I’m been learning Spanish lately and trying to understand the spoken language is a pain. Is it just me or do Spanish speakers talk faster than English speakers?

I’m NT – and far more verbal than visual – but related immediately to what you were saying about ‘word pictures’. Speech runs like a printed tickertape through my mind, and so does everything I’m about to say. It only takes a microsecond, but people do register the delay.

As this isn’t the sort of thing people normally think to discuss, I have no idea how usual this is. I know that one of my friends has a ‘tickertape’ like mine. Same as you, we were both very early readers.

In my recent readings, I think I’ve got a pretty clear idea about what the real differences between Aspies & the rest of us are … it bothers me, though, that a lot of ordinary human characteristics are often ascribed to autism by both “sides”.

For another example, most people have trouble with reverse directions! Plus, I don’t know anyone who’s never become hopelessly lost in a familiar district. We all have ‘absences’, maybe some more than others – but is a universal experience

You have plenty of unique traits already, Rachel, try to avoid seeing handicaps where there are none …

Hope the ASL classes went well; it sounds like a superb idea for you.

I repeat myself too, for partly the same reason: I’m just not sure how to finish a conversation, so I just keep talking, hoping that I’ll somehow find the graceful ending. Also, being blind to those oft-talked-about-but-never-seen nonverbal cues, I’ll repeat myself in the hope that someone will verbalize that they’ve understood what I mean. Once I get confirmation, I can move on like the next person. Really.

This is the first time I’ve heard anyone else describe thinking in “word pictures.” How amazing!

Glad you’re finding my blog so helpful. Welcome!

I am printing (and emailing this to my son, 15, Asperger’s individual) who processes very much like you describe. I hope to provide your 9/6/09 blog post for his high-school teachers to better understand what he has been trying to describe as his learning difficulties.

He says he sees ‘closed caption’ type messages or ‘ticker-tape’ of the words and so he is not ‘hearing’ the words, he is ‘reading’ them as they are produced visually in his mind’s eye.

I was just directed to this wonderful resource of yours…I am AS, husband and three kids AS, so we will learn and appreciate much from you.

Thanks so much (from my heart) for your efforts here. You are an example of why I like to spell autism differently– Awe-tism

The transition to work…well, most things are verbal and most important things are said once…and people at my first post-grad-school workplace have told me “the only way you can learn is by sitting in meetings for years”, which was even used by one co-worker as an excuse for refusing to give me copies of existing written material. I’m trying to get out of there.

I can read, write, and speak Spanish pretty well, and I really like languages, but I can’t understand what people say to me. I went home from an undergrad exchange student program partly because I could communicate to others, but I couldn’t communicate with others, if that makes sense. I think part of the problem was also that I could take on the accent well and it made me sound like I was more competent than I really was.

I have a mental ‘tape’ of what was said that plays a split second after the actual speech… that is what I refer to, especially when I’m slightly distracted when someone speaks to me, as when I’m reading or at the computer or I get distracted by some detail for a moment. It works pretty well as long as it’s one person (so lectures are no problem… or no bigger for me than for any other bored out her gourd student LOL), but conversing with two people… uh, that quickly works up to input clutter, very difficult to respond timely or appropriately. The more people talking, the harder I have to work listening to the tape, the further behind I get and sure enough… I’ve lost the flow, I’m feeling weird, out of place, all the demons start making themselves felt, time to go.

I’m so tired of going to potlucks, etc. and not being able to join conversations because of that ‘oddness’ feeling. It’s a hard one to let pass unaccompanied, as they say. Stepping back, looking at things with ‘new eyes’, better informed about the whole dynamic of the situation, maybe there are options I’ve not noticed…