 Good afternoon Autism, Asperger's Legion, how are you doing today? Welcome back to the Asperger's Grove channel with me Thomas Henley, today we're going to be talking about something that I've recently been thinking a lot about, I've been thinking about social communication, what is it, oh that lovely thing that humans do together try and connect and bond and have a good time with and not feel so alone, social communication, we're going to be diving deep, using that phrase a lot, we're going to be looking at the differences between neurotypical and autistic communication styles, this is a video that comes completely from my experience, I've been involved with many different groups, somewhere every single person in the group is autistic, and somewhere every single person in the group is neurotypical, and a mishmashing combination of the two, with that little preface to this lovely little video, let's get straight into the video, the first meeting, yes that thing that every single autistic person dreads, meeting a person for the very first time, yeah it's a difficult situation, apart from the social anxiety that's required and the amount of energy that you need to put into these social events, these group conversations, these one-to-one coffee meetups, there are some key differences in how the conversation gets started, now there is such a thing as small talk, small talk is that kind of thing that you do when you first meet someone, you know you say how well you don't ask how old they are that'll be a bit rude, social class 101, for neurotypicals this is basically a time to see if your personalities jam in any sort of sense, so you'll go through the typical what's your name, what you do as a job, what your interests, all that kind of stuff to kind of get a first impression of who that person is, with neurotypicals there tends to be a lot more emphasis on that small talk, sort of testing the waters to see if you sort of on any kind of wavelength either by your personality or your interests or anything like that, just to get an idea, not really tend to know much about them but just to have some kind of talking point to go into later, with autistic people it's completely at the other side of the spectrum, sure we'll ask what you do, what your name is, preferably what your name is first, just a sort of a social convention because everyone's kind of taught to do that, but after a few minutes of generally quite awkward social communication you find a topic that you can both talk about, now whether that's something that you know about or something that you're interested in the other person, you'll typically just dive straight into a certain topic, ask about a certain experience, ask about thoughts and ideas and all that kind of stuff, and it's generally a lot more straightforward process, neither of you want to engage in this small talk, so you just got to find something that you can quickly attach to and talk about as soon as possible, in these first impressions, from what I've seen, I'm going to say this a lot because it is a wide generalisation, but generally what I've seen from neurotypical people is this process of first meeting people and having that small talk is less about the actual things that you can attach to and talk about, it's more do you get on with them easier? Is it easy to let the conversation flow? Is it easy to have a good time and laugh and have a little giggle? Of course this does overlap into the autistic realm a bit and everyone's different, but generally for autistic people the process is more about painting a visual mental picture of who that person is and this can be based on their interests, maybe they've done a degree, or maybe they work in some strange place, any sort of fact about the person. It may also just be that the person's interesting, they don't necessarily have to have anything that you have in common, maybe they've even got a different opinion on something, that's also a great conversation topic for autistic people. We very much like to give our thoughts and feelings on experiences and all that jazz. In terms of the actual conversation topics, with neurotypicals it tends to revolve around experiences, things that have happened during the day or in the long term or things that have happened in the recent news, anything that you can talk about emotionally, like how do you feel about this? What do you feel and think about this certain thing that's happened recently? It does obviously happen with autistic people as well, we will talk about current events and anything like that, but it tends to be more about facts, things that we know, things that are interesting to know, we like to exchange the information. We do talk about our emotions, but we talk about it more in sort of a third person, more drawing upon knowledge that we already have to explain it. We like to think about experiences and the emotions that we felt, but we like to explain them in a very logical fashion. Highlighting some of the things that we didn't expect with a certain experience, the things that we thought after, the things that we sort of gone around in our heads and thought about and tried to understand, less emphasis on feelings, but obviously still there, communicated in a different way. So let's talk about the group dynamics. We've talked a little bit about groups, but we've mainly been honing on the one-to-one interactions that humans have. Now in a group, obviously it's going to be a little bit different. I tend only to go to groups of people where I know at least one person because if you don't and everyone's in like a pub around a table and stuff, you more or less just get introduced to the people that you sat next to and sometimes that's a good thing and sometimes it's not if you get them addressed. What are the difference between neurotypical and autistic groups? There's actually quite a lot of difference that I've seen. It's very much a different atmosphere. It's very much, very much different. Obviously this depends on the type of group that you go into. Obviously if you're going to go, if a neurotypical goes to like a philosophy group and they have a philosophy meet up, they're obviously going to talk about philosophy and use a lot of intellect and it's more of a cerebral debate style conversation, but in general in that sort of non-defined sense, just meeting up for the second meeting up, there is a lot of emphasis on being a bit flamboyant, being a bit loud, competing to talk, competing to give their take on something. Very short takes on things but a lot of people involved. Some people sort of sit at the side and a bit more of a listener and a bit more of a straggler, but in general the people who are wanting to talk, more or less trying to find a space to talk. It's obviously a lot easy for non-autistic people to follow that flow of conversation and know when to chip in and what to chip in, know when to change the topic. The topic tends to shift to something that's very closely related to what's previously been talked about, which makes sense. It's easily relatable, we've already talked about this, this is just a little bit of a different take on that thing that we talked about. With autistic people that doesn't happen, we just switch. Sure, there may be some kind of crossover, but if someone wants to chip in and just change the topic completely, it's usually fairly well received. When I've tried to change the topic in a group of neurotypicals, it definitely doesn't turn out that way. People just continue to talk about it, or the group gets split up, or you just talk to another person. There's a lot more of that sense of the horde mentality. If people don't want to change the topic to something, then they won't. If you want to change the topic in a group of autistic people, they'll hear you out, they'll think about it, and they'll probably chip in. They'll probably just switch the conversation, talk about something else. Obviously, it depends on the moment. If you're in the midst of an intense discussion on a certain topic, and then you start talking about kittens, probably not very well received, you might get a few little weird looks. The focus on people, the thing that makes you stand out from the group, the thing that makes people want to talk to you, is less about that flamboyance, that reading of the social flow of the conversation, more about what you're saying, the content of the words that you're speaking. From my experience, it's more of a low tempo conversation. It's very easy to find a place to talk, because everyone tends to be processing things a bit slower than your average person. I do. I take ages to process things. Sometimes it can take me a very long time, and I have to dip out of the conversation for a while. So it's usually a little bit more awkward on the initial. Of course, with time, it's easier to talk to anybody for both parties. It's just a little bit more awkward generally. Not to say that neurotypical conversations can't be awkward, like some of those awkward silences can really punch hard at the group dynamic. So, I've already done that already. It's a bit overused, Tom. Bit overused. The benefits of the autistic and neurotypical communication styles, what are they? In general, if a social communication session goes well, and everyone's getting involved, and everyone's enjoying themselves, it tends to be a bit more uplifting. Sure, it may be less deep, but it's more fun. There's more banter involved. I wouldn't say humor, because humor can encompass a lot of things, and you can have intellectual humor and sarcastic and all that kind of stuff. With autistic people, from my experience, it tends to differ. It tends to be a lot more therapeutic in its nature. It allows you a space to talk. It allows you a space to develop your existing opinions, ideas, thoughts, delusions. You go into that situation, show it may be a bit awkward at the start, but once a conversation is flowing, you tend to come out with some quite deep stuff. It tends to be a combination of negative and positive experiences. Sure, talking about positive stuff is always on the table. In my experience, it's generally not frowned upon to talk about negative things, whereas in the neurotypical sense, I've gone into many situations where saying something negative or bringing up something that I'm struggling with or making any sort of negative comment, not in a hateful way, of course, seems to be frowned upon. It can often isolate me from the rest of the group. With autistic people, as I said, it's a lot more therapeutic. You can talk through things. You can connect with people. But it's not just about knowledge and facts. It's a lot about learning about the experiences of other people, learning about the way that they view things, the way that they've dealt with things. It's a lot more of a free space, a free space to voice things. Whereas if you would say something perhaps a little bit controversial or an opinion that other people don't agree with, you can see it immediately in the energy of the room, you can see it immediately in people's faces, if it's something that they're like, no, I'm not touching that. It'll be a lot more diplomatic with autistic people. They may just say, I don't really want to talk about it, could we talk about something else? It's not often that I brought up a topic with an autistic person and they've been completely railroaded by it. They just completely block me off. That doesn't happen a lot of the time. It happens very, very, very rarely. Okay, how am I going to do that again? Let's talk about everyone's favorite topic, the negatives. Yeah, well, the negatives of both of them. Again, in generalities, don't hate me in the comments of them. Don't accurately follow up your experiences. It's, as I said at the start of the video, it's all on me. It's all on what I've seen, what I've experienced. Let's start with the neurotypical side. Yeah, it's a lot more fun. It's a lot more positive. It's a lot more uplifting. It's a lot about garnering a positive mindset and a positive energy in the group rather than delving into a particularly interesting topics. The problem or the struggle that I've found, particularly with going to non-specific groups like a party or a bar meet is that, yeah, okay, so your personality's mash. That's not always a good thing. Your personalities may mash, you may get on with each other, you may make each other laugh, but you don't really know much about them. You don't really get a solid idea of who they are and the meaning in their life and the opinions and thoughts and depth that they have in their character. Sometimes you can get a bit lost in that initial meeting. The type of person that you are just doesn't mash well with them. They're not the best friend material for you, because obviously if you're autistic and you're trying to make your neurotypical friend, a lot rides on that initial interaction and you expect them to be the same all the time. Not just be happy and uplifting just for that social interaction, and you can sometimes get a bit blind sighted by who they are and how they present. Secondly, I find the importance on confidence and non-verbal ability, the ability to work a room a little bit like it puts me off quite a bit. You're trying to be social and you're trying to get out of your routine and trying to experience life and meet people and share new experiences. If you're not very well versed in, as I said, that non-verbal communication, that confidence and everything that comes with that, it's going to be a lot harder. You're not going to be seeing that you may go to a group meet and they may not even remember you. Sure, it can be great if you have all those skills and you can work with that and you're in a good mood and you're particularly feeling good in that day. If that's not something that's inherent to you all the time, it's going to be difficult to maintain that. So let's go into the disadvantages of the autistic communication style. A very debate style logic and the dissection of the world around you and the things and the emotions that you feel. There are some downsides to it. There is a big problem with autistic people being taken advantage of, especially when you're younger, when your social ability isn't not that good and you can't pick up on those minute negative social cues that could indicate that someone is taking advantage of you and maybe it's probably not good to talk about vulnerable things that make you feel vulnerable. Having that over-emphasis on what people say and sort of pushing aside that non-verbal communication can lead some people to be, as I've said, taken advantage of the statistics online that show that the amount of abuse that the autistic people receive, even going so far as sexual abuse, it seems to be a lot higher. It happens. It does. It's a real thing, putting too much trust in what people say. It's easy to manipulate what you say. It's harder to manipulate all the other things. You can find someone who is genuine and you can get out with them and they are trustworthy and they do accept your vulnerability and they share their own and it's beautiful but in a lot of cases, you know, it could be bad. And of course, the last point. It's not a big point. Sometimes it can take a lot of effort to get a conversation started. It can be very awkward. It can be very difficult. When you're with other autistic people, you're all in the same boat. You generally feel a bit awkward. You don't really want to assign themselves to the social conventions of the situation. You don't want to engage in that small talk. There's a lot of things that come into play to why it's hard to start that conversation off. 30 minutes, an hour, an hour and a half of talking. Conversation usually starts to flow when there's a lot more humor and a positive feeling to the conversation. It's a lot easier to start talking to a group of neurotypicals or a single neurotypical than with an autistic person in general. Not everybody. So that pretty much wraps up the video. Neurotypical and autistic communication does tend to be different and there's a lot more realms and sides to it that I could go into. I mostly speak to groups of neurotypical people but I mostly have neurotypical friends so that's kind of a given. I tend not to talk to autistic people in a group. For some people it can be quite overwhelming to be in that group situation but there's been a few times where I have. It's very interesting to compare the two not necessarily to any means but being able to define the differences and highlight some of the positives and negatives I think is quite a fruitful thing to do in my opinion. So if you want to stay up to date with the old Asperger's Grip content you know what to do. I don't need to tell you. Everyone tells you on YouTube even though everyone says the same thing. Go subscribe, go like the video, go comment on something related to the video, go follow those social medias. Now that's seriously like social media is probably the place to go. If you want to check out my other content, my podcast that's really growing at the moment especially with this nice little silver boy over here. Yeah there's a lot of good stuff coming out on both fronts and you know if you're sick of watching the videos and you just want to do some chores, do some drawing, do some what have you do to relax, listen to a podcast then you can find the 4080 podcast pretty much most places. Anyway I just want to leave you with a little bit of information for yourselves. Don't know why I put myself in the island. There was a study, a study, a scientific study that I've seen. In this study they had three groups of people, autistic, autistic and neurotypical and neurotypical. They all took part in a task that required social communication, a teamwork task to see which of the groups were most efficient at that task. In the autistic neurotypical group there was a lot of issues. Generally the ability to complete that task was a lot lower than the neurotypical group who performed very well, the only autistic group performed equally well. So it just goes to show sometimes communication difference can be a little bit difficult when two brains collide but in their own right as a single way of communicating and a single way of thinking and working together there's not much difference. The social stuff comes a lot easier to neurotypical people but in a group of autistic people it doesn't particularly matter. Right I'll let you get off. Cheers for tuning in. I'll see you in the next video. See you later folks.