wikihow.

If you benefit from more direct instruction, you may benefit from taking a video of someone doing the skill or asking someone to take a video of you doing the skill. You may also benefit from writing down the steps.

Cheers,

Julia

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Apps Can Help People with Directions Inside Buildings.

The GoodMaps app helps people navigate in buildings that are set up to be compatible with it. I have yet to enter one of those buildings, but I am excited to try this app! This technology was originally invented for people who are blind, and it is helpful for anyone, especially if you get lost easily.

Here is the link for GoodMaps: Link for GoodMaps

Cheers,

Julia

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Universal Practices for Interviewing Job Candidates, Given that Many People are Neurodivergent: 

Some interviewers give all the candidates a list of the interview questions before the interview. This helps people avoid wasting so much time googling lots of common interview questions (that might not get asked), writing down their answers (to questions that might not get asked), memorizing the content of their answers (to questions that might not get asked), and practicing answering interview questions (that might not get asked).

Please allow the interviewee to ask clarifying questions about what the questions mean. Everyone’s brain is different, so please do not think that the interviewee should be able to read your mind. Clarifying your question allows the interviewee to give you the information you need to make your hiring decision. Also, if you are going to be the candidate’s supervisor, remember that your employees can ask clarifying questions about what you would like from them. 

For the same reasons — if the interviewee asks, “Does that answer your question?” give them an honest answer. Then they can give you the information you need.

If the interviewee answers a question, and then you have to ask them a clarifying question that was not sent to them ahead, there might be a conversational pause while the interviewee processes your question. Please understand that a pause does not mean that the candidate is uninterested in the job or that the candidate is not paying attention.

Neurodivergent people often have a wide difference between different kinds of smarts so if you notice that an interviewee is not so good at something, remember that they could still be very good at some, most, or all of the job duties.

Julia

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Earplugs Don’t Work While the Wearer is Eating or Talking

Here is a quick bit of sensory knowledge: If someone wears earplugs while they are eating or chatting, the sound of their chewing and the sound of their own voice will be louder. If you don’t have a hearing sensory sensitivity, and you know someone who does, remember that earplugs will only be useful for them if they are not eating or talking.

Julia

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Touch Sensitivity and Types of Touch

People with sensory sensitivities to touch, also called tactile defensiveness or tactile over-responsivity, can be more sensitive to some kinds of touch than others. 

Touch can be light touch, such as when someone tickles or pets someone. It can also be deep, or firm, such as when people shake hands or hug. Deep touch doesn’t mean pressing so hard that it would hurt. It means firm. People with sensory sensitivities to touch often prefer deep touch. 

Sometimes when people pet me, it feels as if they rubbed the hairs on my skin the wrong way, and I have to rub my back against something to get the hairs to go back the correct way. The touch is also so…there. And distracting.

To illustrate this: run your fingers lightly along the top of your forearm, where the hair is, and notice how it feels. Then firmly rub that spot back and forth. Now run your fingers lightly along your forearm again. You may notice that the second time you tickled your forearm, you did not feel it as much. That is because deep touch can desensitize you to the feeling of light touch. 

Touch can be predictable, such as when someone spreads their arms out to show that they want to hug you. It can be unpredictable, such as when someone pats you on the back while they hug you, and you can’t see that they are going to pat you while you are hugging them, especially if you are shorter than they are. People with sensory sensitivities to touch often prefer predictable touch.

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The Moral Model of Disability

A model of disability is a way that a society views disability. The moral model of disability says that the reason someone cannot do something is because they have a moral failing.

Here are four examples of the moral model of disability:

1. Sometimes religious teachers use the moral model of disability. They might say that someone has medical problems because of evil spirits, immoral actions in past lives, or a lack of praying enough.

2. Sometimes politicians use the moral model of disability. They might make it sound as if everyone who receives government disability income is lazy and trying to cheat the system.

3. Sometimes individuals use the moral model of disability. Some people think that if you have a perfectly healthy lifestyle and maintain a positive attitude, you’ll rarely or never get sick until you die of old age.

4. Many people, whether they have a disability or not, use the moral model of disability against themselves by telling themselves that they “should” be good at everything.

Maybe people are afraid of getting disabilities, so they find ways to think that they will never have one. The moral model of disability can make people afraid of people with disabilities. It can give non-disabled people an excuse to not treat disabled people well. It is not good!

Julia