Autism and processing speed in conversation

How being autistic can mean it takes a little longer to process information in a conversation.

[SergeantSarge]

Absolutely this! Also need to add in the mental process of drafting a reply and reviewing each potential segment of the draft for content and tone before picking best elements, merging and then communicating.

There’s a reason we rehearse conversations in advance 😛

[andreaswesterlund-dbrm]

One (common?) result of this is withdrawal, instead of trying you become gradually more silent. Its to taxing to engage.

[AidersBox]

You make my understanding of autism so easy to imagine. I use the term imagine because I am “neurotypical” and can only imagine how this feels, BUT I work with students with autism and I am very interested in them feeling the best about themselves.

The information here ticks so many boxes!

I am currently reading UNTYPICAL, and the introduction is just…………EVERYTHING!


Thank you❤!!!

[PokhrajRoy.]

A key aspect of neurodivergent information processing is to eliminate miscommunication. Atleast that’s what I’ve heard.

[lexica]

For me there are the factors you discuss, and on top of those my brain is trying to sort through all the branching possibilities that arose as soon as I took in what's being said. Even if I could talk fast enough to give a mini summary of what I'm thinking, I know that by the third or fourth thing I mention the other person will have mentally checked out of the conversation (probably while giving me a "…you're weird" side-eye expression), so I have to pare it down to the one or maybe two most important/most likely/most relevant idea branches and let the others go.

I think you've made a really important observation. I think there is a kind of checklist that makes my mind too 'busy' to always respond straight away. This links perfectly to your recent video about job interviews. It's not about having a slow processing speed at all.

[stephenellefsen]

Slow response = 'are you listening to me?' 'You're just not interested are you?' The havoc that not having that instant response can cause.

[shingaki.channel]

Can I be completely honest or do I have to lie? 🤔
How long the answer should be?
Short answer? I need more time then as I have to choose which part of the reply to delete, If I say just X, would this person understand?
If it's too long the person might get bored or think I am weird and won't talk to me again...

[RobinPalmerTV]

I’m not sure really. Some of us absolutely can process, and we also might prefer faster speech particularly if ADHD traits are also present. I think it might just come down to different flavours of the ND experience 🤷‍♀️