Analogizing Autism
On communicating and not communicating
I’ve been thinking a lot about a Twitter interaction I had a while ago. I responded to a post where an individual has talked about being frustrated by the way that autistic people always make the conversation about them. I tried to clarify why I communicated in this way, but I’m afraid it seemed to be taken as proof that I was making the conversation about me. So I detached from the thread and went on about my day.
And yet I keep returning to this interaction. Worrying over it like a loose thread.
This type of asymmetrical conversation between autistics and allistics, combined with a conviction that the autistic is acting purposefully, makes me frustrated. It also makes me sad. And in the end it makes me not want to communicate at all, at least not with neurotypicals. If I don’t say anything at least I won’t be saying the wrong thing?
But maybe there’s room here to discuss why (many) autistics communicate via analogies? For me at least offering an example from my own life helps me to communicate that I am (a) listening and (b) checking in on whether I am understanding.
Neuroclastic has an interesting article on autistic use of analogies in communication and a recent academic article observed that autistics had equal or better nonverbal analogical reasoning than allistics (Morsanyi & Stamenkovic, 2021). Another study found “whereas people with ASD seem to do worse in the comprehension and production of conventional metaphors in comparison with their typical [emphasis mine] peers, several researchers found no differences… in the comprehension of novel metaphors… and [some] even found that people with ASD did better than their neurotypical peers in production of novel metaphors (Rucinska, Fondelli, & Gallagher, 2021).” I like to think that by ‘novel metaphors’ they mean autistic non sequiturs.
In any case, analogical communication, seemingly natural and ingrained as it may be to autistics, is often poorly received by those around us. Jaime A. Heidel has an article about how he is often accused of being insensitive, talking down, shifting focus, or bringing in unrelated topics when he uses analogies which, as he says, is most of the time (2020).
But what is wanted, it seems, is for me just to nod and say “mmhmm” in the appropriate pauses. Believe me when I tell you that, as with trying to smile in pictures, I won’t seem convincing and, perhaps worse, I may not really understand what you are sharing with me.
Most of the time when I am talking to another person and sharing ideas I feel like I’ve only half got the point across or not at all. I can ask for confirmation (e.g. “does that make sense?”) and people inevitably say yes. But experience has taught me that people say a lot of things they don’t mean for the sake of politeness or simply smoothing the conversation. Perhaps I have talked to much and they simply want to end the conversation? If I ask for too much confirmation that will make it weird. I better just let it go and pretend that I get it even if this risks making it seem like I don’t care. Later, when I forget or misinterpret what was said, they might be angry. But that’s then and this is now and, on the balance, it seems better to say nothing than make it worse.
Though I don’t expect an answer, I am genuinely asking whether you do want me to lie to you in this way?
References
Heidel, J.A. (2020, Oct 22). Why many autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people explain things in analogies. The Articulate Autistic. https://www.thearticulateautistic.com/why-many-autistic-and-otherwise-neurodivergent-people-explain-things-in-analogies/
Morsanyi, K., & Stamenković, D. (2021). Idiom and proverb processing in autism: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41809-021-00079-4
Rucinska, Z., Fondelli, T., & Gallagher, S. (2021). Embodied imagination and metaphor use in autism spectrum disorder. Healthcare (Basel). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7918212/